If you've been to a Japanese restaurant, chances are you've had miso soup. The stuff is salty, delicious and wakes up your digestive system, so it's usually served as an appetizer.
For some years I had been making it a meal in and of itself, by adding vegetables and rice noodles. The process is dead easy and results delicious and filling:
1. Heat sesame oil in a pan (careful, as it goes from hot to smoking rather quickly)
2. Briefly saute thickly sliced carrots
3. Fill pot with boiling water and use a bit more hot water to dissolve a glob of miso paste in a bowl with a whisk (you can add more later according to taste)
4. Keep soup at a gentle simmer (if it goes into a rolling boil, the miso will lose some of its nutritional value)
5. Add quick-cooking veggies like broccoli, bok choy, as well as dried seaweed (I've used wakame, nori, arame, hijiki)
6. Rice noodles: the easiest method is to toss them in at around the same time as veg in step 5, but if making a big pot of soup, they will start to disintegrate after being heated repeatedly. The other option is to make them separately. Cooked brown rice is yet another alternative.
7. To serve, put cooked rice or rice noodles in individual bowls, add cubed soft tofu and ladle broth and veggies on top. Enjoy!
* Since coming to Asia, I've discovered miso paste with fish, as well as miso soup cooked with fish pieces, making it that much heartier and richer in flavor. I like it both non- and veg.
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