Miso soup

Foto: Flickr TheDeliciousLife

Miso soup has two Japanese name. One is misoshiru (味噌汁) and the other is omiotsuke. The latter is the name I usually use and it has a rather impressive assortment of kanji when you write it down.

御御御付

For those whom do not understand Japanese, I tell you that the first three kanji (chinese characters) are honorifics. 
The most common and the most everyday of Japanese soup seems to be loved so much that it somehow managed to acquire this peculiar name. But what soup in the world could live up to such a name?

It is difficult to give you a standard recipe for miso soup. What is constant there are only two ingredients-- water and miso. Every family has their own recipe and even the same family will be eating very different soup depending on the season. 

At a Japanese restaurant, you tend to have more well-defined miso soup. Bonito flake stock　with tofu and sea weed, possibly with salad onion on top . 
At home, it can change drastically.
Any seasonal vegetable can get into it-- aubergine, mushrooms, leek, pumpkin, even some tomatoes. It can also contain some meat, fish, left over tempura. Not the sort you will get in a posh restaurant, but that is home food. If you have a family to feed, and are worried about balanced diet with less sodium intake, chucking lots of cut vegetable into your morning miso soup is a quick and easy way to get nearer to your goal.
I remember my mother doing that. I find myself doing that. 

So here's what I do.  Boil two cups of water, chuck in one or two cut up pieces of kombu  (approx.2x2 cm). If I happen to have chicken soup stock freshly made, I may use that instead of water. If I have bonito flakes, I chuck about two table spoonful in. 
Add whatever veg around into the soup. Thinly sliced onions and potatoes are my favorite as they are easy to get where I live.  When everything is cooked, I put something like one table tennis ball size of miso, stop the heat, taste the soup and decide if I should add some more miso or not. If I am happy with the taste, finely chopped up salad onion goes on top of adult miso soup. 

Unless I have a guest, kombu and bonito flakes stay in the soup. Not all that refined but kids love it and that's what matters when you are cooking for family.
Why, I even made miso soup from the left over of a roast chicken the other week, getting soup stock from its bones. And that's what, for me, makes the miso soup worthy of its three honorifics. It is wonderfully accommodating of new ingredients. Purists would forever grumble about some ingredients not being 'authentic'. But it seems to me that the authenticity in home food is a whole different kettle of fish from a restaurant authenticity.