Hondo Miso doesn’t just make traditional things, a real shinise is said to develop with the times. Honda Miso now offers an ‘instant’ type miso soup that is quick and easy to make and does have the refined taste of Kyoto. It is called Ichi Wan, which literally means ‘one bowl’, because it makes just one serving of miso soup. I don’t usually go for instant foods but this looked like it could be a winner and it is from Honda Miso so I gave it a try.

Ichiwan Miso Soup Package

Honda Miso Ichiwan Miso Soup 本田味噌本店 一わんみそ汁 油揚げ
Honda Miso’ Ichiwan Miso Soup comes in three flavors and I chose abura age which means deep fried tofu. The shell looks like monaka as in this article but it is made from fu, which is wheat gluten. Inside is Kyoto-style sweet white miso, abura age and daikon radish, these ingredients are freeze dried and reconstitute immediately upon application of hot water.

Fu is a common ingredient in Kyoto cuisine and was popularized by Buddhist monks in centuries past.

How To Make Ichiwan Miso
1. Unwrap
2. Break apart dried wheat gluten ‘fu’ shell
3. Pour on hot water
4. Allow to reconstitute (I waited about 1 minute)
5. Stir a bit and enjoy

Ichiwan Miso Soup Unwrapped - Perhaps a Bit Bland to the Eye and Senses

Ichiwan Miso Soup Broken Apart in the Bowl

Ichiwan Miso Soup Served

Ichiwan Miso Soup - Fu, Daikon and Agedofu

How did it taste?
The taste is the classic Kyoto-style sweet miso soup but I was struck by the variety of textures. The fu is very soft and gooey, the abura age is spongy and chewy and the daikon slivers are quite crunchy and chewy. I was really impressed with the taste and especially the textures. In addition to being quick and convenient, it was fun to make and eat!

My only criticism, as someone that has designed and developed a few products is that after the shell is broken apart and reconstituted, the shapes of the chunks of fu are unpleasant to the eye. This wouldn’t pass muster as Kyoto-style. I removed a few particularly uneven shaped and large pieces of fu before I took the photos above. Sorry, I cheated. I think that what they need to do is to score or perforate the fu somehow so that it breaks into more regular or square shaped pieces. That would make it ‘Kyoto’ and that would be quite a feat for instant soup but with a little Japanese kaizen, I am sure they can perfect the design!

Honda Miso Honten Retail Store (本田味噌本店)

This is the entrance to Honda Miso, it is about a 3 minute walk from the Imperial Palace.

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Map to Honda Miso Honten

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Itadakimono: A few days ago I was given a large bunch of karami daikon by Iron Chef Defeater, Yoshimi Tanigawa, the owner and chef of Kichisen. Karami daikon is generally quite small and is grated and eaten with soba noodles. It is hot and bitter, a little goes a long way.

Karami literally means ‘hot taste’ in Japanese. Karami daikon is hot like wasabi or horse radish, not spicy hot like chili pepper.

Grated Karami Daikon on Soba

Karami daikon can usually be found in higher-end grocery stores but it is rather rare. I don’t think I have ever seen it in a reasonably priced soba restaurant. I have only had it at a monthly soba making gathering of fellow soba connoisseurs and at Kichisen.

Wasabi is commonly served with soba but I prefer karami daikon as daikon seems more suited to soba and dashi to me.

Karami daikon is simply grated and a small bit is placed on top of the soba, usually with chopped scallions. Grated daikon, very commonly served with grilled fish in Japan, has a good deal of water content, karami daikon has very little, after grating, no water gathers at the bottom of the plate or bowl, as happens with daikon.

If you cannot get karami daikon but want to try something similar, the very top of a regular daikon, the ‘neck’, especially if it is green can be quite hot and bitter. (Not always though.) Just grate that and squeeze out the water content.

Karami Daikon

Karami daikon comes in several sizes, all small, these were the smallest that I have seen, they were about the size of a ping pong ball.

Fresh and Peeled Karami Daikon

Peeled Karami Daikon Radishes – Detail

I peeled mine before grating, but some people simply wash it and grate. Unpeeled is said to be hotter. The hot ‘karami’ will lessen with time, so it should be grated right before eating. You can grate it while the soba boils.

Karami Daikon and Scallions

Peeled Karami Daikon

Grated Karami Daikon

Notice there is little water content in karami daikon.

