Lobster Miso Soup: Earthy Japanese Fermented Bean Lobster Soup Recipe

Lobster Miso Soup Recipe

Lobster miso soup was a popular japanese  savoury appetizer. Miso it’s a fermented bean with a pleasant aromas and some kick’in savoury hint.  The soybean is fermented with salt and special fungus. Miso is widely used in japanese style cooking, both in traditional and modern, and has been gaining world-wide interest. In Indonesia, miso is similiar to tauco. The diffrence is miso usually processed into fine paste while tauco bean is usually still in a whole form. The taste, aroma, texture, and appearance of miso all vary by region and season, but mostly there are three types of miso; white, red and a combination miso. I used the white miso paste for this lobster soup. I like using it too for making Steamed Fish with Miso Paste.

Lobster Miso Soup Recipe

Using miso paste on lobster soup is a little bit tricky, make sure that you watch the saltiness of your miso paste. I like the low sodium miso paste or less salty miso is simply because i can used it much larger amount to ge the umami, nutty and savoury taste of the miso. Some miso paste got a very pungent and strong aromas, especially the red miso paste, use that carefully to prevent it’s over powering the lobster soup flavour.

Recipe Lobster Japanese Miso Paste Soup

My first lobster soup with miso paste seasoning is Plaza Indonesia’s Sushi Tei , Jakarta. Sushi Tei is an upscale japanese restaurant with authentic and also fusion japanese cuisine. Actually i offered a lobster sashimi with about 65 USD (don’t forget the 6.5 extra tax) price tag, it’s came with an hectic presentation; the head and tail is served as a garnish and the meat is thinly slice along side with rice vermicelly and tiny caviar. I only finished about 3-4 thinly slice lobster’s meat since it’s TOO FRESH for me. It’s twiching when i dipped into the soy sauce and wasabi paste, that’s exactly what i mean for too fresh. Eating the lobster’s meat while the head is almost  crawling is really made me losing my appetite. I’m okay with shark fin, snake meat, or soft shell turtle meat, but this lobster sashimi presentation is kinda tortune for me. For the verdict, live lobster’s tail meat is nothing diffrent from live shrimp that i’ve taste before, infact i like the shrimp sashimi more than lobster sashimi because the lobster sahimi is rather bland. I was planned to take home the remaining lobster, but then the waitress ask me weather i want to had them making a miso soup with it, i directly agree considering my sister’s house is quite far away. The lobster soup was superb, maybe because the ingredient is very fresh, but i hope the add more miso paste in the broth.  I guess i just pretent it’s sspecial since i’m saving a budged for that dish.

Recipe Japanese Lobster Miso Soup

For making japanese style lobster miso soup, you can use raw or cooked lobster, but i prefer the raw since it’s contain much more flavour to be extracted.  I also suggest you to boil the lobster and take the meat after boiling it until cooked, it’s needed to prevent it get overcooked. For the garnish, i use shaved bonito fish  flakes (katsuiboshi) and crispy seasoned seaweed.  For serving, this lobster soup is quite good to served with nice and warm udon, ramen or even noodle. I guess lobster is almost fit with any pasta or noodle dish, just like my Spicy Lobster Pasta with Cherry Tomato, Chilli and Garlic Greens.

Lobster Miso Soup Recipe :

Ingredient:

• 1 medium size (about 500 gr) Spinny Lobster
• 1-2 tbsp miso paste (watch over the saltiness level!)
• 2 pieces konbu (seaweed for making dashi/broth)
• 3 cm ginger, bruised
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp soy sauce (you didn’t need this if the misso paste is quite salty)
• 1 tbsp mirin (rice cooking wine)
• 1 scallion, roughly chopped
• 4 cups water
• chilli oil for garnish
• konbu fish flakes  for garnish
• crispy seasoned seaweed for garnish

Instruction:

• Put the water in a large pot, add the konbu and garlic, bring it to boil and simmer it until the liquid is reduce in half,
• Strain the broth and discard the konbu and the garlic.
• Bring the broth to boil again, put the lobster and boil it for about 2 minutes, drain and take the lobster tail meat, drain and set aside the tail meat
• Put the lobster head back into the broth, add the miso paste, scallion, soy sauce, mirin and boil for about 5 minutes and turn off the heatd.
• Put the lobster meat in a serving bowl, pour the broth and garnish with chilli oil, seaweed and bonito flakes.