Miso Soup

Miso soup is my boyfriend's favorite asian style soup. For some reason, he does not like egg drop soup or hot and sour soup. His favorite soup of all times is Italian Wedding Soup, which I plan to make for him some time this month. I've actually promised to make him some a while back, but never got around to it.

Miso soup is actually quite simple to make. It uses dashi, miso paste, silken tofu, water, and green onions. Five ingredients, super simple! Finding the dashi was an adventure for me though. I went to tons of stores trying to find dashi, but nobody had it. In the end, I found dashi at the 99 Ranch Market.

I used a miso paste that was half red and half white paste combined. It turned out really good.

Ingredients

12-ounce block firm silken tofu

2 quarts dashi

6 tablespoons dark or red miso

2 tablespoons light or white miso

4 green onions, thinly sliced

Directions

Wrap the block of tofu in 2 layers of paper towels and lay on a plate. Invert a second plate on top of the tofu and weigh down with a 28-ounce can. Leave for 20 minutes then cut the tofu into 1/4 to 1/2-inch cubes.

Heat the dashi in a 4-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. When the dashi reaches 100 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer, ladle 1 cup into a small bowl. Add the miso, and whisk until smooth.

Bring the remaining dashi to a bare simmer (about 185 F), approximately 10 minutes. Add the miso mixture and whisk to combine. Return to a slight simmer, being careful not to boil the mixture. Add the tofu and scallions and cook for another minute or until heated through. Remove from the heat, ladle into soup bowls and serve immediately.