（日本語は後半にあります）
【English】
I am not a good at cooking; in fact, I find it rather tedious. Even so, in my role as the mother of the family, I have to prepare meals with some consideration for the health and nutritional balance of the family.
The last few days have been very cool, and the best thing to eat at this time of year is pork miso soup. I bought the ingredients and made a big pot full of it. Everyone in my family loves pork miso soup.
The first step in making pork miso soup is to make the dashi.
Dashi is a traditional Japanese soup stock used as a base for many dishes. It is made by simmering ingredients like kombu (kelp), katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes), or niboshi (small dried fish) in water. Dashi adds a rich umami flavor to soups, stews, and sauces, forming the foundation of many Japanese recipes.
For a long time, I used dashi-infused miso. It was a hassle to make my own dashi, and I didn't think the taste was that different from using dashi-infused miso... Then, a few months ago, I suddenly started to feel that miso soup made with dashi-infused miso was not good, or that the taste was too strong. Was it because of the chemical seasoning?
Since then, I started to buy miso that contains only soybeans, rice, and salt, and I use bonito flakes to make dashi. These days, I even like spending a little time making dashi with hana-katsuo (dried bonito flakes).
So far I have only used katsuobushi dashi, but I would like to try niboshi dashi and kombu dashi next time🙂
【Japanese】
私は料理は得意ではなく、面倒で仕方がないという人間ですが、それでも一家のお母ちゃんという役割上、多少は家族の健康•栄養バランスを考えて食事を用意しなければならない。。という意識は持っています。一応。
ここ数日はとても涼しく、この時期に美味しいのが豚汁です。材料を買ってきて、大鍋にいっぱい作りました。家族も皆、豚汁が大好きです。
私はずっと、味噌はだし入り味噌を使っていました。自分でだしをとるのが面倒だったし、そこに手間をかけたところでだし入り味噌とそれほど味が違うとは思えなかったので・・・ それが数ヶ月前に突然、だし入り味噌で作った味噌汁が美味しくないというか、味が強過ぎると感じるようになりました。化学調味料のせいなのかな・・・
それ以来、味噌は大豆・米・塩だけが原材料のものを買うようになり、鰹節でだしをとっています。最近では、花かつおでだしをとる時間がちょっと好きなくらいです。
今のところ鰹節だしだけですが、今度煮干しだし、昆布だしも試してみたいと思っています。