Biitsu to ninjin no akadashi / red miso soup with beets and carrots

Butter-sauteed carrots are paired with baked beets for red miso soup, creating a deep melody of flavors. When carrot slices are lightly cooked and allowed to retain their crispness, the taste of the two vegetables is more clearly noticed. When carrot slices are cooked until very tender and beets are cooked a bit longer, the two vegetables mingle together in the soup and produce a complex taste, although cooking beet chunks longer makes beets themselves lighter in color while the soup becomes darker. Below, beet chunks are added toward the end of the cooking process to retain their vivid color, but cooking them longer is well worth trying. This soup may not be a typical Japanese dish but does go well with any Japanese or other Asian food.

1/2 of recipe:
66 calories; 2.8 g protein; 1.3 g fat; 11.6 g carbohydrate; 8.5 g net carbs; 296 mg sodium; 2 mg cholesterol; 3.1 g fiber


<Ingredients>

2 mini, 1 small or 1/2 medium (approx 60-70 g) carrots (67 g in photo)
1 medium or 2 small baked beets (1 oblong beet, 148 g baked)
Tiny handful seri water dropwort (1.5 g in photo)
2 g unsalted butter
250 cc dashi
1/2 tsp sakekasu sake lees
2 tsp red miso

<Directions>
1.

Slice carrots.
(If green garnish is large or long, chop.)

2.

Melt butter in pot, and saute carrots on medium low heat for a few minutes.

Put sakekasu, pour part of dashi (just enough to cover carrot slices), cover, and cook until carrots soften to desired degree.

If sakekasu is still visible, break apart to dissolve.

3.

Meanwhile, soften miso paste with some of remaining dashi.

4.

Skin and cut beet (optional; can be directly cut and put into pot later).

5.

Pour remaining dashi into pot and heat through.

When dashi is hot, add beet chunks, and heat through.

6.

Add miso, and mix well. 

Turn off heat or remove from heat before soup starts to bubble.

7.

Serve in individual bowls, and top with green garnish.

<Notes>

• Instead of butter, any oil of your choice should work fine. Only a small amount (1/3 tsp or less) is enough to bring out the sweetness of carrot slices.
  
• Beets are baked in foil (after rinsing, wrap in foil without drying) for 50 minutes at 400F/200C. Insert skewer if unsure of tenderness.
• For green garnish, any baby leafy greens or sprouts (such as kaiware daikon) would be nice.
• The red miso (haccho miso) I used above contains 220 mg sodium per teaspoon.