Recipe Squid, Veggie, and Miso Egg Drop Soup

[Mountain Cat]

Squid, Veggie, and Miso Egg Drop Soup

Ingredients:

• 2 cups water
• 2 or so square inches of kombu (I'm using the Icelandic kelp variant of kombu because Fukushima).
• 2 teaspoons fish sauce.
• 50 grams snow peas, trimmed if necessary. (Browned or darkened, I trim. These were green, so I left them.)
• 40 or so grams baby bok choy, chopped. The stem area I chop to about 1/8th inch, but the rest is very coarse.
• 1 ounce more or less of oyster mushroom, chopped.
• 2 teaspoons arrowroot powder
• 200 grams squid, include tentacles as desired. Chop bodies up to about 3/4 inch length rings. Chop any large tentacle portions into halves, leave the rest alone.
• Wakame flakes as desired. (Prescience, or something, but I bought a ton of these dried flakes about a month prior to Fukushima. I think it was because they were so hard to find. There are alternatives in the light seaweed category, however. Use what you will.)
• 1 green onion/scallion, chopped
  
• 2 tablespoons of a mild white miso paste.
• 1 egg, well-beaten.
• A dash or two of Cholula, or other hot sauce.
• A splash of sesame oil.

Method:
Boil the water with the kelp/kombu - reduce to a mildly bubbling simmer, and continue cooking for 10 minutes.

Remove the kelp/kombu, and discard. Add the fish sauce, snow peas, bok choy and oyster mushrooms. Simmer for another 4-5 minutes.

Meanwhile, take the arrowroot powder, put into a small bowl or cup, add three teaspoons of the soup base, and mix with a fork or whisk, until dissolved.

Stir this into the soup.

Add the squid and the wakame flakes, cooking for another minute. Toss in the chopped scallion. The squid should only cook at this temperature about a minute, maybe up to 90 seconds, to keep it from going rubbery.

Reduce heat, add the miso paste, and stir. Immediately add the egg, stirring this in as you pour it using a fork to break it up.

Remove from heat, and serve! You can add that dash of hot sauce at the table, as well as a splash of sesame oil, if desired.

 

[Morning Glory]

A lovey recipe @Mountain Cat - full of flavour by the sound of the ingredients. I reckon that this recipe would also work really well without the squid (or substituting tofu) and using a vegan 'fish' sauce, for a vegan (with egg) version*

*@SatNavSaysStraightOn is vegan with eggs

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

I reckon that this recipe would also work really well without the squid (or substituting tofu) and using a vegan 'fish' sauce, for a vegan (with egg) version*

*@SatNavSaysStraightOn is vegan with eggs

Yes...that's a decision I made with my Thai Coconut Soup recipe: I normally would have added shrimp and fish sauce, but there's so much going on that I didn't need the shrimp, and the miso fills the umami/salt bit that the fish sauce normally adds.

Having said that, this is a terrific, dense-with-flavor recipe with some things I've never used before (arrowroot powder and squid, to be exact).

 

[Mountain Cat]

Thanks. I normally would have chosen shrimp, but the only shrimp I could find was from some farmed source that I didn't trust.

One could use a tamari sauce instead of the fish sauce.

I would probably opt to use small strips or cubes of tempeh instead of tofu, if serving vegetarian. But it would depend - either would work. Tempeh for me has a little more flavor. The egg of course ended up in this soup because, well, there's an excess of them around here these days! (Like SatNavSaysStraightOn, I raise my own hens.) It's a nice touch, but not essential.

 

[Morning Glory]

I would probably opt to use small strips or cubes of tempeh instead of tofu,

Probably a better choice. I'm not very familiar with tempeh. Despite the crazy rise of veganism in the UK, its still hard to get here.