Soup for One. Miso for none.

I don’t know what I’m doing. But David Chang does. This dish was made tonight for a variety of reasons. First off, I was hungry. Plus, it was cold out. Third, I was in a bad mood, and asian style food tends to be my comfort food when I’m surrounded by dark clouds. Fourth, I had some left overs to make this.

So here’s the deal. Over the Christmas/New Year week, I had off, which led to a tornado of cooking, baking, scheming, and scorching. Somehow I got it in my head that I should document this endeavor. But being the slacker that I am, I decided it best not to create such a demanding project. Then boredom set in. And now, here I am waxing philosophical about the finer points of bacon. And really, there are some fine points about bacon. But we all know that. Even the sad sad vegetarians know that.

So tonight’s dish is a bacon dashi miso soup. The bacon dashi was made last week from David Chang’s recipe in his Momofuku cookbook. The baby bok choy were from the Ft. Greene farmers market on Saturday and the tofu was left over from the first attempt at the recipe for the bacon dashi miso soup. This time though, I “souped” it up. I first diced and fried some slab bacon (never mind the slight patches of mold) in sesame oil. Bacon AND oil? Overkill? Probably, but when working with bacon, it’s hard to go wrong. I threw in some roughly chopped garlic for good measure and then removed both from the oily pan.

Meanwhile, I put the leftover bacon dashi on the back burner and heated it up. I added extra bonito flakes, since this was my first attempt, and it didn’t have the smoky flavor I was hoping for in the original dish some days ago. I added dried wakame seaweed and left it alone.

With the oily pan, I was going to drain the fat and sauté the bok choy, but instead, I had visions of crispy golden cubes of fried tofu. So, no draining the oil. Instead, I put the cubes in the pan and amid the splatters of oil and water, I saw mixed results. Nothing to write home about. In fact, my attempt at fried tofu cubes failed. BUT, I added the bok choy and just started mixing away. I added rice vinegar for tang, mirin for sweet, sriracha for spice, and soy for salt. In the end, it was tasty, though not what I originally envisioned (shrug). I couldn’t tell you the proportions, as I made the whole thing up. I added the bacon and garlic back into the mix and once I felt like the greens were ready, I thew everything in the pot of bacon dashi stock.

In the end, it wasn’t a total success, but it was better than I had hoped when I wrote out my menu for the week that said, “Left over miso soup”. This felt like something of a meal for me, and indeed was way too “kitchen sink” (everything but) to be called a classic miso soup. In fact, I just realized I forgot to add the miso paste. There is nothing miso about it.

And so we’re off to a lovely start (shrug again). At least the storm clouds have cleared, the leftovers are gone, and my stomach is warm and full(ish). A mild success for a first endeavor.