Miso Soup

The Best Miso Soup

I love Japanese food and my wife and I order sushi quite often but one thing I like to get, as an appetizer, is Miso Soup. If you don’t don’t know what Miso is, I can tell you that it’s a Japanese seasoning produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and kōji and sometimes rice, barley, seaweed or other ingredients. There’s several different varieties of Miso but the most common are white and red. I’ll be demonstrating how to make Miso Soup using the red Miso and I’m going to show you how to make a soup with the most basic ingredients,Tofu and Green Onions.

Dashi ingredients, Kombu and Katsuobushi.

Dashi Fish Broth

Most soups are made from broths or stalks and this recipe is no different. The broth that needs to be prepared for this Miso Soup recipe is called Dashi and it’s really easy to make. All you have to do is combine Kombu(dried Kelp) and katsuobushi(bonito flakes or dehydrated Skip Jack Tuna) with boiling water and let it steep, like tea, for 10 minutes. If you don’t know what these ingredients are or where to find them, you can go to any Asian market and ask the attendants. I buy them both dehydrated and I just reconstitute them with the boiling water. The water absorbs the flavor, like tea, and creates the broth called Dashi. Then, all you have to do is strain the broth to make the Miso Soup.

Be sure to try my Red Sauce Wonton and my Wonton Soup Recipe.

Extra firm Tofu and fresh chopped Green Onions.

Tofu and Green Onions

As I mentioned above, there are several different varieties of Miso and there are also several different Miso Soups. If fact, eventually I want to show you how to make a spicy Beef Ramen Miso Soup that I think is just amazing but I’ve got to teach you the basics first so you understand recipe like that one, later. So today I’m going to teach you how to make a Miso Soup with Tofu and Green Onions.

Miso Soup Ingredients:

2 cups dashi
1 Green Onions, chopped
4 oz Tofu, Extra Firm
3 Tbsp miso

Dashi
4 cups water
1 oz kombu (dried kelp)
1 cup katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes) (1 loose cups = 10 g)

Just watch the video tutorial and I’ll show you just how easy it is to make Dashi and this Tofu and Green Onion Miso Soup.

Tempura Lobster Tails with Dipping Sauce

Awesome Lobster Tails

If you thought Shrimp Tempura was good, you’re going to go out of your mind with this Lobster Tails recipe. Especially if you your a fan of good Tempura because you’ve got the best of both worlds right here. As you may or may not know, Prawns and Lobsters are in the same crustacean family, only Lobster’s are generally much larger. So, from my perspective, bigger is better and I show you how to make Perfect Tempura Batter, in one of my older posts, and take you straight to one of the best appetizers ever invented.

What size Lobster Tails to use

I’ve been seeing 4 to 6 oz Lobster Tails on sale in just about every grocery store that has a seafood department for only about $5 bucks a piece, lately. So you really can’t go wrong with that kind of deal if you want to give this a try sometime. Really you can use just about any size you want. You’ll just have to adjust the cooking time if you get any thicker than what I’m recommending here for this Tempura recipe. Just be sure you buy enough Lobster Tails because these things are so delicious and they go down fast.

Check out my other Lobster recipes:
Stuffed Lobster, Steak House style Lobster Tail, Lobster Ravioli Sauce,
Lobster Bisque, Red Lobster Crab Cakes, Poor Man’s Lobster

Tempura Lobster Tails Ingredients:

2 Lobster tails, pealed and de-veined
Pinch of Salt to taste
Oil for frying

Tempura Batter
1 egg yoke
1 cup Tonic or Seltzer Water, Carbonated is the key
1 cup Flour

Dipping Sauce
1 teaspoon Hoisin Sauce
1/2 teaspoon Garlic Black Bean Sauce
1/4 cup Orange Chili Sauce

Cook and submerge your Tempura Lobsters in Oil for approximately 5 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Perfect Tempura Every Time

Tempura is Touchy!

Lets nail down the issues most people have with making Tempura, starting with buying it in a box. For the most part, you’re just buying a box of flour with a fancy picture on the front that shows you how good it could look if you buy their product. But does that make sense? You’ve got flour at home in your kitchen, right? Oh, maybe you need the directions on the back of the box. Wait, that doesn’t make sense either because you’ve got the web at your finger tips. You can just look it up. So here we are, you and I, and we’re going to get through this together.

Tempura in a Box

The truth is that no matter what the contents of that Tempura box are, flour, corn starch or whatever, the box directions are WRONG! Sure they give you a few pointers from step 1 to 3 but they don’t talk about a few key issues you will have if you don’t mix it in the right order, if you just use regular tap water or if you don’t keep your batter ice cold. That’s right. If you ignore any one of these 3 things, your Tempura is not going to turn out right.

Tempura Ingredients:

1 egg yoke
1 cup Tonic or Seltzer Water, Carbanated is the key
1 cup Flour

Mix the ingredients in a bowl over the top of another bowl full of ice water
Stir the liquids first, then add the flour and don’t over mix; leave it lumpy
Use ice cold Tonic or Seltzer water, not Tap, to get the batter to poof up

Watch the video tutorial and follow these simple instructions and you will have perfect Tempura, every single time.