"We're making soup; just relax" is great cooking advice. Attempting to create soups out of whatever was on hand was how I initially learned to cook... and even if it doesn't come out particularly good, it would be quite the feat to manage to burn soup so that's one less thing to worry about!
The same goes with learning to try to bake bread. If the bread comes out too dry or doesn't have quite the right texture, just rip it into small chunks and eat it with a soup.
Miso soup is actually very common for BREAKFAST. A bowl of that with rice, an egg, mushrooms in the soup or even a piece of light fish is a full and very nutritious breakfast.
@@Thalanox That's why you should try the whole meal, even at breakfast! There's a certain concept called "One Soup + Three Sides" - the miso soup being the soup, there's a bowl of rice for carbs, and the three sides are: something raw (like veggies or fruit), something grilled (usually fish), and something simmered (egg or other poached protein)
Hi Chef John, when we make our dashi, instead of tossing the bonito flakes after we're done, we will take the bonito, add a little soy sauce and just put it over a steaming bowl of rice for a quick, simple meal.
Pro tip: keep the kombu, let it dry and cool down. Slice it into thin strips julienne style, and toss it with some soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, sesame seeds/oil, and chilis. Nice little side dish
@@wardrobelion Take the bonito flakes and chop them up. Add to the kombu and give it a quick sauté using the recipe from Rousseau. Very nice served on top of rice.
@@wardrobelion I'd suggest drying the bonito in the oven. Once bone-dry you can grind it to a powder in a mortar. The resulting powder is a great table-spice to add some extra flavor to just about any rice-dish
Chef John your timing is perfect as I’ve been trying my hand at various Asian dishes and miso soup is on my list. Thanks for creating such amazing recipes that we can make at home. I also scroll through the comments for constructive recommendations. I ignore anything that doesn’t offer anything that doesn’t enhance or bring solid advice to the table.
If you're trying new Asian dishes, you should check out the channel Marion's Kitchen; she has a million amazing recipes that are super easy. She and Chef John are my two favorite RU-vid chefs!
I’ve been learning to cook some Japanese dishes. So far I’ve made Miso soup, Chicken Karaage, Tonkatsu, and Teriyaki Chicken. Ramen with bone broth is next.
A few drops of sesame oil is a real game changer! Also, I like to stir in a beaten egg as you would for egg-drop soup and a small handful of peas. If you have water chestnut, slice thinly and drop in as well. White onion sliced thin is good to, but should be added before so they're translucent before other things are in.
KUDOS for getting this right John! I'm an Asian chef, and you would be surprised at how many people can mess up something as simple as this! If you want to go _'vegan'?_ Use dried shiitake mushrooms in place of the bonito flakes. _What I do to really pack this with umami? I soak my Kombu (dried kelp) and _*_a few dried shiitake mushrooms_*_ for a couple hours. Then simmer everything as you show, removing them with the kelp, before going on to make my miso soup._ Shiitake mushrooms are PACKED with umami so it makes a HUGE difference!
We have miso soup for breakfast most mornings. There is always dashi in my fridge. And cooked rice. And I always cook extra vegetables at dinner for the morning. So rice and vegetables along with diced tofu, fresh scallion, and shredded wakame or nori go in the breakfast miso soup to make it hearty. It’s comfort in a bowl. And healing. So many types of miso to try, too!
Checked your playlist. You haven’t done the other world’s most common breakfast! Congee! My family likes chicken congee for breakfast and cold days and when feeling poorly or any other time.
We cook miso soup few times a week, but usually resorted to use dashi-infused miso. Chef John did it genuine, very respectful way to extract dashi, and used own miso blend. Absolutely hats off 🙇♂
I lived in Japan for seven years and i was taught to dissolve miso in the pan using a small strainer and a pair of chopsticks. I dont add shoyu to the soup bc miso paste is already salty. And i add bonito flakes directly into the soup, while cooking - it adds a wonderful taste to it. The more the better imo, but after all you are the Saint-Loup of your own miso soup. Great recipe chef John! Also, i once watched in the Japanese tv a doctor advocating for olive oil in the miso soup (misoshiro) bc this combination supposedly burns body fat. Whether it is true or not, it tastes amazing! Give it a try, seriously. Even my wife, who is Taiwanese, loves it lol
Tips from me, on casual home usage, korean stock (i. e. One from boiled dashima, or the one from boiled dried anchovies) are interchangeable with dashi. So does doenjang and aka miso. Also, add more filling to your miso soup (think, clams, salmon, chicken even pork) to change side dish into nabe-mono.
