MouthLondon - London Student & Youth Magazine
Recipes: Miso Soup with Leeks, Milk and Sweetcorn
Pin ItMiso Soup: a soup that’s light enough for warmer months but still creamy enough to be comforting. Quite good for British spring-summer time, where days can quickly descend after a few precious hours of sunshine.
I adapted this from Makiko Itoh’s Hokkaido-style miso soup by adding a further British twist with soft, mild leeks and ham off the bone. A handful of fresh peas or broad beans stirred in at the end would be delicious, too. Maki also gives vegetarian and vegan alternatives in her original recipe.
However you decide to vary the soup, I’d keep it fairly light, staying away from too much cream to keep the balance of flavours and textures. I like it best with a pile of very crisp, fresh white bread, but of course you can have it how you like. This keeps well in the fridge for up to a week (reheat very gently) and makes about 6 servings.
Ingredients
- . 1 litre vegetable stock (fresh or from a stock cube)
- . 500 ml milk, preferably full-fat
- . 1 medium leek, finely sliced
- . 200g corn (tinned, fresh, or frozen)
- . 1 tablespoon butter
- . About 200g gammon, cut into chunks
- . 2 tablespoons red miso, adjusting to taste
Instructions
- Bring the vegetable stock to the boil in a large saucepan.
- Meanwhile, in a frying pan, melt the butter over a medium heat.
- When it's hot, add the sliced leeks and cook, stirring constantly, until the slices begin to fall apart into soft rings.
- Add leeks to the soup, simmering for a few minutes until just tender. They won't look particularly soft, but the texture will be very silky upon eating.
- In the same buttery frying pan, briefly sauté the corn before adding it to the soup.
- Pour in the milk, then put the gammon pieces into the soup.
- Bring back up to a gentle simmer.
- Finally, add the miso: pour a ladleful of soup into a small bowl or cup, then add 1 tablespoon miso to this portion of liquid, blending well with a spoon.
- Pour this mixture back into the soup, then taste to see if you want more miso.
- When you’re happy with the seasoning, serve the soup right away with bread or rice.
About the author
I'm a self-conscious dilettante with a degree in History of Art from SOAS and UCL. I've lived in Greater London all my life, interrupted only occasionally by brief trips to Thailand. The result is that I speak Thai with a Croydon accent (and sometimes Croydon with a posh accent, but that's another story). Far from being a charming bilingual intellectual of the world who ably holds forth on every topic imaginable at dinner parties, most of what I actually say in either language is "Hello", "That's a nice painting", and "I'm hungry". My idea of a balanced diet is a bowl of Mama instant noodles in one hand and a chip buttie in the other, but I also don't mind a nice bit of duck confit or gaeng paa gai. I don't go to dinner parties, anyway. I like looking at interesting things. Thai contemporary art, Early Modern English portraiture, and lowbrow art have so far held my attention. I consume vast amounts of art and food, so I thought I would give something back by writing.
Further articles by Pear Nuallak →
Leave a response for ‘Recipes: Miso Soup with Leeks, Milk and Sweetcorn’
All fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required. Your email address is confidential and will not be published on this site or passed onto any third parties.
By submitting a comment, you grant this site a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name and/or website in attribution. All comments are moderated before being published.