Miso Egg Drop Soup - With Mushrooms!

This soup is so very tasty and super easy to make! The recipe is based off the of the way miso soup is made for sushi restaurants!

You can modify the soup in a lot of ways to add more or less egg or vegetables.

Enjoy!

Okay! I know some of these ingredients may sound a little strange and your immediate response might be 'oh geez I don't even know where I would find these things', BUT DON'T DESPAIR! They are actually very easy to find.

For example, if you live in a city there should be international or asian markets and many of them will have all of these ingredients. If you live in a rural area then just order the ingredients online! Easy peasy!

Ingredients

1-2 Kombu seaweed (It will look like a piece of paper made of sea weed. It may also be called "dashi seaweed")

1/2 c. Katsuobushi (aka Bonito Flakes; this is dried, fermented, smoked skipjack tuna)

4 c. water (roughly)

2 tbsp Miso paste (any kind will make a good soup)

5 Baby portobello mushroom

1-2 eggs

1 tbsp corn starch (optional) and cold water

Green onions

+/- pepper*

*Adding pepper certainly makes it tasty, but gives it sort of a different flavor and feel

1. Place the kombu seaweed in room temperature or cool water in your pot

2. Heat slowly, but do NOT allow it to simmer

3. When you see bubbles forming in the pot just before it simmers remove the pot from the heat and add the bonito flakes

4. Let the seaweed and bonito flakes steep 4-6 minutes

5. Use a strainer to remove seaweed and bonito flakes

6. Put the clear broth back onto the heat

7. Return the dashi broth to medium heat

8. Take a small amount of the broth (maybe 1/4 c.) and put it in a bowl.

9. Add the miso paste to the small bowl of broth and mix until smooth. The miso does not dissolve easily so if you add it directly to the dashi broth it won't break up easily.

10. Once you have thoroughly mixed the small bowl of broth and miso you can add it back to the pot of broth. It will try to separate, which is normal. You will notice this happen in your soup at restaurants too when you don't stir the soup for a while.

11. Slice your mushrooms very thinly and set aside.

12. Cut your tofu into 0.5-1 cm cubes.

13. Take a small amount of cool or cold water and add your starch to it. I've read if you add starch to hot or warm water it just clumps. Mix up the starch until fully dissolved.

14. Add the starch into your broth.

15. Scramble the eggs.

16. Add the mushrooms to the broth.

17. Pour in the scrambled eggs and stir the soup.

18. Add the wakame seaweed.

19. Let sit 5 minutes on the stove off the heat. This allows the wakame to absorb water.

20. Pour yourself a bowl of soup.

21. Top with green onions.

22. ENJOY! :)