The sushi restaurant my coworkers and I used to go to in Fremont, CA was run by a family originally from just outside Osaka and they were some of the nicest people around and would happily explain just about anything they made- including the miso soup. The put all of their fish bones and skins in a pressure cooker instead of bonito flakes. They would then add some of that concentrated 'fish stock' to the steeped seaweed tea - and they did describe it as tea. It gave the miso soup a much more 'fishy' flavor but also oddly made it coat your mouth because of the oil, fat and collagen coming out of the fish remains.
Thank you for taking the mystery out of this for me. Souplantation used to offer this and it was my absolute favorite! I haven’t been able to enjoy it since.
I tried some instant miso soup and fell in love with it for lunch... I just want something quick and tasty. The Japanese have a clever cuisine. I might try this sometime.
I get tubs of white miso paste with dashi pre-mixed in at the Japanese grocery - it means I can have a mug of delicious miso soup every morning in about the amount of time it takes for my kettle to boil :)
It's almost dinner time, I haven't made dashi in ages, and now you have me drooling. Kombu - the longer it soaks, the better the dashi. Plunk a 6-9" chunk into water, put it in the fridge over night, then cook it. Don't boil kombu, supposedly it gets bitter. The soaked kombu can be recycled by cutting into pieces for further recipes. The bonito flakes come in different qualities and prices. I bought the expensive stuff once, yes, it is better. Asian markets will have katsuobushi flakes from different types of fish, with different flavors. Personally, I like bonito best. A 10-15 minute hot soak is all you need. Dried shitake mushrooms (Chinese black mushrooms) unquestionably improve the flavor of the dashi. Throw them into the cold dashi while you are heating it. I love dried seaweed flakes in my soup (broken nori sheets or wakami pieces) - use very sparingly, that level teaspoon of flakes will grow to almost gallon size. Sliced scallions are essential. Tofu, I love the tasteless stuff, soft to medium soft is my preference. I tried fried tofu once, not such a great addition. It is a fantastic soup, a bit of a production, but once you have the dry ingredients, very easy to make, very hard to mess up.
I've seen variations where you make a broth with a mixture of vegetables of your choice and a smaller amount of kombu if your kombu supply is limited. Even a broth with onions and a big slice of ginger will do the trick if you don't have kombu.
Really nice guide to miso from Chef John. Note: if you’re looking to save time, one of the brand powders used in making dashi is Hondashi. Widely used, easy to find, great flavor.
"Tsukuda-ni (佃煮)" is a general term for the strong salty (and a bit sweet) flavored sidedish cooked with soy sauce and sugar, which goes with rice very well, lasts long in fridge. The ingredients can be vary, including konbu, mushrooms, small shrimps and fish, Shiso leaves and seeds, Fuki stems, beef strips, walnut and some insects.
I made a dashi using dried anchovies instead of bonito flakes a while back, iriko dashi I think it is called. One taste and I was transported to a lovely day at the ocean, though my body was still in Salt Lake.
I made dashi from scratch for decades. I’ve tried the instant granules & never found them particularly tasty. But these days, high quality, dashi sachets are readily available in Asian markets & online. They look & cook like teabags. The best quality are products of Japan (not made in USA). Read the ingredients, they should not contain much more than bonito, kelp, salt & maybe a touch of sugar. These brew in about 5-7 minutes and are nearly as good as fresh, from scratch. I eat miso as part of a Japanese breakfast most days. One thing I depart with CJ is I don’t cook the seaweed or green onions. Just hydrate the seaweed, slice the onions & put them directly in your bowl. Ladle the miso into the bowl. I also prefer just white miso (shiro miso, shiro is “white” in Japanese)
As someone who's been making miso soup for a few years, you got this recipe quite spot on. I would just omit the soy sauce since the miso paste carries the salty fermented flavors.
I live in the countryside and can't get all the ingredients so I substituted the miso pastes with a bouliion cube and some water, the seaweed with peas and carrots, the green onions with white ones, and the tofu with chicken. Best miso soup ever!
Bonito flakes and kombu are shelf stable, so you can easily order them online. Fresh miso is often sold at Asian markets or higher-end grocery stores (at least in the US). You may also be able to order it online.
When we were kids and we’d get sick, my mom would cook rice into it, like a porridge, and poach an egg in it as well. It was the best!!! Restores your body and soul.
I adore this stuff. 🎎 I've read that keeping the soup in the 50 to 70C temperature range will preserve the probiotic nature of the miso. Don't boil it.
The clumping is probably due to the proteins. The heat issue is important. Good Miso is Alive. Yes and good for you. Too hot of a bath those microbe’s get cooked.
