Inspired by Ravi Soup on King St. I decided to make an epic miso soup that’s a whole meal in bowl. This is so filling, healthy and absolutely delicious. It also keeps and reheats very well for a few days so I usually make larger batches of it.
Miso soup is made out of miso paste, kelp knots and Katsuobushi (dried bonito fish flakes). I used this guide to making Dashi stock as practice the day before attempting the final soup.
You can easily source both ingredients at pretty much any grocery store in Toronto’s Chinatown. I also acquired most of the other ingredients fresh from Hua Sheng Supermarket or across the street at Oriental Harvest.
Syn’s Epic Fusion Miso Soup
- 1 cup portobello mushrooms
- 1 cup shiitake mushrooms; you can use fresh or dehydrated
- 1 cup oyster mushrooms
- 1 cup sweet potato diced small
- 1 cup green onions
- 2 cups baby bok choy; I usually separate stems from leaves since they have different cooking times
- 1 cut kelp knots; chopped or whole if you want to remove them after cooking
- 1 cup edamame soybeans
- 1/2 cup peas
- 1 cup “cloud ear” black fungus; this is traditional for Hot & Sour soups but I’m so in love with its crunch and flavour that I put it in every oriental soup I make now
- 1 cup nori seaweed in strips
- 1/2 cup fishballs; cut in half or whole
- 1/2 lb thinly sliced beef flank steak cut into strips; Oriental Harvest has the perfect frozen packages at their meat counter
- 1 cup miso paste
- two .88oz packets of bonito flakes or 1/2 cup if loose
Slice, dice, shred, de-pod, measure out everything.
Set aside
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. I made almost a 1L of soup, so start with that and see how far it evaporates during the cooking process.
Stir in two 2 packets of fish flakes into the boiling water. If you found bags of the larger loose fish flakes that amounts to about 1/2 cup. Throw in the kelp knots and stir over the heat for about 5 minutes. I really like the texture of kelp, but if you’re not a fan, you can fish out the knots at this point; they’re done cooking. Turn down the heat to medium and keep the stock just below the boiling point.
Add the other ingredients in the following order a couple minutes apart to allow each its ideal cooking time: sweet potato cubes, beef flank steak strips, bok choy stems, black fungus, all the mushrooms, all the green things (onions, bok choy leaves etc.), fishballs, seaweed. Stir continuously.
Raise the temperature to a boil and slowly dissolve the miso paste. You want to make sure it dissolves evenly without clumps, and miso paste can be quite dense. I filled a metal tea infuser with the paste and wiggled it around until it disintegrated. Otherwise you can remove 2 cups of the stock and whisk in 1 cup miso paste until the mixture is runny. Then stir it in to the larger batch of stock and ingredients.
Once the miso paste is dissolved, remove from the heat and let it stand for a few minutes before serving. The whole cooking process should be brisk, no more than 10-15 minutes to cook all the ingredients so the flavours don’t stew together.
Enjoy!
Synescape 