Miso soup

I have tried another recipe from Aine McAteer's book - I think this is the first time in my life that I actually cook more than one recipe from a cookbook. It's great to have the time to try new things, and to develop new interests.

I always liked the miso soup in Wagamamas, and I'm sure I had it on the couple of occasions I was in Japan, so I was keen to try the recipe. She has a recipe for dashi broth, with a number of different variations. Apparently, dashi broth is the foundation for a lot of Japanese dishes.

What I used was water, kombu (a type of seaweed), shiitake mushrooms, miso paste, silken tofu and spring onions. Very easy and very tasty.

I could not find dried shiitake, so I used fresh ones instead. Probably more expensive, but it was tasty. The silken tofu comes in a really neat package - it's in a tetra pak, like a milk carton. You open it on one side and then slide the block of silken tofu out and cut what you need.
The miso paste was hard enough to find, as I didn't really know what I was looking for. In the end, I found it in a health-food shop. It's packed in a plastic pouch. It looks a bit like bovril and you use it in the same way - disolve it in warm water and it's ready!