Autumn Mushroom Soup
This is a lovely recipe from Japan that I’ve modified to include healthier ingredients. The combination of mushrooms and seaweed is good for balancing the higher intake of dietary fats in autumn that warm the body and kuzu balances the digestive tract and the intestines. It’s simple to make but takes a little organisation beforehand. I hope you enjoy it (as well as the use of pictures on the blog!).
Ingredients:
100g of fresh mushrooms: choose from shitake, oyster, shimeji etc, remove stalks and slice
4-6 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked in boiled water, remove stalks and slice when soft, reserve water
1 tbspn olive or other vegetable oil
1 tspn mirin or rice wine (optional)
1 tbspn tamari or soy sauce
2 tbspn sake (I like Goshu Blue, an Australian sake)
2 tblspn kuzu dissolved in 2-3 tblspn water.
1.2 litres of dashi stock (made beforehand, see recipe below)
Sea salt and spring onions
Recipe:
Add oil to pan and heat.
Add chopped mushrooms, stirring occasionally until they soften – 2-3 minutes
Add sake, soy sauce and mirin, allow mushrooms to fully soften
Add dashi stock and bring to boil
Take off heat, add dissolved kuzu and return to heat stirring constantly for a few minutes
Add salt to taste (I find ¼ tspn is fine)
Serve in small bowls and garnish with spring onions.
Serves 4 people. Recipe can easily be doubled.
Dashi stock – 3 versions:
- With bonito flakes:
Add I postcard-size chunk of kombu seaweed to one litre of water. Sit for one hour.
Place water and kombu in saucepan and heat until bubbles start to form.
Remove kombu and add one cup of water
Add 5-10 grams of bonito flakes and bring to boil.
Remove from heat, allow bonito flakes to fall to bottom of pan, strain and use.
- With dried shitake mushrooms – as above, except add 2-3 mushrooms with the kombu and water in the saucepan.
- The cheat’s way – put water, kombu and either bonito flakes or mushrooms in a jar in the fridge overnight, strain and use.