Man it’s been chilly here in Marin, and all over the SF bay area. Low 40s at night, Jesus! So I needed something with a little body-heating firepower, and came up with this easy and pretty healthy soup.
Chop a big onion, a big carrot, and a big knob of ginger, and saute in plenty of olive oil and butter, along with some umami blasts: shiitake powder and dried tomato powder. Add wild rice and beans (quantities don’t really matter, but I keep them on the modest side) and spices (ground star anise, coriander, black peppercorns), and add stock, water, or a combo of each (I used chicken stock), plus a small hit of fish sauce, soy sauce, and Bragg’s Amino Acids. Bring to a boil and let simmer, covered, for a good hour, or until the beans are soft, then add a large bunch of trimmed kale, and cook for another 15 minutes or so. Taste for salt — it shouldn’t require too much, thanks to the fish sauce and soy sauce, but you will need some; I finished this pot off with some buddha’s hand salt.
Soups like this are really low-effort, and high-payoff. Freezes well too, if you can’t polish off the entire pot in two days.
But enough of this cold already — I’m ready for some scorching summer!
I make a soup a lot like this one but I also use celery. I saute the carrots, onions and celery until the onionis translucent and then the rest of my recipe is much like yours. I also usually give it a shot of Siriachi sauce.
Hey Eric, just found your The Breakaway Cook book on Amazon and it arrived today. Looks like lots of great stuff. I've just mixed up some lavender salt (with lavender from the garden) and some smoked paprika salt. My contribution to the dinner tonight a neighbor is cooking.
I'm bringing those and some fresh radishes from the garden. He's making some chicken kebobs so I think the paprika salt will be fun on those.
What a great combination of flavors!
I'm sure you were a hit with those salts, Ellen — were people surprised? And thanks zesty!
[...] adapted this recipe to create the end result — brown rice rather than wild, tofu instead of white beans, etc., [...]