Soup
Soup is a very important element of Japanese cuisine and will always accompany a set course meal, together with a bowl of rice. If eaten as part of a meal consisting of several courses, the rice and miso soup are served at the end of the meal.
There are two types of soup; the most well known being miso soup, which is regularly eaten in the Japanese home, and the other, o-suimono, a clear soup generally only eaten in restaurants. Miso soup is made using a fermented soya bean paste and has ingredients such as wakame seaweed, tofu, spring onions, aubergine or daikon (Japanese white radish). The ingredients of suimono include such ingredients as mitsuba leaves (a Japanese herb), carrot, bamboo shoots, white fish and prawn.
Other soups served in restaurants include dobin-mushi and tokkuri-mushi, which are not strictly regarded as soups in Japan. Both of these are served in their own specially designed crockery from which they derive their name; a dobin pot and a tokkuri pot. The essence of dobin-mushi and tokkuri-mushi being in the ingredients which are steamed and are served in a soup; the soup being regarded as the accompaniment to the ingredients rather than being the main focus of the dish. The ingredients can include matsutake or kinoko mushrooms, bamboo shoots and various types of fish. The other part of the name, “mushi”, comes from the verb, “musu” which means, “to steam”.
Did you know?
Soup stock (dashi) is usually made from konbu (kelp) and bonito flakes (katsuo-bushi) in Japanese cuisine. There are many different varieties of konbu which differ according to the region where they are grown in Japan. Katsuo-bushi are the shavings from a Skipjack tuna which has been smoked and dried.
Two types of stock are used for soup in traditional Japanese cuisine; ichiban dashi and niban dashi, or, in other words, the first and the second stock. The first stock is made using konbu and high-grade katsuo-bushi which consists only of the shavings from the white part of the flesh and has a more subtle flavour. This stock is produced from simmering, rather than boiling, and is strained through cloth, resulting in a clear stock used for suimono. The second stock reuses the strained out konbu and katsuo-bushi, together with katsuo-bushi from the red part of the flesh. A higher heat is then used which creates a stronger flavoured stock with a cloudy appearance and is ideal for making miso soup as this stock is not over-powered by the miso’s own pungent flavour.
O-zoni is a soup only eaten at New Year, the main ingredient of which is mochi (a doughy Japanese rice cake). The other ingredients of this soup differ according to the region but tend to consist of ingredients including chicken and a selection of vegetables.
How to enjoy the full flavour of Dobin-mushi and Tokkuri-mushi
Dobin-mushi
- Dobin-mushi is served in a teapot with the cup upside down on the lid and a piece of lime on top.
- Squeeze the lime into the soup and use the cup to drink the soup.
- The ingredients, being the main focus of this dish, are generally consumed prior to drinking the soup.
Tokkuri-mushi
- Tokkuri-mushi is served in a three-layered pot.
- Inside the tokkuri bottle at the top there is a Japanese sauce called, “ponzu” which consists of citrus juice, vinegar and soya sauce. This should be poured into the second layer over the condiments already there and used as a dip for the food presented in the soup.
- In the second layer you find sliced spring onion and momiji oroshi, a mixture of grated daikon (Japanese radish) and cayenne pepper.
- In the bottom layer you will find the soup with ingredients such as prawn, scallop, white fish (for example sea bass or sea bream), kinoko mushrooms, spring onion, bamboo shoot, tofu and Chinese leaves in it. These should be dipped into the ponzu sauce before eating.
- Finally, the soup can be enjoyed using a china spoon.