A few people have asked me how to make this soup, and while I don't often use recipes myself, I do want to help people be more healthy and this is a VERY healthy soup. If you're looking for exact measurements of everything, well, sorry but that's just not my style! I will try to explain how much I generally use of everything though.
What is Kenchinjiru?
Kenchinjiru, also known as Kenjinjiru, is a Japanese soup that came from Shōjin Ryori (Buddhist cuisine), which unlike most other traditional Japanese food, is vegetarian/vegan. The name is derived from the Zen Buddhist temple Kencho-ji (建長寺), in Kamakura (鎌倉市).
If you ever go to Japan, definitely check out Kamakura for the beautiful temples, shops selling traditional Japanese goods, lots of tasty Shōjin Ryori and Japanese sweets. It's a very popular tourist spot, for Japanese and foreigners alike, because it's quite close to Tokyo, there are many temples, shrines and monuments and it's not difficult to walk to most of them. It's a place with a lot of history and if you stick to the tour maps you can almost feel like you stepped back in time, because certain areas are quite free of modern buildings and the traditional structures are so well maintained in Japan. Kamakura also has beaches, so if you go there in the summer, that may be a good or bad thing depending on how much you like beaches and if you can tolerate crowds well.
Kenchinjiru, also known as Kenjinjiru, is a Japanese soup that came from Shōjin Ryori (Buddhist cuisine), which unlike most other traditional Japanese food, is vegetarian/vegan. The name is derived from the Zen Buddhist temple Kencho-ji (建長寺), in Kamakura (鎌倉市).
If you ever go to Japan, definitely check out Kamakura for the beautiful temples, shops selling traditional Japanese goods, lots of tasty Shōjin Ryori and Japanese sweets. It's a very popular tourist spot, for Japanese and foreigners alike, because it's quite close to Tokyo, there are many temples, shrines and monuments and it's not difficult to walk to most of them. It's a place with a lot of history and if you stick to the tour maps you can almost feel like you stepped back in time, because certain areas are quite free of modern buildings and the traditional structures are so well maintained in Japan. Kamakura also has beaches, so if you go there in the summer, that may be a good or bad thing depending on how much you like beaches and if you can tolerate crowds well.
Getting back to the soup, it is usually made with some other ingredients that I can't get here, such as gobo (burdock root), satoimo (taro root), and konyakku (konjac). If you can get these, I suggest looking for a more authentic recipe than this one! My way is definitely not traditional. I don't miss the other ingredients but they certainly do add more depth of flavor & texture, so you should try to add them if you can. You can also try adding any other root vegetables that you like, but I would try the recipe first! This recipe usually includes sake, but I have always made it without sake and like it just fine, so I'm not going to buy sake just for this one dish. I add miso, which is not normally in this soup, but I add it for the probiotic value. Maybe all these changes would make this soup totally unrecognizable to a Japanese person, I really don't know. This is the best I can do with what I have available and I still love it!
