I keep seeing cooks mess up their miso soup base by boiling it

At the new place I'm at in Portland, I've watched three different line cooks ruin a batch of dashi by letting it come to a full boil after adding the miso paste. It kills the good stuff in the miso, makes the flavor flat, and you lose that nice, round umami. I learned from a chef in Kyoto years ago that you never let it get above a simmer, just hot enough to dissolve the paste. It seems like a small thing, but it changes the whole bowl. The soup goes from being a warm, deep starter to just tasting like salty water. How do you guys teach your teams to handle this without them rushing and cranking the heat?

2 comments

2 Comments

barbara42914d ago

Ugh, that drives me nuts. I make my team do a demo batch where they ruin it on purpose by boiling it, then taste it next to a proper one. Tasting the flat, salty mess really sticks with them. After that, I tell them to kill the heat entirely before whisking in the miso, then just warm it through. It becomes a habit pretty quick once they see the difference.

river_wright14d ago

Watched my buddy wreck a whole pot of miso soup that way last year. He kept it on a low boil thinking it would make it stronger, but it just killed all the flavor. Made him taste a spoonful of that hot garbage next to some I made right, and his face said it all. He hasn't boiled miso since that day, just turns off the burner and stirs it in. Some lessons you only need to learn once.