Gingery Cockle and Carrot Miso Soup

Gingery Cockle and Carrot Miso Soup

After the magical madness of NYE, I'm suffering a cold and this is what I want. A seasonal quick soul warming miso soup that really feels like it's doing me good. Originally as the recipe says I used instant miso but you could of course just use a miso paste.

500 g cockles or clams in their shell

8 cm piece fresh ginger

2 carrots

3 spring onions

6 sachets instant miso soup

Scrub the cockles or clams, throwing away any that are broken or those that are stay open when tapped and leave to soak in cold water for ½ an hour to clear some of their sand or grit.

Peel the ginger, chop it roughly then squeeze through a garlic press into the soup. Peel and slice the carrot very thinly. Chop the spring onion.

Pour the water (this will vary from each packet but about 1200 ml will be about right) into a large pan and add the ginger, bring to a boil, drain and rinse the clams and add them to the pan with the sliced carrot.

Bring back to aboil, cover and cook for about 2 minutes, then check to see if the clams are all open, discard any that refuse. Drain the clams through a colander into another pan. Add the instant miso to the liquid and stir to dissolve. (Don’t boil the miso as this destroys the miso flavour) Return the clams and stir in the spring onion. Remove from heat and serve immediately.

From archive of my Cheat's Dinner Party column Stella Magazine first published 6th January 2008