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Kasu-Jiru: Miso soup with Sake Kasu
Recipe: Charlotte Hamilton (Charlotte's Foodweb)
What do you get when you combine two amazing Japanese fermented products? Kasu-Jiru: a flavorful soup based on miso and sake kasu. A steamy bowl full of umami!
Sake kasu (sake read)
Miso and miso soup is quite well known. Sake kasu (sake lees) is a somewhat lesser-known, but flavorful product. It is the lees of sake. After fermenting grapes (as with wine), no usable residue remains, but with sake, there is. When sake is strained through fine cheesecloths, as it were, the clear sake drips through the cloths, leaving the sake kasu behind.
Sake kasu is rich in vitamin B, protein and fiber making it a beloved ‘super food’ in Japan and even used in cosmetics. Today, however, we are not smearing it on our faces but incorporating it into a silky smooth broth. Thus, in this miso soup, it looks as if we've quenched the ginger and garlic with a glass of sake. The soup takes on a much more interesting flavor. Sake kasu is also often used in vegan dishes because it is creamy and it also has properties of cheese in addition it is an important component in pickling vegetables in Japan.
Recipe
4 people
30 minutes
Ingredients
- 15 g dried porcini mushroom
- 1 inch of ginger
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 chilli
- oil
- 1.5 liters of broth (chicken or mushroom)
- 50 g sake kasu (sake lees)
- 1 tablespoon light miso
- 1 carrot
- 200 g silken tofu
- 2 spring onions
Preparation
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Bring 150 milliliters of water to a boil and pour it over the dried mushrooms.
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Peel the ginger with a teaspoon. Keep a small portion of the ginger aside for serving. Crush and peel the garlic and grate it and the ginger root. Cut the chili pepper into very fine rings. Remove the seeds if you do not like spicy.
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Heat a dash of oil in a soup pan. Briefly sauté the ginger, garlic and chili pepper, then add dried mushrooms with the liquid, broth, sake kasu and miso. Turn the heat to low and simmer for ten minutes.
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Cut the carrot and remaining ginger julienne and the tofu into small cubes. Cut the spring onion into fine rings.
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Serve the soup in a bowl and finish with the carrot, ginger and tofu and spring onion.