Image via Fancy

 

This one is in honour of my gorgeous friend Amber, who has just begun to dive in to the world of vegan wholefoods! She will be rockin’ it hard in no time!

Miso is definitely one of my favourite soups, right up there with this tasty motherfucker , but I had never made my own take on it before. A couple of days ago I had a supercraving and decided it was finally time to get DIY on it.

Even though it was love at first taste for me and miso, it took a long while for miso paste to end up in my pantry. It is pretty expensive here and I didn’t really know what the fuck I could do with it, aside from making gallons of what I assumed in my naive, wholefood-less state, would be a crap version of the cups of St Pierre’s miso that got me through so many cold winter mornings workin’ retail on Cuba Street.

Dude. I was so wrong on both counts. There are a bunch of things – outside of soup – that miso can be involved in, including dressings, sauces and dairy-free cheeses. And home made miso soup is definitely not inferior to a big takeaway cup from your local sushi joint.

My version may not be traditional, but it *is* fucking awesome. I was inspired by the mind-blowing miso soup at Dragonfly (go there now; now); that lil kick of ginger and crunch of sesame seeds is what it’s all about. Mmm hmm. If you want a more substantial meal, add a packet of udon noodles instead of the bean vermicelli; it’s an easy, super tasty 10 minute meal.

My pantry sure has changed a lot in the last 24 months: I was able to dive in and find all of the ingredients for this delicious, soothing soup, without having to do a special trip to grab something or other, and it got me to thinking about how overwhelming I found all of this at first. Figuring out how to use all of these random sounding ingredients I had never cooked with before, and learning how to orchestrate an awesome pantry. In the beginning, it is a lot of work. I can’t believe how much it all flows now. The jigsaw of possible ingredients becomes easier and easier to piece together.

Keep on cookin’, magic will happen…

 

Pick Me Up Miso Soup

 

Ingredients:

300 ml water
1/2″ – 1″ nub ginger, crushed
1/2 tsp rayu*
1 tbsp white miso
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sesame seeds
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
small handful wakame
handful broken bean vermicelli noodles (optional)

 

What to do:

In a small saucepan, bring water to boil. Add ginger, rayu, soy sauce, sesame seeds and sesame oil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 seconds.

Add wakame, and vermicelli if using. Stir to combine and cook for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat, sit for 30 seconds. Add miso and whisk to combine. Serve.

Serves 1-2.

* sesame-chilli oil. If you don’t happen to have some, and aren’t gonna track some down (Japan City, Wellingtonians ♥ and probably most supermarkets as well. It’s a couple of dollars for a lil bottle), use 1 tsp sesame oil mixed with a pinch or two of chilli powder. Easy!