I love miso soup. I've gotten creative and I take mine over the top by adding spinach, White beech mushrooms, bean sprouts,baby corn,fried spam and ramen noodles.
The dashi granules work fantastic! Look for "Hon-Dashi" brand it shouldn't be expensive if it is look elsewhere. You can have miso soup in minutes without any fuss. I like wakame or hijiki. Just be sure not to bring the soup to a boil as it supposedly destroys the added health benefits associated with miso as well as taste.
I don't know why I'm asking here, but here I am: What do you do with the leftover kombu and benito? Do they just get discared like tea leaves? It feels like there should be some way to to NOT waste the proteins in the benito flakes at least.
Okay speaking of complex simple soups; can we please get a recipe for egg drop soup? I’ve tried several recipes found from various sources across the internet and I’ve not been impressed with any of them. Nothing had come close to what I get for takeout.
how do you dare calling this "making from scratch" when i need specific processed products that i can only get in specific asian supermarkets?! words have meaning you know
If you're wondering how the cubes aren't same or other science facts. (LA LA LA) Just repeat to yourself "Its just a soup, I should really just relax."
Hey Jon, fellow san Franciscan here, looking for the best place to source Bonito! Can't find the stuff anywhere that I shop, do I need to order online? I hope not. Also will take suggestions for a place to get kombu that is so gorgeous, though that is less difficult.
Miso soup is much simpler, although you can make it with vegetables, dashi and miso as you like. But because it is simple, it is very deep. Only a restaurant would make it with the same attention to detail as in the video. In the video, the dashi broth is made from 昆布(kombu seaweed) and 鰹節(Katsuo-bushi: dried bonito flakes), but in our house it is basically 煮干し(Ni-boshi :dried sardines and horse mackerel). Dashi powder(だしの素: Dashi-no-moto, ほんだし: Hon-dashi) has been on the market for a long time, so you can use that, or you can buy miso that already has dashi in it. Just dissolve it in hot water and add the ingredients. There are also nori miso soups like the one in the video, but I have not seen nori miso soup with tofu in it (although I think there might be some somewhere). This is the first time I have seen soy sauce added. I don't usually put it in. There are other soups where soy sauce is added separately to the broth. If you add noodles, it becomes udon and soba. The basic ingredients of a home made miso soup would be tofu and わかめ(wakame seaweed). Onions are also commonly used. Miso soup with onions and 油揚げ(Abura-age: fried tofu), potatoes and onions, etc. I think almost any vegetable can be added to miso soup and still taste good. There is also miso soup with eggs and tomatoes. The most recommended is 豚汁(Ton-jiru / Buta-jiru: pork miso soup). Miso soup goes well with oil, and the fat from the pork makes it even tastier. For miso soup with tofu, for example, you could add a teaspoon of olive oil or cooking oil (so that some oil floats to the surface). Ingredients in pork miso soup. Thinly sliced pork, daikon radish, carrots, tofu, fried tofu, ごぼう(burdock root), こんにゃく(konnyaku), etc. are often added. This is a miso soup where you eat the ingredients. After removing the seaweed as shown in the video, the removed seaweed and dried bonito flakes can be added to 炊き込みごはん(cooked rice) or eaten as 佃煮(tsukuda-ni) with the seaweed and dried bonito flakes. Many households throw away seaweed, but the beauty of Japanese food is that it can be transformed into other foods and eaten without being left behind. Japanese people have been eating seaweed since the Jomon period (about 13,000 - 2300 years ago), so it is naturally edible, but if you get upset stomachs from eating a lot of seaweed, you may want to use it only in soup stock. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator😜
Well said. My father liked Japanese-style breakfast, so my mother made it, including miso-shiru (soup), almost everyday. She made with every combinations she could think of, with almost all vegetables (maybe not the lettuce), mushrooms and others like fish cakes/paste (Kamaboko and Chikuwa), "Yuba" (湯葉/Tofu skins), and "Fu" (steamed, baked or dried gluten/麩).
Many years ago I bought a Japanese slicer with a piece of dried bonito, to make bonito flakes. Does a solid piece of dried bonito age like wine, or should I throw it away? I've had it maybe eight years...
@@pepperpepperpepper I am afraid that I couldn't find any definite answers for your question. Generally "Katsuo-bushi" is a much dried product, dipped in boiling water and dried repeatedly, and smoked, too, so it could last very long. I remember my grandmother used to have them and the wooden box tool, but don't know how long she kept one "Katsuo-bushi." (Anyway we use it very often for almost everything, so one doesn't have to last for a long time...) And, of course, there is a chance to get some bugs or mold on it. You might shave some pieces off to see, smell and test to determine.
