Miso Tahini Soup

Simple and Kinda Sweet.

                         -My tombstone; also, this soup.

WARNING: It's about to get shmoopy as hell up on this blog.

There's nothing that makes my heart bounce about more joyously than a night of good friends sitting on my floor, having a major catch-up sesh. Kenneth, Katie and Erin joined me for this one, and oh did we gab. Gossipmongering for the ages. Some very important conversations were had, some decisions affirmed, some souls propped up, some friendships reinforced. The soup, tonight even more than usual, was secondary.

And that's as it should be. Soup is communal. Gathering around the pot, clutching a warm bowl in both hands, fueling a whole night of making memories. 

HELP, I've become one of those overlong greeting cards that always make me so angry! Like, um, you're really going to trust someone at the Hallmark -- or worse, AMERICAN GREETINGS?!? -- to earnestly express, in paragraph form, how you feel about someone? GROW A PERSONALITY!

Except this greeting card has been about soup. Not sure those exist, so you know the feeling is genuine. 

I'm so grateful for my loyal and beautiful friends, for their willingness to spend hours and hours in my tiny apartment, for the laughter I can count on, for the cookies and chocolates and wine they bring along. And I'm grateful for soup for at least kind of making it happen. 

THAT DOES IT. No more sentimentality for the rest of the month.

This soup takes about 20 minutes to make, all in. It takes cues from a standard miso soup, but it's hearty enough -- with the inclusion of rice, turnips, squash and avocado -- to serve as a meal with just a light salad on the side. The lemon zest is oh-so-important. I found myself liking the soup more as it cooled, because the acid and bitterness of the citrus zest was doing a smooth and delicate dance with the broth.

The squash adds a sweet element, and you get some nuttiness from the tahini. If you really like seaweed, I say go to town on it. I placed a little dish of extra nori on the table and personally couldn't get enough, adding just a little more after every bite.

I'm pretty sure the reason I was so into adding moremoreMORE seaweed is that this recipe uses water instead of dashi. I was skeptical of the recipe for that reason -- I think it tries to make up for it with the inclusion of tahini, but it doesn't quite work. For more depth of flavor without much more work, a simple dashi would go a long way. If I make this again (or something similar), it's going to be dashi dashi ohmygoshy.

That said: it was good, and it makes you feel good and healthy, eating it. Or maybe that was just from being around my sweet-cute-fun-fancy-adorable-nice-wonderful-loving-supercool friends. 

Okay, now no more sentimentality.

Miso Tahini Soup
Barely just a bit from 101cookbooks
Serves four

1 acorn squash, seeded, halved, and sliced into 1/4-inch crescents
1 medium turnip, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch pieces
4 cups water
4 tablespoons white miso
1/4 cup tahini
1 teaspoon tamari, or to taste
zest of one lemon
3 cups of cooked brown rice
1 avocado, sliced thin
1 scallion, sliced
two sheets toasted nori, crumbled
toasted sesame seeds

Place your squash and turnips in your soup pot and cover with water. Bring to a simmer and cook, uncovered, until vegetables are tender -- about 10 minutes for me, but test with a fork.  

Remove the pot from heat. Place miso in a bowl and spoon in a few tablespoons of the hot water. Whisk to thin out the miso, then stir it into the water and vegetables.

Stir in the tahini, tamari and lemon zest. Taste for seasoning and add more miso, tamari or tahini until it tastes how you want it to. The lemon zest is going to develop and intensify as it melds with the other flavors, so don't go to crazy. Stir in one crumbled sheet of nori.

Divide the brown rice among four bowls. Ladle soup over the rice. Garnish with the remaining sheet of crumbled nori, the avocado, sesame seeds and scallions.