miso in chicken broth

This soup has my own white beans with bacon that sunk to the bottom.

Miso can be its own base. In that case use more. A few tablespoons instead of one tablespoonful. Here I  used my own chicken broth as base and miso as flavor and nutritional enhancement. But usually Japanese cooks use dashi as base, a sort simple tea made with a piece of dried kombu seaweed and dried flaked bonito, a smoked and nearly petrified skipjack tuna. Those two basic ingredients are brilliant and common in Japanese kitchens. 

When I was ill but still mobile I used to go to a hipster restaurant in Larimer Square where they served their version of miso. It was terrible compared with average Japanese miso that you can get nearly anywhere. Miso as base, and extravagant aged types, so, very overly salty. (They keep adding more salt as it ages.) 

Then I learned to make it myself. Like most things much easier than imagined once you understand the alien ingredients. Much better than the American restaurant. But still nothing close to the original, because of the dashi. Dashi means simply "soup." Kombu dashi and bonito dashi and combined kobu and bonito dashi all have their own Japanese names. 

So where can you get these ingredients? 

An Asian market will have them. But if you haven't an Asian market nearby, then where?

Online. Several places. Let's look at Amazon for example.

Kombu. 

Bonito.

Wakame, a little bit of this goes a very long way. You can also make salads from this. A tiny amount puffs up to a bowlful. 

While online shopping for Asian ingredients you'll want to have Asian fish sauce, basically fermented anchovies in water, and mirin, a sweet rice wine syrup, and toasted sesame seed oil. These three ingredients go into nearly every sauce imaginable. Combined, they are excellent.

Real mirin is a bit of a problem. Most versions available in the U.S. are sweet flavored syrup. Due to methods of manufacture between authentic Japanese mirin and American replicant mirin, the differences between taste is extreme and so is the cost. Most American cooks settle for the American replicant and they are satisfied with results. But it honestly cannot hold a candle to the real thing, but you have to be able to appreciate such things for that to make a difference. If you cannot appreciate the difference in quality then there is no point in paying for the real deal. It's like Parmigiano-Reggiano that way. Either you appreciate the difference or you don't, and there is nothing that can be done for you, so save your money for things that do make a difference for you. Japanese use an introduced mold to convert rice starch to sugar in lower grade sake. Americans simply combine syrup with lower grade alcohol. 

Here you can buy the genuine Takara type mirin along with Sho Chiku Bai saki together. The place also sells mirin separately. The authentic mirin on Amazon is much more expensive.

Amazon miso is the simplest of all and theirs is overpriced. The best possible miso in the United States comes from South River.

South River miso.

Japanese style miso soup also has small cubes of firm tofu.  A nearly insignificant amount. That you can buy pretty much anywhere. It also has flecks of wakame seaweed. And that's a fairly important flavor ingredient.

This is a previous post that shows what a 4 lb. shipment of miso from South River looks like. 

Like most Americans, of the various types, my favorite is the youngest least salted, least flavorful type. Most similar to what is available industrially. The rest are just a little bit challenging. The post is dated November 2011. It's only just now nearing replacement. So it's been over six years. And it's still good in the refrigerator. And there is still a little bit left. It's been an excellent purchase.