I have a kitchen!!!!! Well, almost. Pretty much. Good enough to cook with anyhow. The range is in, level, and hooked up to gas and power. Countertops are in, sink and faucet are in. What is left? A window to be replaced, the dishwasher and fridge still need to go in. We are rather looking forward to the fridge actually, right now we are kinda pikey with the old fridge in our dining room.

I have been looking forward to cooking on this range for some time. The range is a 30″ Bluestar RNB, and really is my dream range. Our contractor (Dan) calls it the “man range”, and you can kinda see why. It is pretty darn industrial looking, kicks out a ton of heat, and looks blokey.

He asked me the other day what was the menu I had planned for when I could cook in the kitchen again, and I actually didn’t have an answer for him. That obviously got me thinking, but the dish I came up with wasn’t a seafood miso soup….

We got back from our Christmas in California yesterday to find the kitchen almost done. We kinda ate like crap in CA. It wasn’t for want or trying. It just seemed like the areas we stayed in were really limited in food choices, unless you wanted to spend a ton of cash (and the kind of places that wouldn’t have been good with a kid). We were in the LA area (well, Orange County and LA), but more the burbs. It is funny, LA has an amazing food scene, some of the best on the West Coast. We just didn’t experience any of it to be honest. The thing that struck me first off was just the huge amount of chain restaurants that were everywhere. You drive down any road, and it was strip mall after strip mall of fast food, and just plain bad food.

The better places are in and around Santa Monica, and we weren’t out that way unfortunately. So we ended up not eating as well as we would have liked. We cooked one night for all the relatives, and that was decent enough (except we were 20 miles away from any kind of organic grocery store), and some friends cooked good food too.. it was just eating out was really bad.

One “seafood” place decided the best way to cook snapper was to pretty much drown it in hot butter. Ewww.

So, to make a long story longer, when we got back we were hankering after clean, simple food that was basic and unprocessed.

I had the idea for a seafood miso soup a while back, and figured that this would be the perfect time to try it out. A bunch of seafood in a light miso broth sounded bloody perfect after the amount of processed food we had eaten in CA.

So a quick jaunt down to Mutual Fish was in order. I love these guys. Awesome seafood selection, really knowledgeable staff that are super helpful, and really competitive prices. Anyhow, most readers of this blog know that Mutual is my favorite place to get fish in Seattle.

So here it is. This was perfect for our first night back home cooking, light and simple, bursting with clean flavor, and a ton of really fresh seafood. A complete joy.

Seafood Miso Soup

(you can use any selection of shellfish that you wish, I just decided to go overboard with this one!)

1lb (ish) of shellfish. I used scallops, gulf prawns, Penn Cove mussels, manila clams

1 baby bok choy

Sake (quite a bit..)

1 bundle of dried Udon Noodles

4 cups of water

2 tablespoons of Bonito fish flakes

thumb sized piece of dried wakame seaweed

2 tablespoons of miso paste

small hanfull of fresh cliantro

3 green onions (scallions)

Start by soaking the seaweed in the 4 cups of water in a saucepan for at least 5 minutes.

If you are using mussels, scrub and de-beard them (pull off the “beard” of the mussel - the grassy looking stalk that sticks into slit of the shell that the mussel uses to attach to things). Scrub the clams. You want to try and remove all the crud from the outside of the shells. If any of the mussels or clams are open (and don’t shut if you tap them), or the shells are broken discard them.

Remove any tough outer leaves of the bok choy. Break off each individual leaf.

Slice the white sections of the green onions to about 1/2″ thick. Slice the green sections really finely - as thin as you can. Keep the chopped white and green sections separated.

Once the seaweed has soaked for a bit, bring the pan of water to the boil. When it is boiling remove the seaweed, and throw in the fish flakes. Boil this for a few minutes, then turn the heat down. When the flakes sink to the bottom, strain them out of the liquid (discard, but keep the liquid). Put the liquid back in the saucepan.

In a large saute pan (that you have a lid for) throw in the white sections of the green onions. When they start to sound like they are cooking pour in about half a cup of sake. Let this reduce down a bit, then put in all the seafood and the bok choy. Cover, and let this cook for about 5 minutes, until the mussels and clams have opened.

If your pan isn’t large enough to cook all the seafood at once, do it in two batches - cooking the shrimp and scallops together first, then cooking the clams and mussels. Put the cooked shrimp and scallops on a plate, and cover with foil to keep warm whilst cooking the mussels and clams. This is what I had to do - most of my pans are still packed away.

Whilst the seafood is cooking, bring the fish broth water back to the boil, and add the miso paste. Stir to combine, and break up the large chunks. Throw in the udon noodles, and let them cook in the miso soup (boiling) for about 4 minutes (or however long your udon take to cook).

Remove the noodles from the broth, and divide between two bowls. Put the seafood and bok choy on top. Scatter the finely chopped green sections of the scallions over. Do the same with the cilantro leaves. Finely pour over the miso broth until each bowl is almost full.

Drink some sake and get stuck in.

Oh, cooking the seafood in sake is great - it gives a delicate sweet taste to the shellfish, and lends itself well to the lightness of this dish. In a pinch you could use white wine, but lets face it, this is a Japanese dish so the results won’t be as balanced as if you use sake.

And finally.. My bloody camera battery died on me, so I was only able to get photos of the seafood cooking. Darn. It looked amazing in a bowl too. Bugger.