Japanese Onion Soup

Japanese Onion Soup

This is my twist on French Onion Soup - Japanese style. As you will know, like the French, the Japanese turn out some pretty mean soups and I like to think that this fusion of the two traditions - French and Japanese - creates something that's really quite special.

Like the French version, my Japanese Onion Soup features some delicious, slow sweated onion and garlic. There's also a rich broth which includes a heaped tablespoon of miso. Whereas the classic French dish would be presented with some toasted bread and melted cheese, I use rice cakes which I toast with a generous topping of cheddar cheese. If, like me, you are an umami flavour lover, the combination of miso, cheddar and garlic will be too tempting to resist, I assure you!

Whenever I make this dish, I always chuckle at how easy it is to make something so tasty. The only thing that takes any time at all is sweating the onions and garlic. I usually let this happen for about 20 minutes - I want the rings of onion to be nicely cooked and a little bit sweetened but not overdone so that they fall apart. Once that is done, everything else happens pretty quickly so you don't need to plan much more than 30 minutes to have this ready for the table.

I normally eat this with a bowl of rice but you could serve it in smaller portions as a starter. On the other hand, you could pop in a few more vegetables (think, mushrooms, some diced potato, maybe) and you would have a main course for lunch or supper.

If you are interested in this recipe, you can find the Youtube tutorial by clicking Japanese Onion Soup or by scrolling to the bottom of the page. The written recipe is just below.

Happy cooking! Kurumi XXXX.

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Ingredients:

Makes 2 generous servings:

25g / 1oz butter

500ml /1 pt water

2 rice cakes

75g / 3oz cheddar cheese

1 large brown onion

4 cloves of garlic

1 tbsp Japanese instant dashi stock granules

1 heaped tbsp of miso

shichimi (Japanese chilli flakes) , optional

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How to:

Peel, top and tail the onion.  Set the onion on it side and cut into thin slices to create onion rings. Carefully break up the onion rings into a bowl.

Crush the garlic cloves and add to the onion rings.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Add the onion rings and the crushed garlic. Stir gently to coat the onions and garlic in butter.  Sweat the onions over a medium heat with a lid on for about 20 minutes until the onion has softened. Stir occasionally to prevent any of the onion burning or sticking to the pan.

Meanwhile, cut the cheddar cheese into straws. Cover the rice cakes evenly with the cheese.

When the 20 minutes is up, add the water and Japanese instant dashi granules to the saucepan of onion rings and garlic.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 - 3 minutes.

Next , grill the rice cakes for 3 - 4 minutes until the cheese has melted.

Meanwhile, add 1 heaped tbsp of miso to the soup.  Gently blend the miso into the soup using a spoon or spatula. Simmer for 1-2 minutes, then turn off the heat.

Remove the rice cakes from the grill.

Ladle the onion soup into bowls. Place a grilled cheese rice cake on top of each bowl and sprinkle with a little shichimi seasoning.

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Japanese Onion Soup