Cooking experiment: miso soup

So on a whim today I decided to try to make myself some miso soup. I've never attempted any Asian cuisine before, but I happened to stumble upon an episode of Good Eats teaching how to make it. Normally I despise soy for being tasteless squashy muck, but this is one of the few tofu dishes I actively enjoy. I also thought it might be good for me to add a cheap and nutritious protein dish into my So, just for the hell of it, I thought I'd give it a try. I used Alton Brown's recipe, included here for your reference in case you know anything about this:



Ingredients
12-ounce block firm silken tofu
2 quarts dashi
6 tablespoons dark or red miso
2 tablespoons light or white miso
4 scallions, thinly sliced
Directions
Wrap the block of tofu in 2 layers of paper towels and lay on a plate. Invert a second plate on top of the tofu and weigh down with a 28-ounce can. Leave for 20 minutes then cut the tofu into 1/4 to 1/2-inch cubes.



Heat the dashi in a 4-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. When the dashi reaches 100 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer, ladle 1 cup into a small bowl. Add the miso, and whisk until smooth.



Bring the remaining dashi to a bare simmer, approximately 10 minutes. Add the miso mixture and whisk to combine. Return to a slight simmer, being careful not to boil the mixture. Add the tofu and scallions and cook for another minute or until heated through. Remove from the heat, ladle into soup bowls and serve immediately.

For these unusual ingredients, I went to the little Asian market off to one side of Waltham Commons. I ran into two small issues right away. First I was unable to identify anything that might have been white miso. I found red miso easily enough, and the white very well may have been there, but there were very few English words on any of the labels and I couldn't see anything that indicated another kind. Second, the recipe called for "dashi," a stock made from treated dried tuna and seaweed, and the store only had dried powdered dashi that had to be combined with water. The assembly of all the ingredients was easy enough, though with my big spoon I was starting to long for the spoon rest that Charlotte said she would make for me at camp. Don't forget, honey, I'm really looking forward to it! As for the soup, I was worried about keeping it at the right temperature, and when I tasted the miso on its own I didn't like it. I started to worry it would come out yucky.

Well, I finished it and tried it and the verdict is... huh. It's kind of bland. Certainly not yucky, but there's not much flavor here. Heh, given that it's primary made of bean curd mush, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. But the miso I'm used to is a lot richer. I wonder whether it's because the dashi powder didn't make the stock strong enough, or if it's the lack of white miso, though I think that's supposed to be milder in flavor than red. Since this is an experiment anyway, I tried throwing in some extra dashi powder to see if that helps. If it ruins it, what the hell, it was an experiment anyway. If anyone who makes miso soup regularly wants to give an opinion, I'd welcome the suggestion for improvement.