I mentioned in my last soup post, that when it is my daughter’s turn to select the soup of the week she often opts for a cheesy or creamy soup.  On Saturday she requested a cheese soup, but she also wanted chicken cilantro dumplings for dinner.  The two do not quite go together so I gave her a choice, “Cheesy soup, dumplings or soup with dumplings”   You would think I just told her that she could have an ice cream sundae for dessert by the squeals of excitement that came from the backseat of the car. She was so excited that she could have a soup WITH dumplings in it!  I decided a Miso soup would be a perfect complement to the dumplings.

I already had a batch of my chicken cilantro dumplings in the freezer.  Instead of pan frying them as I did in my original recipe, I left them frozen until I was ready to put them in my soup.  You can find the recipe for the dumplings here.

It takes 3 simple steps and about 30 minutes to make Miso soup.  The steps are simple and quick, but you will need to go and get 3 ingredients that you probably do not stock in your pantry.

Ingredients

• 8 inch kombu (dried kelp) cut in to two pieces
• 1 ¼ oz katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes)
• 8  cups water
• 2/3 cup Miso (I used light yellow miso)
• 2 Tablespoon Nori  or Wakame seaweed
• 1 package firm silken tofu cut into small squares
• 4 green onions chopped
• Handful of fresh snowpeas sliced on the diagonal
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms (shitake if you have – I used a variety of what I had)
• Chicken Cilantro Dumplings
• Udon Noodles ( If you want to add these to your soup just cook according to package and set aside to the end)
• Cooked shrimp (optional)

Step 1:  Make Dashi:   In this step you will make dashi, which is a Japanese sea stock.  If you make this right your soup will be clear and will not taste fishy at all.  For this step fill your deep soup pot with 8 cups of water and soak the Kombu for 10 minutes.  Then put the pot on the stove and heat until just before boiling.  Remove from the heat, add the katsuobushi flakes and steep for another 5 minutes.  Next, pour your stock through a strainer lined with a coffee filter.  Great!  You have just made ichiban dashi (first sea stock)  and it is ready to use.

Step 2:  Simmer your dumplings & veges:  Pour your stock back into the soup pot and bring to a boil. Add your dumplings and simmer for about 3 minutes add your seaweed, mushrooms and snow peas and simmer for another 2 minutes.  Lower the soup to a simmer.

Step 3: Adding the Miso:  Spoon the miso in a medium bowl and add a ladle of hot broth. Whisk until the miso is completely dissolved and then pour the entire miso mixture into the pot with the soup.  Gently  mix, but DO NOT boil the soup or the miso will become very gritty.  If you are adding udon noodles you can add your already cooked udon noodles at this stage, cooked shrimp,  followed by the tofu and the green onions.

Enjoy!