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05/21/08 |
                
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Suimono Yields approx 4 c. 吸物
2 1/2 c. sake 1c. mirin 2 c. dashi 2" ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks 4 ea. small shiitake mushroom caps, scored 1 pkg. kaiware (daikon mushroom sprouts), trimmed 1/2 pkg. kinugoshi tofu, cut into 1"x1" cubes wasabi for garnish usukuchi shouyu to taste Mix sake, mirin, dashi and ginger. Adjust to your taste with shouyu. Simmer for 20 mins. without bringing to a boil. Arrange tofu, kaiware and shiitake (the cap scored with an X) in the bottoms of four small-ish (about 10-12 oz.) bowls. Remove ginger just before serving and brunoise half for garnish. Ladle soup over ingredients without disturbing them too much. Everything should be clearly visible and neatly presented when served. Garnish with brunoised ginger and a small dot of wasabi. Serve to suitably astounded guests.
Note from GG: I'm sure this goes without saying, but THIS IS NOT A MAIN DISH! It's an appetizer, a soup in the true, traditional French sense of the word. Yes, there are a lot of ingredients in this dish, but there isn't a lot of substance. Just like miso soup, it'll stimulate the appetite rather than quench it. The biggest compliment I got from this was from Rays' LOOOOONNNNG-time server Gail, who said to her manager, "See? This is the type of stuff we need to be serving up here." I think she's been there about 10 years, so that means a lot to me. One thing to note is that you should not use regular soy sauce in this recipe! The light-coloured or "usukuchi" shouyu won't impede the colour as much as regular soy sauce will, since you won't need as much to season this dish. Did you know that "light-coloured" soy has more sodium per serving than regular soy? Yeah, probably not, which is why GG is here to teach you the difference. At the end of the day, this soup means little more than a nice app, which has enough flavour to excite the tastebuds for what's coming next (providing it's on the Asian theme), while being subtle enough to not impede those forthcoming flavours. If it makes any difference, I used "hon-dashi" for this recipe, but I think that the only real difference is that you might need to reduce the traditional dashi recipe by a bit more, maybe 20%. I like the flavour that katsuobushi brings to a dish (especially miso soup), so I might have gone a bit heavy on it.
This site was last updated 05/21/08 |
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