Today’s miso soup is with kabocha squash and shimeji mushroom. Kabocha is naturally sweet, and it tastes wonderful when it’s cooked in savory Dashi broth. Cut in thin bite size pieces for the soup, and it takes much less time than making a simmered kabocha dish (kabocha no nimono).
Today’s miso soup is made with broccoli, onion, and eggs. We can use the whole broccoli including the stems, and onion slices add the sweetness to the broth. This is a perfect soup for breakfast or lunch.
Suiton Soup is hot soup with soft dumplings simply made from flour and water. Suiton is almost always eaten at home not at restaurants. Our easy homemade Suiton with a lot of vegetables is so warm and filling. It is a perfect soup during the cold seasons.
Miso Soup (味噌汁) is, as many of you may already know, a soup flavored with Miso Paste and usually includes Tofu and vegetables. It is a very essential dish of Japanese cuisine, and comes with any traditional Japanese meal. Many of you might have had Miso Soup once before even if you didn’t order it at a Japanese restaurant, just because it came with your Chicken Teriyaki.
Ramen (ラーメン) is Chinese-style noodles served in strongly seasoned hot soup with various toppings. Ramen has been a very popular dish in Japan for many years. Now the world is catching up with us. Ramen shops are absolutely everywhere, inside and outside Japan. And people just love it.
Chicken Udon (鶏うどん) is Udon noodles and chicken thigh pieces cooked in hot soup. It is an easy and light meal, but satisfying enough to stand alone. Chicken Udon is a good food to eat at anytime, but this hot noodle soup is especially delicious in cold seasons.
Tanuki Soba (たぬき蕎麦) is hot Soba noodles in soup with Tenkasu fried Tempura batter bits. It is a Soba dish with a pretty simple topping, but that addition gives the dish richer flavor.
“Tanuki” literally means raccoon dog which is an animal found in Japan and a popular character in stories and culture there. One theory is that Tanuki Soba was named as a counterpart for another noodle dish – Kitsune noodle dishes. “Kitsune” means fox, but we don’t quite know why somebody wanted to give symmetrical animal names to noodle dishes. Another idea is that “tanuki (tane-nuki)” sounds kind of like “ingredients removed” in Japanese. Since Tenkasu doesn’t have any vegetables or shrimp like regular Tempura but is only crumbs, the dish may have been named this way.
Ankake Soba is Soba noodle soup that is thickened with starch. The thick soup not only keeps the dish hot much longer than regular noodle soup, but also coats the noodles with tasty soup in every bite. The soup includes a variety of mushrooms, which add a lot of Umami flavor. Hot and savory soup makes it a perfect hot noodle dish in the cold season.
In Japan, the first meal of New Year’s Day always begins with a bowl of specially prepared soup called Ozoni. Ozoni (or Zoni) is a soup that contains mochi rice cake in a savory broth. The preparation of Ozoni varies significantly by region, and each household has its traditional recipe often passed down in a family for generations.