Servings
4 s
Ingredients
- 5 cups Dashi; (or light chicken or beef stock)
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 1/2 teaspoon Light soy sauce
- Splash sake'
- 2 teaspoons Cornstarch mixed w/ 2 T. water
- 2 large
- 1/2 teaspoon Fresh ginger juice *OR*
- Finely chopped lemon rind or green onion
- 4 Stalks trefoil (mitsuba) *OR SUBSTITUTE following; cut into 1" lengths
- 1 Sprig either watercress or parboiled fresh; spinach
Directions
- To assemble and serve: Bring the dashi just to a boil over high heat, then simmer while seasoning to taste with the salt, soy sauce, and sak‚.
- Reduce heat to low.
- With the heat on low, stir in the cornstarch-and-water mixture.
- Stir for 30 seconds or so till thick and smooth and raise heat to bring the soup to a high simmer.
- Never let it boil.
- Slowly pour a thin stream of beaten egg in a spiral over the entire surface of the soup.
- Do not stir immediately, but let the egg start to set, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.
- Stir soup gently and constantly with a wire whisk for another minute or so to allow the egg to separate into threadlike filaments.
- Finally, add the ginger juice and trefoil and remove from heat immediately.
- Pour into individual soup bowls, garnishing each with a bit of trefoil from the soup.
- Serve immediately.
- Variation: Use 1/2 cake tofu (bean curd), cut into 1/2-inch cubes.
- Add after the egg and let simmer till heated (about 30 seconds) before adding the ginger juice and trefoil.
- NOTES : Trefoil is a member of the parsley family.
- It is an annual herb that has thin greenish-white stalks approximately 6 to 7 inches long, topped with a comopund leaf of three flat, deeply cut leaflets.
- Depending on the variety, the leaves range in color and size from pale to bright green and from small to rather full.
- It has a flavor somewhere between sorrel and celery and an attractive light green color, mitsuba is used in many Japanese dishes as a flavor and color accent.
- Used only fresh, it is often lightly parboiled beforehand to rid it of any “parsleyish” overtones.
- Also, professional cooks usually use only the stems because leaves and stems have different cooking times, but it is not necessary to be so fussy.
- The leaves become bitter if overcooked, so only lightly parboil or very gently stirfry.
- (Request more info if desired.
- I ran out of room here.
- I didn’t know MC had a size limit!) Recipe by: Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art pg.
- 346 Posted to recipelu-digest Volume 01 Number 536 by “Valerie Whittle”
- net> on Jan 15, 1998