butajiru - super miso soup

Do you feel like having only soup and rice? Then this soup got everything you need to give satisfying feeling. It's basically miso soup, but it's loaded with veggies and meat. Buta means pork ('pig') and jiru means soup, so it's translated to pork soup. :) It's also a great 'extra' dish that's easy to make.

Ingredients:

Carrots - 2 med (thinly sliced)
Potatoes - 2 small (thinly sliced)
Pork meat - 1 cup
Shiitake mushroom - 1/2 cup (thinly sliced)
Onion - 1 small (thinly sliced)
Firm Tofu - 1cup (cubed)
Daikon (raddish) - 1/2 cup (thinly sliced)
Green onion -  2 stalks (chopped)

[Pork marinade]
Salt & white pepper - 1/2 tsp each
Soy sauce - 2 tsp
Sugar - 1 tsp

Miso paste - 3 TBS
Water - 3 quarts (5 cups-ish)
Dashi - 2 tsp **see TIPS

Optional addition - 
Gobo (burdock) - 1/2 cup (thinly sliced)
Enoki mushroom - 1/2 bunch (ends cut and washed)
Sweet potato - 1 med (thinly sliced)
Konnyaku (Japanese yam cake) - 1/2 cup (thinly sliced)

Prep:

1. Slice pork and marinade them. Set it aside for 20 minutes.
2. Cut all vegetables in thin slices (julienne)
3. Cube tofu.
4. Chop green onion and set it aside in airtight container.

Cook:

1. Heat water in 4 or 5-quart pot. Add dashi, mushroom and onion. Let it bring to boil.
2. Add in rest of the ingredients, except tofu and konnyaku (if you are adding it). Reduce heat to medium and let it simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Add in Miso paste. Mix well (but not too hard or you'll have mushed potatoes) **see TIPS 
4. Add in tofu and konnyaku at the end and boil for another 5 minutes. Adjust taste. 

Serve:

1. Sprinkle green onion on the soup. Serve with rice. 
2. It also goes well with udon noodle. 

 TIPS

• Some miso paste already comes with dashi inside. In that case, you don't need to add dashi powder. 
• If you are not a big fan of dashi, you can just omit it. It still gives great taste. I will also try to attempt making my own dashi stock someday and post the recipe! [I'm lazy, so I'm not getting around to it yet]
• To avoid getting mushy butajiru,  you can dissolve miso in using ladle - put miso on ladle, get some hot water from the soup and using a spoon or chopstick, dissolve the miso in the ladle.