@@pepperpepperpepper There is another aged product called 本枯節(honkare-bushi). The shelf life of 鰹節(Katsuo-bushi: dried bonito flakes) is usually one to two years, and if it is packaged and not exposed to air, it is said to last about two years. It is also sold in small portions, although I am not sure if this is the case outside of Japan. Using a slicer is more authentic and, when done correctly, tastes better. The average Japanese household probably buys them in small packages. Or already sliced, about the size of a bag of potato chips.
I always used to dissolve the miso paste in a mug or small bowl with some of the soup liquid mixed in. It's probably not quite as convenient as using one of those strainers, but it does mean that I didn't need to go buy another kitchen utensil that will only see occasional use.
@@soulbot119 The mortar and pestle is very multipurpose. It's fantastic for putting seasonings into to grind up a little bit to help it release extra flavour. Get the non-powdered seasonings, and then grind them a little bit in the mortar and pestle set to increase it's potency. You can also use it to make spice blends for things like poultry, and make sure to grind all the ingredients into a somewhat homogeneous media.
miso isn't just delicious for me, it's nostalgic. when I was a kid, we lived in japan for a while when my dad was stationed at misawa afb. I attempted to cobble together miso soup last winter from what I could get my hands on locally, which was... well, it wasn't bad. it wasn't a huge way off from miso, either, but it also wasn't as good as I'd hoped. I'm excited to try it with an actual recipe this time that doesn't seem too difficult.
I mean, you went the traditional route which is fantastic. But in our (Japanese) household we just use dashi powder (kombu, bonito, or a mix). The rest of the steps are the same though.
@@StanislavG. We use Shimaya brand. Comes in little packets and you only use half a packet or so for 4 servings of miso soup. But we're not set on the brand -- there's lots of good ones.
@@blingbling2841 oh, absolutely! but our household uses dashi/bonito so rarely in our cooking, it's just much easier to have some of the instant cheat stuff for when we do XD
Definitely go easy with the wakame if you're just starting out. I went too far with it the first time... But wakame can also make a really good seaweed salad.
Miso soup is delicious. But filling? Not really, even if you pair it with white rice. That is all digested quickly. Maybe if you eat it with brown rice, but I don't like that very much. Or is there something else you meant?
@@llutac you can pour in a whipped egg into it while stirring quickly if you feel the need to add more protein, and you're not vegan. It tastes delicious and though light, it keeps your hunger pangs away once you're used to it for breakfast. That and a hot cup of tea with some cream. This was my routine, and VERY cheap, breakfast while I lived with my bio-mother, who restricted my grocery money from she 15 onwards though I worked a full time job, and went to independent school nights for high school. And yes, this was here in the US.
I swear Chef John is secretly collaborating with Aaron and Claire because the timing of both channel’s recipe’s today involving Dashi/Hondashi is just too perfect
@@jameswisdom8601 a Korean couple from Seoul, Aaron is the chef and Claire is the taste tester. Just search for their name as listed and enjoy. If you like the approach Chef John has to cooking, they’ll be right up your alley
I don't know the specifics of diabetic diets, but one thing about miso paste that you might want to be aware of is it's sodium content. It can get salty. The red miso paste is saltier than the white paste.
@@Thalanox Thanks for that. Miso salt is fine. There is a difference between table salt and the natural salts found in soy beans. Avoid table salt like the plague! You should only use natural sea salt, and yes, in moderation. Everything in moderation
Homemade miso soup is definitely wonderful. If you don't want to make it, freeze dried miso soup packs are actually quite exceptional. If you have a container of miso paste you can add just a small amount to the soup after rehydration and it will be even better. Definitely go with dashi broth packets if can get them, especially if you're ordering the ingredients online. It will be substantially cheaper and most people really won't care or even be able to tell the difference.
@@kryovulkan726 it's fermented, so if you keep it in the fridge after opening I couldn't even give you how long it would last. I have kimchi I fermented back in 2021 in my fridge that is still good and it just gets better as it ages. Mold is pretty issue to notice, so if you see any, that's when you throw it out. If you're paranoid about it, follow the expiration date, but honestly, most fermented foods can last several years if stored correctly.
I have been keen on trying Welsh Rarebit lately. Searched your channel and nothing there. I would love to see your take on it. I have several other vids saved up to sift through before I take the plunge
Le gasp! A Chef John recipe without any cayenne! Looks good, though. We usually use dashi powder when we make it. Comes out super well. Though making dashi from scratch is still really easy, so there's no big reason to not do so...
