Vegetable Miso Soup

Name: Vegetable Miso Soup
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 8 serving(s)
Ingredients: 4 cups vegetable stock (use 4 cups water if you use the dashi) or 4 cups fish stock (use 4 cups water if you use the dashi); 1/2 cup daikon radish (Japanese Radish, peeled and sliced thin or julienne); 1/2 cup carrot (peeled and sliced thin or julienne); 1/2 ounce dried shiitake mushroom, about 4 medium sized mushrooms (soak in warm water for 30 minutes); 1 teaspoon wakame seaweed; 1 (12 ounce) package tofu (hard to silken, we prefer silken, also size does not matter here, more or less is to taste); 4 tablespoons miso (I like the light miso); 2 scallions, slice thinly (green part only); 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, to taste

Submitted by Nado2003

"My kids love miso soup. But the restaurants are stingy with tofu and other ingredients. I've developed a recipe for miso that my kids can eat like a one bowl meal. They love the taste. I start with soaking the mushrooms. Then get the stock going. As soup is cooking I clean and prepare the vegetables from longest to cook to shortest and add those as they are completed."

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Ready In:: 35mins
Ingredients:: 9
Serves:: 8

ingredients

1 4 cups vegetable stock (use 4 cups water if you use the dashi) or 4 cups fish stock (use 4 cups water if you use the dashi)
¹⁄₂ cup daikon radish (Japanese Radish, peeled and sliced thin or julienne)
¹⁄₂ cup carrot (peeled and sliced thin or julienne)
¹⁄₂ ounce dried shiitake mushroom, about 4 medium sized mushrooms (soak in warm water for 30 minutes)
1 teaspoon wakame seaweed
1 (12 ounce) package tofu (hard to silken, we prefer silken, also size does not matter here, more or less is to taste)
4 tablespoons miso (I like the light miso)
2 scallions, slice thinly (green part only)
¹⁄₂ teaspoon sea salt, to taste

directions

Soak dried shiitake mushroom in a bowl of warm water, make sure mushrooms are covered. (about half an hour before use).
Soak wakame in a bowl of warm water, at least a cup of water. Make sure there's lots of water because wakame will expand about 10 times.
In a medium size pot. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil, drop in the dashi stock package (like tea bags) and simmer for about 3 minutes. There's also the dashi stock in the powder form, just empty package into boiling water. Or follow directions on package to make dashi stock.
Or bring vegetable or fish stock to a boil.
While water or stock is heating. Clean, peel and slice vegetables. To make carrots and daikons more visually appealling, I cut them into flowers and leaves. To make flowers: peel carrot/daikon, make odd number of triangular notches (lengthwise) down the length of the carrot. Discard the notches. Slice the carrot crosswise into flower shapes. To make leaves: peel daidon, slice into thin rounds, use the tip of a very sharp knife and shape into leaves.
Add carrots and daikon into dashi pot and bring back to boil.
Squeeze water out of mushrooms. Remove tough stem. Slice thinly.
Add mushrooms to pot. Bring to boil.
Drain wakame and chop randomly into smaller pieces if they are larger than 1" square. Add to soup. Bring to boil.
Drain tofu. Slice into 1/2 inch cubes. Add to soup. Bring to a gentle boil. Be gentle from this point on as you don't want to break of the tofu pieces.
Put about 1 tablespoon of miso paste into a small bowl, put a laddle of hot soup stock only, no chunks, from the pot into the bowl and stir to dissolve miso paste with stock. Pour back into pot. Repeat with remaining miso paste.
Once you add miso to the soup, make sure the pot does not come to a hard boil but stays in a very gentle simmer or hot because you don't want the miso to curdle.
Taste and add sea salt if desired. Laddle into bowls.
Garnish with thinly sliced green onions.