Miso Soup with Enoki Mushrooms and Ground Sesame

1. Before You Start: For the soup stock, you can use standard Awase Dashi, a dashi packet or powder, or Vegan Dashi. Here, I use a dashi packet.
2. Gather all the ingredients.

To Make the Soup Stock (Dashi)

1. To a medium saucepan, add 2 cups water and 1 dashi packet. Bring it to a boil, uncovered, over medium heat.
2. Once boiling, lower the heat to medium-low. Simmer, uncovered, for 2–3 minutes. Pick up and shake the dashi packet to release more flavor, then discard it. Transfer the soup stock to a measuring cup. You should have a bit less than 2 cups or 480 ml of dashi. (A typical miso soup bowl holds 200 ml of liquid.) Set aside the saucepan to cook the miso soup.

To Prepare the Ingredients

1. Cut 1 Tokyo negi (naga negi; long green onion) to separate the white and green parts. Thinly slice the white part diagonally. Thinly slice the green part on the diagonal and set aside.
2. Cut off and discard the root end of ¼ package enoki mushrooms. Then, cut the mushrooms in half crosswise.
3. Peel the ginger, then grate it (I use a ceramic grater). Measure ½ tsp ginger (grated, with juice).
4. Add 1 Tbsp toasted white sesame seeds to a mortar and pestle. Grind roughly, leaving some seeds unground for texture.

To Cook the Miso Soup

1. Heat the saucepan over medium heat. When the pot is hot, add ½ Tbsp toasted sesame oil. Then, add the sliced white part of the Tokyo negi.
2. Sauté for 2 minutes. Then, add the grated ginger.
3. Sauté for 1 minute. Next, add the enoki.
4. Sauté for 1 minute. Now, add the dashi.
5. Bring it to a simmer, then turn off the heat. Then, dissolve 3 Tbsp miso into the soup pot: Put the miso in a ladle, add hot stock to the ladle, and stir with chopsticks to dissolve completely. Here, I‘m using a fine-mesh miso strainer that dissolves the miso faster. If you see rice koji left in the strainer, you either can add it to the soup or discard it (personal preference). Alternatively, you could use a miso muddler to dissolve the miso.
6. Hand-tear ½ block medium-firm tofu (momen dofu) into bite-size pieces directly into the miso pot. Tearing by hand adds texture and creates more surface area so the tofu absorbs more flavor.
7. Add the sliced green parts of the Tokyo negi and the ground sesame seeds to the pot.

To Serve

1. Serve the hot miso soup in individual soup bowls. Place on the right side of the table setting; you can read about this in my post Ichiju Sansai (One Soup Three Dishes). If reheating, warm up the miso soup in a pot over medium heat just until hot. NEVER BOIL miso soup because it will lose its flavor and aroma.

To Store

1. It‘s best to consume all the miso soup right away because it loses aroma and taste over time. To refrigerate, cool the soup to room temperature (no longer than 4 hours) and keep up to 2 days in the refrigerator in an airtight container. To make a big batch for later, refrigerate the soup without adding the miso. When ready to use, add the miso only for the portion you need. You can freeze the soup for up to 2 weeks; remove the tofu before freezing as the texture will change.