The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

C.S. Lewis

CATEGORY	CUISINE	TAG	YIELD
Eggs, Meats	Japanese	Eggs, Soups & ste, Japanese	4	Servings

INGREDIENTS

5	c	Dashi; (or light chicken or beef stock)
1	ts	Salt
1/2	ts	Light soy sauce
		Splash sake'
2	ts	Cornstarch mixed w/ 2 T. water
2	lg	Eggs; beaten
1/2	ts	Fresh ginger juice OR
		Finely chopped lemon rind or green onion
4		Stalks trefoil (mitsuba) *OR SUBSTITUTE following; cut into 1" lengths
1		Sprig either watercress or parboiled fresh; spinach

INSTRUCTIONS

To assemble and serve: Bring the dashi just to a boil over high heat, then
simmer while seasoning to taste with the salt, soy sauce, and sak.. Reduce
heat to low.
With the heat on low, stir in the cornstarch-and-water mixture. Stir for 30
seconds or so till thick and smooth and raise heat to bring the soup to a
high simmer. Never let it boil.
Slowly pour a thin stream of beaten egg in a spiral over the entire surface
of the soup. Do not stir immediately, but let the egg start to set, about
30 seconds to 1 minute. Stir soup gently and constantly with a wire whisk
for another minute or so to allow the egg to separate into threadlike
filaments.
Finally, add the ginger juice and trefoil and remove from heat immediately.
Pour into individual soup bowls, garnishing each with a bit of trefoil from
the soup. Serve immediately.
Variation: Use 1/2 cake tofu (bean curd), cut into 1/2-inch cubes. Add
after the egg and let simmer till heated (about 30 seconds) before adding
the ginger juice and trefoil.
NOTES : Trefoil is a member of the parsley family. It is an annual herb
that has thin greenish-white stalks approximately 6 to 7 inches long,
topped with a comopund leaf of three flat, deeply cut leaflets. Depending
on the variety, the leaves range in color and size from pale to bright
green and from small to rather full. It has a flavor somewhere between
sorrel and celery and an attractive light green color, mitsuba is used in
many Japanese dishes as a flavor and color accent. Used only fresh, it is
often lightly parboiled beforehand to rid it of any "parsleyish" overtones.
Also, professional cooks usually use only the stems because leaves and
stems have different cooking times, but it is not necessary to be so fussy.
The leaves become bitter if overcooked, so only lightly parboil or very
gently stirfry.(Request more info if desired. I ran out of room here. I
didn't know MC had a size limit!)
Recipe by: Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art pg. 346
Posted to recipelu-digest Volume 01 Number 536 by "Valerie Whittle"
<catspaw@inetnow.net> on Jan 15, 1998

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