Grilled Fish and Miso Soup – JAPAN

Photography: Vanessa Lewis

Part a series of breakfasts from around the world featured in Little Tables by Vanessa Lewis, published by Beatnik.

Grilled Fish and Miso Soup – JAPAN

A piece of simply grilled fish served with miso soup is a traditional Japanese breakfast. Miso is a paste made with fermented soy beans and barley or rice malt. When mixed with stock and vegetables, it becomes a delicious, savoury broth.
Serves 2 – 3

Ingredients

Miso Soup

  • 5g [0.2oz] dried wakame/dried seaweed sheets
  • 150g [5.3 oz] tofu
  • 2 spring onions, sliced
  • 800ml good quality vegetable stock
  • 3 Tbsp white or red miso paste

Grilled Fish

  • salt
  • 2 small-medium whole oily fish,
  • cleaned and deboned.
  • oil, for frying

To serve

  • soy sauce
  • steamed white rice
  • eggs

Method

Miso Soup

  1. Soak dried wakame/seaweed in water for about 15 minutes to reconstitute it, then drain and set aside.
  2. Cut the tofu into 1cm cubes and slice the spring onion diagonally into 2cm pieces.
  3. Heat the stock in a small saucepan over medium heat until boiling. Then, using a soup ladle, remove some stock and place in a small bowl. Add the miso paste and mix well until the paste has dissolved. Put this mixture back into the saucepan with the stock and heat again until boiling.
  4. Add the cubes of tofu and wakame/seaweed, and sprinkle with the spring onion.

Grilled Fish

  1. Cover a frying pan with foil. Sprinkle salt liberally on both sides of the fish. Heat the frying pan on a medium heat, and oil the surface of the aluminium foil lightly.
  2. Place one fish in the pan and cook for 7 – 8 minutes on each side, or until the fish is browned and cooked through. Repeat with the second fish.
  3. Serve miso soup and grilled fish piping hot with soy sauce, bowls of steamed white rice and egg- either raw or cooked, according to your preference.
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