breakfast miso soup

I discovered this healthy breakfast while on holidays in Australia's red heart, visiting Uluru (otherwise known as Ayers Rock).

There are so many tourists from all over the world that the resort offered a breakfast for all cultures. The Japanese station provided hot miso broth and I watched the Japanese girls whisk eggs and vegetables into it, then tried it myself and was very pleased with the results.

So once I came home I replicated it for Jonas, who also became a big fan.

You can have this for breakfast, or even have it as an afternoon or late night snack. It pretty good anytime of day.

Breakfast Miso Soup
Anna's very own recipe. Serves 2.
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 stock cube (mushroom, vegetable or beef are best)
1 cup shitake mushrooms, sliced
1 tablespoon shallots, soft green part
1 tablespoon shallots, hard white part
10cm piece wakame
4 teaspoons miso paste
2 teaspoons peanut oil
Sesame oil, for drizzling
Method:
1. Soak wakame in warm water for 5 minutes. Cut into thin strips.
2. Heat peanut oil in saucepan. Fry white shallots and mushrooms until tender but not soft.
3. Add 2½ cups of water and crumble in stock cube.
4. While waiting for water to boil, crack each egg into 2 separate serving bowls. Pass a fork through the egg a few times to break the yolk and white into smaller streaks, but do not beat or whisk.
5. Add 2 teaspoons of miso paste to each bowl.
6. One bowl at a time, strain the boiling stock into the first bowl, quickly stirring the egg as it cooks in the hot water and dissolving the miso. Once the egg and miso has blended through, the soup will have milky colour.
7. Divide the wakame and mushrooms between the bowls and serve.

This week, my Weekend Herb Blogging theme ingredient is wakame.

Wakame (ワカメor undaria pinnatifida) is a sweet, edible seaweed that has been grown for food for hundreds of years in Japan and Korea. It’s leaves are cut into tiny pieces which expand significantly during cooking. It’s best in soups or salads with soya sauce and rice vinegar.

Wakame is said to help burn fatty tissue, purify blood, strengthen digestion and regulate menstruation, not to mention its usefulness as a topical beauty treatment and for aiding skin, hair and reproductive organs.

According to Wikipedia “wakame is a rich source of Eicosapentaenoic acid, an Omega-3 fatty acid. At over 400 mg/100 kcal or almost 1 mg/kJ, it has one of the higher nutrient:calorie ratios, and among the very highest for a vegetarian source. A typical 1-2 tablespoon serving of wakame is roughly 3.75-7.5 kcals and provides 15-30 mgs of Omega-3's. Wakame also has high levels of calcium, iodine, thiamine and niacin.”

Wakame has also been nominated one of the world's worst 100 invasive species and is particularly damaging in Auckland, New Zealand and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Check out the WHB round-up from our host, Janet from Tastespace.