Serves 4-6
Preparation & Cook Time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
1. 1 pork rib bone or 1-2 chicken thighs (to make the stock)
2. 1 large potato sliced bite size
3. 1 carrot sliced thinly
4. 3 fresh shitake mushrooms cut in quarters
5. 1 bunch of enoki mushrooms (optional)
6. 1 leave Chinese cabbage cut into 2 inch pieces
7. 1 stalk spring onion sliced thinly
8. 2 cloves garlic minced
9. 1.5 litres of water
10. 1 TBS canola cooking oil
11. 1 TBS Japanese mirin (optional)
12. 1 TBS soya sauce
13. Salt & pepper to taste
14. A handful of goji berries (optional)
15. 2 Qing Gong herb (optional)
Directions:
1. Bring to boil 1.5 litres of water on high heat.
2. When water boils, add pork rib bones and simmer on low heat (no. 2.5 on my stove) for 30 minutes until the meat is cooked.
3. Heat canola oil on pan, fry garlic until golden.
4. Add carrots and fry for 1 minute.
5. Add potatoes, stir and coat it well with the oil.
6. Add shitake mushrooms and mix well.
7. Add enoki mushrooms by tearing them into smaller bunches and mix well.
8. Add 1 TBS mirin and cook down the alcohol for a couple of minutes.
9. Add soya sauce.
10. Add 1 ladle of the soup stock from the soup pot, let it sizzle and cook down.
11. Transfer to the soup pot.
12. Add Chinese cabbage and other desired green vegetables.
13. Add goji berries.
14. Scoop into bowl, garnish with spring onion and ready to serve :-)
Additional Information:
I love soup. It is autumn in Denmark, and I can't live without hearty hot soup. It keeps me warm and in good mood :-) I normally prepare the soup in the morning and have it during the rest of the day. Come dinner time, there will be a soup ready to go with dinner too :-)
Besides carrots and potatoes, you can also use any other root vegetables. Although this is a vegetable soup, pork or chicken is used to make the stock.
You can discard the pork bone that is used to make the stock, or you can eat the meat. The meat is actually quite tasty.
This is actually rather similar to the Japanese tongjiru soup. I love the way
Just One Cookbook present their soup recipes. Check it out, which I am going to try one day, but I could not find all the ingredients in Denmark:
Here are the main ingredients:
Bring to boil 1.5 litres of water on high heat. When water boils, add pork rib bones or chicken thighs and turn down heat to low (no. 2.5 on my stove)
Simmer on low heat for 30 minutes until the meat is cooked.
Add Qing Gong herb and continue to simmer. (Adding this herb gives the soup a nice aroma, but you can also do without)
Heat 1 TBS canola oil.
Fry garlic until golden.
Add carrots and fry until golden.
Add potatoes.
Coat and mix well.
Add shitake mushrooms and fry for a minute until cooked.
Add enoki mushrooms.
Add 1 TBS mirin, bring down heat to medium (as mirin tends to burn the food and give it that BBQ taste, but you don't want to over-burn the food) and stir for a couple of minutes to cook down the alcohol.
Add 1 TBS soya sauce and stir.
Add 1 ladle of the stock.
And let it sizzle and boil a little.
Transfer into the pot of soup.
You can drink the soup now, if you do not wish to add any other vegetables.
Add Chinese cabbage.
Add another other vegetable, here it is another Chinese vegetable called Xiao Bai Cai.
Simmer and ready to drink.
At the end, you can add the goji berries. Goji berries give the soup a tinge of sweetness and it is known to be nourishing for the eye-sight by the Chinese.
Now it's done.
Scoop into a bowl, garnish with spring onions and enjoy :-)
Useful soup links:
