Fragrant Shiitake Lemongrass Miso Soup: A subtly layered bowl of soup that bids farewell to winter with shredded sweet spring carrots and earthy, toothsome shiitake mushrooms laced in a bowl of rich miso lemongrass broth. A 15 minute lunch or dinner that can be made more hearty with the addition of noodles or rice.
Friends eat soup. Together. They eat soup together while they sit on green velvet sofas. Slurp from large bowls of mushroom laden broth while they watch PBS mysteries like Cadfael. And pause the show to plan medieval knot gardens that they are sure they will one day plant in their own community garden plot. The community garden they sneak into at odd hours to avoid the hipster masses. The super cool gardeners who plant kalette’s and purple cauliflower because they’ve googled 10 Top Trendiest Vegetables to Plant This Year.
And finally we arrive back in the house, to the sofa, where we shared the soup. The birthday soup. The shiitake soup. And we make coffee. Just a half cup to share. Because we are old now. And coffee doesn’t agree with us. But the idea of coffee still does. And our half cup sits undrunk and content on the glass table while we watch another episode of Cadfael.
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A subtle, healthy and quick to make asian inspired soup rich with mushrooms, tofu and veggies in a lemongrass miso broth that can be made more hearty with the addition of noodles or rice.
- 6 cups vegetable broth
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 6 shitake mushrooms slice if large
- 1 inch knob of ginger sliced 1/4 inch thick
- 1 stalk lemongrass top discarded, sliced 1/4 inch thick
- 6 ounces tofu, soft or silken cubed
- 1/3 cup shredded zucchini
- 1/3 cup shredded carrots
- 1/4 cup frozen peas
- 1 tbsp red or white miso paste
- 2-4 tbsp cilantro leaves chopped
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Okay when I'm making this soup at home there are many other ingredients I would add if I had them on hand. Star anise added to the broth. Amazing. A squeeze of lime to finish the soup. Maybe a spoonful of rice wine vinegar. Plus a couple of dried chiles to the soup as it cooks. But that is just me. Mix it up! Do you have snow peas? Sliver them and toss em in. Same with carrots. Mint? Oh yes! Basil? Yes! Play around. This is your soup now.
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In a medium pot add all of the ingredients except the miso paste and cilantro. Heat to a boil and then turn down to a low simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes .
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Turn off the heat and stir in the miso paste and cilantro. Taste. Adjust the seasonings to your palate. If it is too rich or salty add hot water in 1/4 cup increments. If you want it richer add more broth or miso.
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Enjoy!
I’m so happy to have you back in my email box! This recipe
looks divine and perfect for some cold Florida weather we’re having.
Oh thank you sweetie, It’s been a crazy year. If you make it let me know how it goes.
First I googled kalette. Then I googled Cadfael. Thus edified, I was swept along with your imaginary gang of friends – the garden, the dog, the sofa, the coffee – and, at the Newport Creamery down the street from us, “L”, devotee of garlic and real-lifelong friend. You may recall (and may well have already inscribed somewhere in these pages) that our maternal grandmother was an early adopter of garlic when it first became available in Denmark. Fearful of overwhelming her family or dinner guests with the powerful, alien flavor, she would slice a clove in half and give the inside of her salad bowl a few swipes with it. That was it – the atomic clove itself was discarded. Some people couldn’t stomach the smell of even those few corpuscles of garlic juice that their lettuce had grazed. Tastes evolve (thankfully) and I venture to say that garlic in some form lurks in most Danish pantries today.
Cadfael mysteries are the perfect antidote to aging. Watch one episode each year with asian soup and undrunk coffee. Delicate danish palates. I had forgotten that story. Perhaps I never knew it. She was always a pioneer and rule breaker. Remember going to the zoo in Copenhagen when we were kids? We ordered spaghetti and sauce and were disgusted that it arrived as a plate of pasta with a thick flavorless seemingly tomato, garlic and herb free bolognese. It was just hamburger meat.
I remember that sauce well. How lucky we were to have grown up in Rhode Island and to have dined countless times on Atwells Avenue, so we knew from pasta sauce! Another Scandinavian food story for your amusement, this one told to me by my (ex-)mother-in-law: One fine day, bell peppers appeared for the first time in the grocery store in this small city in northernmost Norway. They were withered, wrinkled, bordering on rotten. My x-m-i-l remarked to the grocer; “Are peppers SUPPOSED to look like this?” He replied: “Oh, that’s no problem. It’s what’s INSIDE the pepper that’s eaten!”