Fresh ‘Nama’ Soba

‘Nama’ means fresh, or raw in Japanese. This type of high quality, undried soba can be found in most grocery stores and is worth paying an extra 100 yen or so for. This soba is quite thick, country-style rather than Kyoto-style.

Grated Karami Daikon and Chopped Scallions on Soba – Served

This amount is actually quite a bit. Don’t start out with too much, you can always add more. You want to be sure to stir it into the dashi well before eating, however, mixing too much is not cool in Japanese culinary culture.

Grated Karami Daikon and Chopped Scallions on Soba – Detail

Allyl isothiocyanate is the compound that makes karami daikon (raphanus sativum), hot, hot, hot!

Kitazawa Seed Company sells karami daikon seeds online, you could grow them yourself!

Buri-zanmai Series (Part 2): Winter is the time for buri, or yellowtail. The meat is laden with oil and rich flavor. Here we make a classic, Buri Daikon.

Buri-daikon is a much loved winter dish in Japan. It combines chopped yellowtail (buri) heads with daikon radish and ginger, slowly simmered in water, sugar, sake and shoyu. Simmering the buri heads produces an unbelievably gelatinous saucy dashi. Everything is covered in this delectable sauce and the chunks of slow simmered buri meat that is teased away from the bone is creamy soft and sweet and the daikon is impregnated through-and-through with buri-dashi.

About Buri-daikon
Actually, this dish isn’t gross. There is lots of meat in there and it is very tender and tasty. It is a lot of fun to make, serve and eat. This dish could be the life of a foodie dinner party. If you can obtain buri head and yuzu, definitely give this dish a try. This dish might change how you think about food.

Buri-no-ara (chunks of yellowtail head), like tai-no-ara (chunks of red snapper head) is popular among Japanese for simmering in sweetened sake-shoyu broth. We procure ours down at Nishiki Market. Hon-buri (wild yellowtail) is the real deal.

The density and rich taste of the gelatin produced from the fish heads is astounding.

This is a classic Japanese dish, a few seasonal and fresh ingredients are combined in a novel way producing a juxtaposition of flavors for not just the palette, but the eyes too. Even the mind!

You’ve got to try this dish!

Ingredients:

• buri (yellowtail) heads chopped into large chunks. About two heads, one head should yield 6 to 8 chunks. (Similar large fish head may be substituted. Salmon will work too. Consult your fish monger.)
• daikon radish (big one)
• shoga (ginger)
• sugar 3 tablespoons
• sake 1 cup
• mirin 3 tablespoons
• shoyu (soy sauce) 1/2 – 3/4 cup
• yuzu

＊As with all home cooking recipes here on KyotoFoodie, we trust that our readers are fellow foodies and will be able to ‘wing’ the recipe and even alter and improve it.

Preparation:
Buri: If you cannot obtain buri-no-ara you can easily chop the some yellowtail heads yourself, or better yet, ask your fish monger to do it for you. It does take a great, big knife! ＊BE CAREFUL!!＊

Scald: Take the chunks and give them a good rinsing down in a colander then pour on a large pot of boiled water. In Japan, where fish is usually extremely fresh, buri-no-ara sometimes isn’t quite as fresh, so this scalding washes away any yucky bits and fishiness.

Veggies: This is all going to be simmered for an hour or so, at least. So the daikon and ginger have to hold up to a lot of cooking, so chop the pieces accordingly. The ginger should be about 5mm thick and the daikon about 3cm.

Simmer: Places the scalded buri-no-ara chunks, daikon slices and chopped ginger in a large pot, cover with water and begin to heat. Bring to a brisk boil and after 15 minutes reduce to simmer and add sugar, mirin and sake.

Cover and gently simmer for about 45 minutes. If you have a otoshibuta (wooden cover/weight) as seen in the photo below, place that over the ingredients to keep them covered in the soup.

Add the shoyu. Shoyu varies in strength and thickness. Adjust amount accordingly and to your taste.

After adding shoyu, cook for approximately 15 minutes more. Test daikon to be sure that it is cooked thoroughly. This can be done by piercing with a chopstick or slicing open with a knife.

Again, you are all foodies, so cook according to your taste and judgment.

