Cathy Katin-Grazzini
Cathy’s Kitchen Prescription LLC
www.cathyskitchenprescription.com
 
Woodland Pond Miso Soup
This miso soup evokes the tranquil, calming mystery of a pristine woodland pond. Miso soups are climate-friendly, delicious and a healthy tonic whenever you feel tired or rundown. This one is full of umami flavors from shiitakes, sea vegetables, and shiro (mild white) miso. Baby artichokes, daikon radish, carrot, garlic, and ginger combine to enrich a vegetarian dashi broth.  The addition of edamame makes this soup surprisingly filling and packs its own anti-inflammatory punch with fiber, protein, omega-3s, and isoflavones.  Enjoy Woodland Pond Miso Soup as a starter or an entrée, or any time your body and soul need a boost.
 
Prep time 8 hours to steep dashi broth, plus 30 minutes
Cook time 30 minutes
Serves 4 to 6
 
1 5-inch square of dried kombu kelp
8 organic or sulfite-free dried shiitake mushrooms 
12 cups water
1 large juicing carrot, scrubbed or peeled, cut in ¼-inch slices
¾-inch knob of fresh ginger, peeled, shaved and then cut into slivers
2 cloves garlic, shaved, then cut into slivers
2 tablespoons dried wakame seaweed
1 sheet unseasoned nori, cut into 1/8-inch strips
12 miniature artichokes, outer leaves discarded, stems trimmed
1 small pink or purple daikon radish, either sliced thinly to roll flower buds
2 cups frozen shelled edamame
½ cup teaspoons shiro (mild, white) miso paste, diluted in ½ cup hot soup
 
Preheat oven to 150°F and insert serving bowls to warm as you make the soup.
To build your plant-based dashi broth, the foundation for miso soups, take two separate bowls. In one place the kombu kelp and cover with 6 cups of water. In the other, add the dried shiitake mushrooms, and cover them with 6 cups of water. Cover each bowl and place in the fridge to steep slowly over 8 hours or overnight.
Discard the kombu and reserve its viscous liquid. Remove any tough shiitake stems from the rehydrated mushrooms. Cut the shiitake caps into 1/8-inch slices.
Add both bowls of liquid to a medium pot and add the sliced shiitake caps.  
To make daikon flower buds, shave the radishes using a mandolin set to the finest setting into long, thin strips.  
Use the mandolin on its finest setting to slice the garlic and ginger. Stack the ginger and slice them into slivers. Add the garlic and ginger to the soup pot, together with the wakame, nori strips, sliced shiitakes, carrot slices, and trimmed artichokes. Heat to a gentle simmer for 20 minutes before adding the edamame for the final 10 minutes of cooking. The soup is ready when a knife can easily pierce the side of an artichoke.  Do not overcook.
The soup is seasoned with shiro miso after plating to avoid overheating the miso which would destroy its beneficial probiotic microbes. Dilute the miso paste with the soup broth to enable it to dissolve easily into the soup during plating.
For a pretty, whimsical presentation, let’s make carrot-daikon flowers and artichoke waterlilies. Here’s how:
Remove the carrot disks from the pot. Using a flower-shaped vegetable or cookie cutter cut them into flower shapes.  
To add the daikon flower “bud”, use a ½-inch cutter to punch out the center of each carrot flower. Roll up one or more strips of the thin daikon slices and press or gently screw them into the carrot flower centers. 
Ladle the soup and vegetables into each warmed bowl. Season with 1 to 2 teaspoons of diluted shiro miso to taste, using chopsticks to distribute the miso throughout the soup.
Using chopsticks or clean fingers, gently spread open each artichoke so they resemble a waterlily.  Decoratively arrange the carrot flowers, and artichokes in each bowl. Serve immediately.