Miso + lime spring noodle broth

Deep Spring and nightingales

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I’m writing this at my kitchen table and I can hear the birds in my small London garden. It's just rained so I think they are singing louder. I have no idea which birds they are. Maybe I’ll get an app. But to be honest, I don’t really mind not knowing, I just like to hear them.

I’m more attuned to the birds this week. On Sunday night, in deepest Sussex, I went to one of the nicest things. Something called Singing with Nightingales, where we spent the evening and well into the early hours in a woodland glen listening to birdsong and eating dinner (Panang curry since you asked). Then we listened to music and when it got properly dark, we walked deep into the forest to hear the nightingales sing while musicians played. It was a pretty incredible experience, in fact I might even use the word transcendent.

I know you are not here for my bird knowledge but it reminded me that when we listen or tune into something, we see it all around us. I’m hearing birds more this week. The same thing is true in food. There are flavours or ingredients that I lean right into after tasting them, or dishes I can’t stop making, a meal that makes me think differently about food. They are my culinary birdsong. It also reminded me that inspiration can come from anywhere. That birdsong can make me want to cook.

While I was walking through the woods it was abundantly clear we are in the most green and verdant part of the year, the smell of moss, the trees, the leaves that are eaten by caterpillars, and transformed into a green leaf shower you can see in the air. It was all SO green. Deep spring you might call it, in the way we call the apex of the cold deep winter. But deep spring is the other side of the coin, when everything is alive and colour and life are at their peak. What a lovely time. Aliveness.

I guess this noodle broth is my expression of deep spring in food. A bright broth which, thanks to ginger and lime, literally screams freshness. I suggest you should use a combination of all the spring vegetables you personally love. I have given some suggestions of what I personally love, but the idea here is you change it up to suit what you want to eat the most and what you have in your fridge. The lime miso broth makes everything sing.

A note on the miso. I have suggested White or Shiro miso here, its the lightest and to me sweetest and most buttery of all the misos. As with all miso it varies wildly in flavour, punch and saltiness. In fact even the same brand can vary a lot, testament to the fact that this is a living, fermented thing. So I would encourage you in any recipe which asks for miso to add it spoon by spoon until you have the depth of flavour you like. Also, adding it to the stock once you have taken it off the boil protects some of its beneficial fermented qualities and, I think, gives the best flavour.

I’ve made this a noodle soup with rice vermicelli, but udon, egg or soba noodles would all work too. You could also spoon cooked sushi rice or even basmati into the bottom of your bowls as I did with the leftover broth. I’ve used tofu here, the clean white colour and the blank canvas flavour let the veg and broth show off. But a runny yolked egg would work too. I’d boil an egg in water at a rolling boil for 6 minutes, then peel it and cut it in half and add to the hot bowl of soup.

Back for a moment to the nightingales. One of the sobering things we learnt in the woods was that there are around 5000 pairs of nightingales in the UK, roughly 90% less than there were 50 years ago. In as little as 20 years, they may be extinct. What an honour it was to hear them sing but to know that in my lifetime they may be gone was incredibly sobering and a reminder to us all to do all we can to protect their habitats and the world around us. I’ve written about the food side of how you can do this extensively, from wasting less to eating organic or regeneratively farmed food. All of our small collective changes add up, every single action we take makes a difference, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’ve recently (thanks to Sam from Singing with the Nightingales) come across this organisation and this which help you move the money you might have in your bank account to green banks which don’t invest in fossil fuels. Great idea.

Just for the record my Mum brought me a ticket to this (thanks Geraldine) and these thoughts and mentions are all my own.

And finally but most importantly - if you work in food please consider singing this petition - The UK food industry says NO to starvation as a weapon of war and this is also a very meaningful project if you can support.

The recipe is for paid subscribers this week. There are hundreds of other (free to read) spring recipes on my website though. If you’d like the recipe and to support my work with a subscription, you will have all my new recipes and endless gratitude. You can do that below.

Miso and lime spring noodle broth