To make the DASHI (soup stock that is the backbone of many Japanese dishes and helps accentuate that Umami flavour) You can make your own (highly encouraged) or can get by without it with a little bit of cheating:
1. Fill your pot with 4 litres of water. Add your sheet of kombu & nori, peeled garlic cloves, chili, ginger, dried mushrooms, 2 tblspons of soy sauce and if you want, your dried wakame. Let it all simmer away for a good 20 minutes and then let it sit for half an hour or more whilst preparing all your vegetables. (You can easily prepare this in advance and leave in your fridge for a couple of days to use whenever you want - this can be used for miso, a simple broth, ramen, etc.
2. Before adding anything else, you should remove the seaweed (kombu and wakame) and set aside - we will add this again at the end ( Whether you now want to remove the other ingredients and discard them or simply blend them up in a mixer for a more hearty soup, is up to you. Just be aware that if you go for the second option, the taste of ginger, chili & garlic will be more prominent.
3. Once your Dashi is ready, you can start adding the other ingredients. If the Dashi is too much for you, just skip that step and start with adding your vegetables to the pot with just water straight away. You can always opt for adding just a big of garlic or soy. The trick is just adding the miso right at the end, even though it may feel weird cooking your vegetables in just water.
4. My nutrition school taught us to think of this soup as "building up", starting from seaweed and dried mushrooms to root vegetables, squashes, green leafy vegetables and then any sort of condiments and toppings.
5. So whilst the stock is simmering, cut up your root veg – For the amount of water mentioned in this recipe I would aim for a few different root vegetables - ie 2 carrots, 2 parsnips, 1/2 a celeriac, some sorta radish (regular or Daikon), perhaps some onions or leeks. Start with the hardest and finish with the softest, adding them to the broth as you go along. Next up is your piece of squash or sweet potato, which adds sweetness to this dish and compliments the otherwise quite salty flavours.
6. If adding fresh mushrooms, you can either just add them to the pot at this point, or fry them in a little bit of coconut or/and sesame oil in a little pan on the side. I love adding them fresh and hot as I am serving but if you want to keep it simple just add them to your big pot. Shortly after, once all the other veg are cooked through, add your leafy greens - kale, chard, spinach. Anything goes. At this point you can have a little taste - maybe you want to add more chili or more soy. However you kind have to trust the process here, without the miso it won't knock you off your feet quite yet. (it should of course still be yummy, I am just warning you)
7. Whilst the greens are cooking for a few minutes, boil water in another pot and add either soba or rice noodles. This is an optional step but who doesn’t love noodles in their soup ?? These will just need a few minutes so once they are done, discard the water and add noodles to serving bowls. You can now take the seaweed you took out at the start, chop it up with some scissors and add it back in. (It will be very slippery but that is okay)
8. On top of the noodles, add the soup with all its ingredients.
9. I would suggest to dissolve some miso paste in a little bit of your Dashi in a seperate bowl and individually add to the plates. This way you can individually adjust the flavour (saltiness) and avoid killing all the goodness of the fermented miso paste with too much heat. If you aren't too bothered, just add it to your main pot and off you go.
10. NOW the fun part begins - it is time for the toppings. Again, the sky is your limit - I love grating fresh ginger and lemon zest as well as adding fresh herbs like parsley and cilantro. You can add seeds, sesame work best here. Bean sprouts, shredded nori seaweed sheets, kimchi, roasted chickpeas... use what you have and feel like.
11. Enjoy x
