So Desmond and I kicked off our first Father's Day weekend with a cold. This, of course, calls for Magic Soup. There is no picture because this is not a pretty dish. It is not meant for company. To be honest, it's not even meant to taste good, but it will make you feel better. And if you eat it at the very first signs of getting sick with your vitamin C and zinc and echinacea, you're not going to get it. I know that is a powerful statement, but it is a powerful soup.
Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic
1 inch hunk of ginger
1 fresh chili
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
2 dried shitaake mushrooms
2 Tbsp. white miso paste
Dash of tamari
Juice of 1 lemon or lime
2 c. water
1 block extra firm tofu
1 small (about an inch in diameter) bundle soba noodles, broken into bite size pieces and cooked
Directions:
Put the water in a pot over medium heat with the mushrooms.
Mince garlic, ginger, and chili. Squish them into a paste with the salt and sugar in a mortar and pestle if you're feeling earthy, or in a blender with a little bit of the water if you're not. Or, if you're making a big batch of broth to freeze in ice cube trays to have on hand when you're sick and don't feel like making yourself soup, then a blender is good for this case too.
Stir the garlic-ginger-chili paste into the pot. Add the tofu. Let this mixture simmer for about 10 minutes.
Remove from the heat and stir in the miso and lemon juice. Add cooked noodles. Fish out the mushrooms, slice them up, and return them to the pan.
Eat it while it's hot.
Now, I should note this "recipe" is comprised of approximations. This soup changes a bit whenever I need it. If I'm not feeling well, I'm not going to the store for fresh chilis, for example. If I don't have them, I use dried chili flakes. Sometimes the soup has mushrooms, sometimes it has noodles. Sometimes it doesn't, but it always has the garlic, ginger, spicy, miso, and tofu. From there, play with it until it's palatable. Also, if I really don't feel good, I skip the paste step, just chopping that stuff coarsely, letting it simmer in the broth, and then straining it. Or in more dire cases, simply eating around the pungent chunks.
Anyway, I won't say, enjoy, because if you're following this recipe then I assume you're not feeling well. So, rest up and eat your soup.
