Souped Up: We've Decided To Get Creative With Boring Miso Soup
I was off miso soup for a while after a former roommate decided he was fat and threw himself into the self-invented "miso soup diet," consuming nothing but gallons of the stuff until he was "ripped." The whole apartment smelled like miso soup, which was really nice for a couple of days, then quickly moved to "stifling." Okay enough with the quotes. After a week or so he switched back to solid food, but my appetite for the sushi side, power breakfast and hangover eraser was gone.
Bringing it back took some strategy — appetites are fickle things. I can still see the giant lobster pot of soup reflecting the terrible glare of those fluorescent lights. Mmm, lobster miso soup. So here's how I convinced myself to love it again and not associate it with the puzzling weight preoccupations of dude roommates.
- Drop a brick of ramen in it. I know many others as well as myself will eat ramen noodles out of anything. Don't quote me on that.
- Tons of mushrooms. Seriously, just go to town on the shroom bins at the supermarket and make yourself a little mixed bag, then slice and drop in the soup. Mushrooms are super absorbant and turn into little flavor bombs when saturated with miso soup.
- A poached egg. The yolk turns the already-rich broth into silky, buttery heaven.
- Spike it! Add a tablespoon each of sake and mirin to a large bowl of miso soup. Bonus points if you add drunken shrimp.
And if that still doesn't work, nobody hates Nobu's miso black cod. Nobody. Granted, nobody can make it properly outside of that restaurant, either, but if you follow the fairly simple formula of an overnight marinade in 1 part each mirin and sake to 2 parts sugar and three parts white miso paste and a quick broil you should be back on the miso worship bandwagon before your roommate can ask if he looks fat in those pants.
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