Miso Bored

You know when you stare at everything you have in the fridge, and nothing appeals to you? You know, you're hungry, but overcome with ambivalence? Yeah, that's me today. 

So I pulled out the miso paste from the back of the fridge. When everything around you is yucky, miso soup makes you feel better. I don't know why, but it does. I wanted to make it filling, so I grabbed some stuff from the pantry and the fridge. Here's what I came up with:

Dried shiitakes, broccoli slaw, scallions, a ramen pack, miso, and kombu powder. Kombu is edible kelp, used to make a broth called dashi, which adds a little extra umami flavor to things, especially miso soup. Someone once gave me this powder. You can buy sheets of kombu at the Asian market. 

Dried shiitakes are awesome. They have a nuclear shelf life, if you keep them dry. You have to soak them in hot water, so I put them in a small pot and heated water to soften. When they got soft, I removed the mushrooms and strained the liquid into another pot through cheesecloth (if you don't have cheesecloth, use a fine strainer). The water takes on a mushroomy goodness so it became the base of the soup.

You have to remove the stems from shiitakes, whether you are using fresh or dried. They're too tough to eat. Once they were off, I cut the caps into a fine julienne. 

In another pot, I boiled water to cook the ramen noodles. Before opening the package, I broke the noodles into quarters, so they wouldn't be too long once cooked. As for the flavoring packet? The only place for that is the trash can. Ever read what's in that stuff? Sodium, monosodium glutamate, and all kinds of other scary stuff. It's like 2 days worth of salt in one little package. Bleah. 

Once the noodles were about halfway cooked, i grabbed a handful of the broccoli slaw and threw it in the pot. It only took about another minute, then I poured it into a strainer. The slaw stayed a bit crunchy, but was cooked. I put that into the bottom of a deep bowl. 

In the mushroom water, I added about 2 Tbsp. of miso paste, 1 tsp. of the kombu powder, the shiitake slivers and whisked it together. You have to adjust miso to your own taste. Sometimes, you have to add more. 

When I reached the desired flavor, I poured it all over the noodle/slaw mixture and garnished with scallions. 

And here is a great place to use that chili garlic sauce I told you about!

Voila! Lunch! Not too filling, but really satisfying. See, I told you if you keep some staples in the house, you'll always be able to make something great. 

See you tomorrow. I'm off to the Nordic Track machine to continue my climb of Mt. Fuji!