Note: ‘Modern vs. Traditional’
Peko says that Japanese cook vegetables ‘to death’ and thinks that in this recipe the center half of daikon chunks should be cook thoroughly, but not yet be impregnated with dashi. The outer half is well steeped in shoyu-based dashi (brown), yet the center is still ‘daikon‘ (white). Paku now says that she agrees that this is also really good, but she had to be convinced. Japanese love daikon to have completely absorbed the dashi stock, like a sponge. Daikon also releases it’s own juices that further flavor dashi. The more you cook, the more daikon flavor into the dashi. You decide and tell us what you think!

Serving: Another Dilema Cold or Hot?
Like any stewed dish, buri-daikon tastes even better the next day. You may want to make this dish the day before you are going to serve it.

Buri-daikon can be served cold or hot. At about room temperature though the dashi-sauce ‘melts’ loosing it’s wonderful gelatinous quality. Served hot or warm, the dashi is a wonderful soup. Served a bit cold, or just below room temperature, it is thick and jelly-like. We both like the thick gelatinous quality of the dashi-sauce, but if it is served too cold, the full flavor of the fish doesn’t come out. Kyoto houses are cold and we are on celicius here, but in the US probably about 55-60° F might be about right.
This recipe yields leftovers so you can surely try both.

When we have cooked this dish for guests, we prepare it the day before and let it sit in a unheated room in the house until about an hour or two before serving. Then, bring it into the kitchen to take the chill off. (Don’t set it on the stove though if you are cooking other dishes as the radiant heat may completely melt the dashi.)

Add the yuzu peel and serve (see photo below). Lemon zest is a fine substitute. Peko likes to add some yuzu peel to the broth AFTER it has cooled down and let it ‘stew’ with the ingredients then add some fresh peel to garnish when serving. Lemon peel is probably too bitter to add to the broth.

Enjoy!
Buri-no-ara (roughly chopped yellowtail heads)

Start with chopped yellowtail heads (buri-no-ara), we procure ours down at Nishiki Market. Hon-buri (wild yellowtail) is the real deal.

Step 1: Pour on Boiled Water

Pour boiled water over the buri-no-ara.

Step 1: Pour on Boiled Water

This step washes away the clots of blood and any other yucky stuff.

Step 2: Simmer

Place buri-no-ara in a large pot with water and add rough sliced ginger and hit the gas.

Step 2: Simmer

Peel and cut the daikon radish into large pieces.

Step 2: Simmer

After the buri has started to boil, reduce heat a bit and add the daikon radish.

Step 2: Simmer

After the daikon radish has begun to cook and soften-up add sugar.

Step 2: Simmer — The Wooden Cover Dilemma
Paku: “Need wooden cover to keep everything submerged in the broth.”
Peko: “Oh, come on! Just put the cover on the pot. It will cook down just fine. ”

Step 2: Simmer

Simmer 20 to 30 minutes. The water content of the daikon radish is drawn out and deepens and complexifies flavor for the broth.

Then, add the shoyu mixture (sorry, not photo from cooking process).

Step 3: Garnish and Serve

This is the gelatinous broth after cooling. It is jelly when cool.

Step 3: Garnish and Serve

If you can obtain yuzu, thinly slice the mildly flavored peel from the fruit.

＊Actually, this photo is bad reference. There is too much white pith remaining. Slice it in narrower strips and a bit thinner. Unlike lemon peel, yuzu peel is very mild. If well cooked, the full thickness of the peel is fine, however we like it sprinkled on after being removed from the heat, so it is about half cooked, so you might prefer more thinly sliced yuzu peel.

Step 3: Garnish and Serve

The dashi has melted in this picture due to the bright lights.

Step 4: Eat and Enjoy!

This is a dish probably most efficiently enjoyed with chopsticks (o-hashi). The tender bits of sweet buri meat are gently removed, bit-by-bit and enjoyed with well stewed chucks of daikon radish. The ginger chucks are well cooked and can be eaten too.

Step 4: Eat and Enjoy!

There is actually much more meat here than you might expect! And very tasty!

We didn’t eat the skin and did remove the eyes from the cooked buri before serving. Large fish eyes are highly nutritious and enjoyed by some, mostly older Japanese. Paku and Peko love Japanese food, and some of the more challenging dishes, but we think that we will never eat fish eyes.

The cartilage (even the lips) is melted away into the broth — hence the gelatin. Yum! Super yummy, actually!

What do you think, foodies? Gross?