Japanese food has been my favourite for a few years now. But this was one cuisine I never ventured to cook myself. I just continued to enjoy it at different restaurants. In the last few months I have been more inclined to give it a try so have been reading up incessantly because before one tries to cook any new cuisine, it is always good to understand the basics of it. And for Japanese cuisine I stumbled upon a couple of blogs which helped me immensely.

SavoryJapan is a beautiful blog which talks about the basics of Japanese food, understanding the ingredients, and the most amazing concept for me when I started to read it was the Power of Five . It helps us to see how every complete Japanese meal has ingrained the Power of Five in it. Every meal includes five tastes, five senses, five colors, be prepared in five ways and the meal should be received with five attitudes. This article is such a beautiful read and brings to life what I have seen in every Japanese meal I have ordered outside and in the mannerisms of the staff serving in these restaurants and has helped me appreciate and accept my food a lot more. The second blog that I have referred to a lot is JustOneCookbook . Its a beautiful blog that gives a step by step description of the steps and details on ingredients etc.

Armed with my newfound knowledge, before I tried to be too bold and brave I wanted to start with something which is simple but I look forward to it in every Japanese meal I have (except Ramen I guess). This is Miso Soup - the simple comforting soup that accompanies all Japanese meals and what I look forward to every time. A read through blogs and articles revealed that this was such a simple recipe - all it required was the right ingredients to be put together. The key items needed for this are Dashi stock, Miso paste, Wakame, silken tofu and green onions.

Dashi stock is often available as packets which can be boiled with water to prepare the stock. Miso is a fermented soyabean paste and for this soup I used a mixture of red and white miso. Silken tofu is easily available in most supermarkets and so are green onions. Wakame is a dried seaweed which is available in the dry form and needs to be hydrated in water before being used for the soup. Again, the recipe credits for this are from JustOneCookbook Miso Soup and Savory Japan Miso Soup

Ingredients:

1 packet dashi stock

4 cups water

3 tablespoons Awase miso (Red miso + White miso)

1/3 block tofu (cut into small cubes)

1 tsp wakame - rehydrated in water, drained and coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons scallions (thinly sliced)

Method:

1. Boil 4 cups water in a stock pot. Add the dashi stock packet to it and let it boil for 5-7 minutes.

2. Once the stock is ready, remove the packet and turn off the fire.

3. In a small bowl, add 1 ladle of dashi stock to the miso paste and mix nicely so that the refrigerated miso paste can become smooth before adding to the stock as the miso soup is not supposed to be cooked. You can also pass the paste through a strainer to smoothen the miso paste. Add this miso to the dashi stock and mix well.

4. Add tofu, wakame and scallions. Serve immediately.