When made into a broth, it was an easy meal for the samurais to eat every day. Today, with the popularity of miso soup and miso paste, the dish is a part of most every traditional Japanese meal.

add delicious umami flavours to endless marinades and, of course, it's the hero ingredient in the world-renowned miso soup.

A bowl of miso can be a labour of love or a convenient pick-me-up. Making miso soup from scratch is one of those things I'd always meant to do but never quite got around to. There’s a certain ...

Making myself exactly what I want to eat, exactly the way I like it ... Ali Slagle’s miso-Parmesan noodle soup for one is, as the miso and Parmesan would suggest, full of savory umami flavors.

The steam of miso soup comforts me at this time of year. I received my miso from my friend Masami Horie in Shiga Prefecture, who owns a cafe in a 350-year-old house and also publishes good books.