This Month’s Easy to Cook Japanese Recipe is Tonjiru, which is a Japanese soup made with pork and vegetables, flavoured with miso.

This is one of my favourite Japanese soups along with Miso Soup. It contains mainly root vegetables and is a real comfort food.

Serves about 4 people.

Ingredients

• 200g pork fillets, thinly sliced
• 1/3 carrot, peeled and sliced
• 100g fresh or frozen gobo (burdock)
• 100g pumpkin, cut into wedges
• 100g daikon, peeled and sliced
• 4 cups dashi
• 3 shiitake mushrooms
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp light brown miso, mixed with 2 tbsp sake
• 1 small amount fresh ginger, finely sliced
• 1 spring onion stem
• shichimi (Japanese seven-spice)

Method

1. Prepare the pork, vegetables and garlic.
2. Heat a little vegetable oil in a saucepan, add pork and stir for a minute.
3. Add carrot, burdock, pumpkin, daikon, shiitake, dashi, and garlic while stirring.
4. Simmer for 30 minutes over a low heat.
5. Add miso and ginger and cook for another minute.
6. Serve in individual bowls, topped with spring onion. Sprinkle shichimi over the soup.

Note:

Other ingredients are also great in this soup like sweet potato, potato and konnyaku (Japanese yam potato)

Photo by: abozoの画像