Tomato soup

I went out to eat recently, and had a really good soup, which was a simple tomato soup. Normally tomato soup has a vegetable or chicken base, but the soup I had was a dashi base similar to the one I made in a earlier recipe. I want to share a version I've come up with after eating that soup, hope you enjoy it.

You Will Need

• 2L Dashi (or chicken/vegetable stock)
  1lb Mirepoix (2:1:1 ratio of onion, celery, carrot. so 8 oz onion, 4 oz celery and carrot.)
• 1 can tomato paste
• 2 Tablespoon Olive oil
• 2 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 cup shoyu
• pepper (I used about 2 turns of my pepper mill, more or less is up to you!)
• Parsley (if you are going to serve this to family or friends it would make a nice garnish!)

 Instructions

1. Add your olive oil to the pan, and heat the pan up.

2. Sweat the vegetables and stir to help keep the vegetables from burning (onions should turn translucent not brown or black)




3. Once the vegetables have been  sweated, add the can of tomato paste to the vegetables, and cook together until the tomato paste has a sweet aroma.








4. If the tomato paste is burning, and it hasn't achieved a sweet aroma, you can add some of the dashi, or what ever stock you are using to help keep it from drying out.






5. Once the tomato paste has a sweet aroma, slowly add your stock while stirring.






6. Bring the soup to a boil, and lower to a simmer.

7. Let simmer for about 10 minutes, while you add salt, shoyu, and pepper. Be sure to check the taste while you are adding these seasonings, you can put more or less of all of them to your liking.


8. Dish out, and garnish (I forgot to buy parsley so I didn't)

9. Either serve hot, or chill and serve cold, (its delicious both ways!)

Daikon Salad

If you want a reason to practice katsuramuki, and sengiri, then this is a delicious reason to. When I practice these two techniques I always looks forward to being able to eat this salad afterward. If you don't want to go through the hassle of practicing these techniques then you can use the dressing recipe for any other salad vegetables.

You Will Need

• 200g (~7oz.) Daikon (or whatever you would like to use for salad don't limit yourself!)
•  30ml (2T) Rice wine vinegar (I haven't tried it with normal white vinegar but I'm sure it would come out good)
• 15ml (1T) Shoyu (Soy Sauce)
• 1t Sugar
• 1/2t Gomabura (Sesame seed oil) 
• 1/2t Goma (Sesame seeds)

Instructions

1. If you are using daikon leave it to soak in water for a few minutes to get rid of the strong daikon smell. (If you are using another salad this would be the time to wash it)

2. After the daikon has soaked strain the water out of the daikon, and let it dry for a few minutes. (alternatively you could use a salad spinner)

3. While you wait for the daikon to dry off, mix the salad components together.


4. Add the dressing

5. Mix in the dressing

6. You can either serve it immediately, or you can leave it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes for a slightly pickled effect (it wont fully pickle)






If you want to change up the dressing at all, feel free because what tastes good to me won't always taste good to someone else (add more sugar, or less vinegar etc.). Also this dressing will keep for about 2 weeks in the refrigerator because of the high salt and acid, so if you want to make more for later use just double, triple, etc. the recipe. I found that this much of the dressing is just right for that much daikon. I hope you enjoy this!

Ichiban-dashi, the first step

If you ever want to make seriously good Japanese food, you need to make seriously good dashi. Dashi is the Japanese word for soup stock, and it always has three basic ingredients, katsuoboshi, kombu, and water. Dashi can be used in nearly every Japanese sauce, soup, and dish there is! Different ingredients can be added to alter the flavor, shiitake mushrooms, niboshi, and many different types of dried fish. The dashi I will teach you is simple, but very tasty.

You will need

• 4L of water (~17 cups)
• 20g kombu (~.7 oz)
• 15g katsuobushi (~.5 oz)
• Pot capable of holding your quantity
• Bowl capable of holding your quantity
• Strainer

Instructions

1. Rinse and soak kombu for 30minutes-6 hours*
2.Simmer kombu for 30 minutes

3. Add katsuobushi and simmer for 15 minutes

4. Remove the Aku**

                                 5. Strain the dashi***

 

*The longer you let it soak, the more flavor is imparted into the dashi, but after about 6 hours, it will become slimy from the kombu
**Aku is the boiled blood, and other bitter flavorings (not only from meats some vegetables make some) in small portions you can skip this step as it does not greatly change the flavor
***for those who are on a budget or don't want to waste you can save the kombu and katsuoboshi to make niban-dashi, I'll have the recipe up soon!

If you want to make a different amount, you can easily change the amounts listed, but be aware that the time it takes to bring to a boil and simmer will be different. Enjoy!!!