Category:
Soup

Bamboo Stew

Ingredients:

turmeric root
ginger root
habañero or
Scotch Bonnet capsicums
cinnamon
rice vinegar
malt sugar or treacle
dried mushrooms
carrots
bamboo shoots
bok choy
moong bean sprouts
sesame oil

Crush in a mortar or food processor, or chop into very fine dice by hand a fingertip-sized knob of turmeric root, a knob of ginger root twice as large, two big cloves of garlic, and two small habañero or Scotch Bonnet capsicums, without their seeds. Add a quarter teaspoon of ground cinnamon bark, a tablespoon of rice vinegar, a tablespoon of malt sugar or treacle, and a quarter teaspoon of salt. Put this mixture into two liters of boiling water and simmer it for ten minutes. Set to soak a handful of dried Lentinus edoides, the 'black' mushroom, or 'shi-itake.' When they have completely re-hydrated themselves, discard the stems and slice the caps. Add these and the water they soaked in to the saucepan. Keep the temperature to an agitated simmer. Scrub a couple of nice carrots, and cut them according to the three-quarter roll method,* so that each slice has a similar asymmetrical mass. Rinse four hundred grams (or thereabouts, one large, two small) of bamboo shoots, and cut them into match stick juliènne. Put the carrots and shoots in to simmer with suitable ceremony. Five minutes later, add the stems from a small head of bok choy, cut into spoon-sized pieces; five minutes later add the leaves, shredded. Five minutes after that, add half a kilogram of well rinsed moong bean sprouts. Cook for two minutes. Adjust the seasoning, sprinkle a few drops of sesame oil over and serve with steamed bread on the side. As an optional addition to the soup, cubes of bean-curd can be added a few moments before the finish.

Notes:

This soup is warming to the insides of a cold sufferer. Recent research on chicken soup showed that the cooked vegetables also had a very large part to play in the soothing value attributed to it. Apparently it inhibits the migration of neutrophils to the affected site.
* Roll Cut A method of cutting vegetables of irregular shapes into evenly sized pieces. It works particularly well on carrots and parsnips. Cut a piece from one end the shape of an axe head. Roll the vegetable three quarters of a turn on the cutting board and slice off another piece of equal mass. Roll and cut until you're done.

Recipe Index

More Soups:

 Roast Garlic Soup  | Mosaic Soup |  Collards and Lentils |  Bitter Chiffonade | Barley and Lentil Cottage Pottage | Carrot and Ginger Soup | Souped Up |