{ Not here for the ramble and just want soup? Skip straight to the recipe! }
This soup is a riff on a recipe from Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop. A very few of my recipes are wholly original. Most of them are the result of a vague idea and me looking at a bunch of recipes before I come up with my own. I might make them a little fattier or saltier, or a little less. Or maybe I add bacon, or substitute mushrooms for the existing bacon. Sometimes I add sugar where there was none, or salt. Occasionally I figure out how to do the whole thing in a slow cooker. But I always skip a few steps, because I'm lazy and hate washing extra dishes. If you were looking for authentic miso soup, this is definitely not it. But it's soup with miso. So.
Saturday morning the house was quiet and I was lying in bed, actually sleeping. It was glorious. At around 7:46 a.m., I woke up to a text.
"Anne, I am bringing you four mallards in about an hour."
I bolted out of bed, splashed some water on my face, and changed from pajamas to sweatpants, rearranging my hair from sleeping ponytail to puttering-around-the-house ponytail. Saturday was about to get interesting. One of the most wonderful things about living in a place where people hunt is the occasional bounty you get without making any of the effort, like getting up early and sitting in the cold with a gun. So my friend's father showed up a short while later holding four ducks by the neck, their bills forming a pretty bouquet, more beautiful than any mere flowers.
"These were flying an hour ago!"
This was my first time butchering ducks so Mr. H. gave me a few tips before leaving the bounty behind. I rearranged my hair into work ponytail and got to it. There were so many feathers, y'all. I took the last two ducks to the front porch to finish. (I apologize to the neighbors for the flying feathers, and I apologize to my family for the carnage, even though I did hose off the porch a couple days later.) I'll spare you the details because some people can't stomach that sort of thing, but I learned something useful: the bile ducts on a duck look like those dark blue NyQuil capsules. I thank the guy on YouTube who described them that way, making them easy to avoid. I plucked and skinned and carried on. I sautéed a couple hearts and gave them to the dog, who was thrilled. My butchered ducks weren't pretty, but they were meaty and I prepared them for confit.
Then I made stock from the neck bones and feet and other little parts that fell off due to my lack of skill. I threw in some carrots and celery on their last legs, and added an onion with the skin, and maybe some garlic and peppercorns. And I froze the stock. The next night we had pad Thai with duck confit.
What I Learned: Restaurants don't offer all-you-can-eat pad Thai. Because you will eat all the pad Thai.
We ate so much pad Thai, and all the duck. I had every intention of taking some confit to Mr. H. as thanks for his generosity. The lure of the pad Thai with confit was too great, and everyone had more than one serving – some of us as many as several. The next night we ate risotto, prepared with duck stock of course, and spinach, tomatoes, and venison sausage (a gift from another friend, because life is good).
This is what I put in miso soup. You?
There's still plenty of stock, and I haven't even made any from the confit bones yet, just the necks and feet and stuff. Yesterday I made miso soup, one of my favorite cures for the winter blahs, any sort of cold or cough, the flu, strep throat, or the lingering bloat of holiday sausage balls. Goop's recipe calls for steeping the bonito flakes in water, but substituting stock for the water makes a heartier soup. They also use whole mushrooms and a whole slice of wakame, and I don't. You can use this soup as a base, adding meat, tofu, vegetables, or whatever you like, or you can drink it on its own, for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Or a snack!
A Note on Miso Soup Ingredients
Are some of these new to you? No worries! You can find them at Whole Foods or your local fresh and healthy market. (Live near me? Try Earth Fare or Rosewood Market.) The world's getting smaller, so you can probably even find this stuff at Walmart in the "Asian" aisle, which seems a little vague to me, but that's how they usually label it. Also, the actual miso is refrigerated, so look for it in the cold section. Also, you don't have to make your own stock, but it's so easy, you might want to.
This stock was made from one leftover chicken leg from my husband's coq au vin at Terra. The meal was a delight. And it made free stock!
A Note About Bone Stock
You don't need much to make a quick bone stock. The other night we went to Terra for our twentieth (!) anniversary. It was nice. I had the trout and my husband had the coq au vin. I took the chicken leg bone home, and added 6-8 cups of water, a wilted carrot, a sprig of thyme, the top of an onion (including the skin to make the stock golden), and a bay leaf. The whole mess simmered for about an hour, and I strained it in a chinois. (Cheesecloth works just as well, but if you make stock a lot – which I do – the chinois will save a lot of money in the long run and is less messy.) Voilà. Stock!
And now for the soup:
Easy Miso with Bone Stock
◔ Makes 8 cups
⧖ 15 minutes of work, plus about 30 minutes for cooking
8 cups (homemade or store-bought) vegetable or bone stock, any kind (duck, lamb, beef, chicken, fish, etc)
30 grams bonito flakes
2 tablespoons crushed, dried mushrooms
2 teaspoons wakame, like Emerald Cove
2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onion (the white part)
8 tablespoons (½ cup) sweet white miso
Heat stock in a pot on the stove until small bubbles form and add the bonito flakes. Let simmer for a couple of minutes.
Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let the fish flakes steep for five minutes.
Strain the broth using cheesecloth or a chinois.
Put the broth back on the stove on low heat and add mushrooms, wakame, and onion. Simmer for 20 minutes.
Remove about a cup of broth, put it in a jar with a sealable lid and add miso. Shake until completely smooth and stir back into the soup.
Eat!
Notes:
I like to keep this in the fridge and heat individual portions for meals throughout the week.
Use the soup as a base for heartier meals and add chicken, tofu, vegetables, or anything else you like.
Sweet white miso makes a mild soup but there are plenty of other flavors and options on the market and you should use your favorite.
So if you have that flu that's going around, or you've had enough holiday cheese dip and party punch and you need a break, try the soup. And let me know if it works!