Soulful Soup.

Living with my Japanese Mother-In-Law has its perks, kooky insights, impromptu language lessons, wisdom and advice. Occasionally there’s food, home-cooked, self styled, Japanese comfort food. Today was one of my favourites, rice soup. It’s not really congee, the rice still holds it’s form, but it has that warming, gentle character a subtlety that soothes the soul and nourishes the spirit.

Her soup is a bit of a mash up of what’s around, maybe some meat, maybe some fish whatever veges are lurking in the fridge, there are always veges. Today’s star was tofu. It breaks into the soup creating a creamy texture, perfect for slurping on this crisp winter morning. A constant companion is wakame, the friendliest of seaweed. It took me some time to “get” seaweed, and wakame was there guiding me along the way, revealing the flavour slowly but surely. It doesn’t have the brash boldness of hijiki, yet it confidently unlocks the door, giving you the code to understand the seaweed goodness that was so foreign to my western tastes.

I’ve tried to recreate this dish, but it’s never quite the same. Maybe the flavour is lost in translation, maybe it’s the kooky insights, wisdom and advice that makes my Mother In Law’s soup so right, so simple, so her own.