Learning to make miso soup.

I have always enjoyed the Miso Soup served in Japanese and other Asian restaurants, but never could figure out how to make it decently until recently. I often read how healthful it is so I wanted to make it at home regularly. It is actually not just delicious but is a probiotic like yogurt.

My first problem was that the recipes I had told me to buy white or red miso and the only miso I could find was brown or gold in color and everything on the package was written in Japanese. Things have changed now. They first started writing Akamiso or Shiramiso on the packages, but my recipes never said which was which. But now, they have gotten smarter yet and have written white miso on both packages of both the brown and the gold!

So, okay, I solved the miso problem.
Then there was the dashi problem. I read that I should first make some dashi. You can buy a substance called dashi at the store but it is loaded with MSG so I hated to use it. I did buy some but couldn't ever bear to use it. That problem finally got solved when I found a recipe for dashi somewhere. It turns out that dashi just means broth and it is usually made with seaweed and green onion and a few cubes of tofu. There are also other dashis one can make, as I learned including some rather complicated ones using bonito flakes.
The next problem was finding the seaweed to make the dashi with. I went to the store and looked at packages of seaweed but couldn't decide among the amazingly large number of kinds. Luckily, recently I found a recipe for dashi using wakame seaweed. Bingo! The miso soup recipe was on the wakame package at the store, but I didn't find the recipe on the package until I found one on line. I also made kombu dashi at first, but it really is rather time consuming, though delicious. Bonito flakes sound kind of awful but the actually have a sort of smoky flavor that is quite nice.
So now I make miso by the following recipe. Once you learn how it is easy:


Quick Miso Soup

Recipe By : The Great American Miso Company
Serving Size : 1 Preparation Time :0:00

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1/2 scallion -- chopped
1 inch piece wakame seaweed
several small cubes of tofu
1 teaspoon miso ( preferably at least 2 teaspoons)

Simmer 1/2 chopped scallion, a 1 inch piece of wakame and several small cubes of tofu in small amount of water or stock. Dissolve 1 tsp. ( at least) miso in small amount of water and add after removing from heat. Do not boil miso because that will kill the helpful bacteria.

Note from Betty:
2 teaspoons miso per 8 oz. cup of water is the minimum amount I find tasty, up to and including 1 tablespoon per cup.
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I have come to appreciate the difficulty foreigners must go through when moving to the US from my experience of trying to learn to make a common Japanese dish -- when I can't even read the alphabet.

Maybe the rest of you figured this out long ago, but I just thought I would share in case others were struggling with making miso as well.