dinner went well. there was no recipe, just a hodgepodge of good tasting things in a pot set to boil, and some fresh stuff chucked in as it was served.
a late lunch, started with coffee (kicking horse 454… not as flexible as grizzly claw, but nice if not allowed to steep for too long… oh I could write a whole post on that…). lunch. right. then lunch moved into some well needed insightful conversation with pony. then it was onto ‘by-the-letter miso soup.’
I’m using hondashi, a brand name of instant dashi, so I thought I would use a recipe from their parent website, here. I followed this exactly because I have very little experience working this kind of food, and I feel it’s best to learn the basics before intuitively building dishes. but understand that when I say ‘to the letter’ I mean… mostly. so, I heated the water at medium high because I have an ancient stove and was hungry. I also didn’t include wakame because I didn’t have any, and I generally am not big on seaweed flavours either.
the smell of just the dashi heating and dissolving in the water was so reassuring. it’s got that savoury, smoky smell of having a fire on the beach, or the feeling of being on the coast in the damp dross of winter with a fire going and an afternoon to just wile away.
I can’t tell you how pleasing it is to be able to recreate something like food in a particular style that’s literally and figuratively foreign to me. I’ve lived in canada my whole life and grew up eating well cooked, but plain and standard fare. I didn’t eat and enjoy chinese food until I was 19.
NINETEEN! this was for more reasons than just being food-shy or sheltered – that I won’t get into now – but this plays a big role in my being so excited to dip into unfamiliar yet thoroughly appreciated edible territory.
anyway, this miso soup was everything I was hoping for. it was so, so satisfying. it wasn’t too salty or too weak, it was baby bear perfect.
I am now going to down some green tea and read up on mythology.
thefirdge 