Miso Soup

This is my favourite version of miso soup with dried shiitake mushrooms. Served with a bowl of rice it's a healty and delicios simple Japanese breakfast.

Prep and Cook Time: 10 minutes

For 2 servings: 

• 400 ml vegan dashi
• 3 table spoons cooked dried shiitake mushrooms (e.g. from cooking the vegan dashi) 
• 2 table spoons shiro miso (light/white miso paste)
• a small piece of scallions

Cut mushrooms into pieces and scallions into small pieces. Bring the dashi to a boil, turn down the heat, put 3 table spoons of the heated dashi in a bowl and dissolve the shiro miso in it. Pour the mixture back to the dashi. 

Put shiitake mushrooms into two bowls, pour miso soup over them and sprikle with scallions.

Enjoy your meal!

Summer Soup with Grains & Yoghurt

Yeah, I know it's winter. But there's nothing like a little bit of Summer feeling when it's snowing outside. 

Youghurt soups are popular all over the Middle East and Turkey. This recipe comes from a friend of mine, who lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Originally this kind of soups (and many others) is made with frîka, but this is really hard to get here in Austria. So I tried to use dried unripe spelt grain (German: Grünkern) instead - and it worked perfecty. It does taste different to frîka, but both taste good in this soup.

Serves: 3-4

Prep and cook time: 45 min

• 750 ml vegetable stock
• 125 ml yoghurt
• 1/2 cup frîka or unripe spelt grain
• 1/2 chopped onion
• 2 chopped garlic cloves
• 2 hands full fresh spinach 
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 1 teaspoon harissa
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh peppermint 
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil 

Put the uripe spelt grain in a bowl, cover with hot water and soak for 20 minutes.

Heat the olive oil in a large pot, add onion and garlic and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the soaked unripe spelt grain, tomato puree and harissa and fry for another 2-3 minutes while stirring. Add the vegetable stock, peppermint, spinach and ground coriander and cook for 20 minutes.

Switch off the burner and when the soup is not boiling any more, add yoghurt and lemon juce. Stirn the soup and serve it while it's still very hot. 

Enjoy your meal!

Lentil Soup à la Hatice

Yes, it's another soup recipe. I don't know how you feel about it, but in Winter I'm really into soups and eat some rich soup almost every day. Soups keep you warm and are the perfect Winter dish. 

This is a Turkish lentil soup, I followed recipe I gor from my friend Hatice and it's not only one of the best, but also the fastest lentil soup recipes I know. 

Serves 3-4

Prep & cook time: 45 minutes

• 0,75 liter vegetable stock
• 1/2 cup dried red lentils 
• 1 celery rib
• 1 hand full of celery leaves
• 1 yellow carrot
• 1 tsp fresh chopped ginger
• 1/2 onion
• 2 potatoes
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground curcuma

Grate carrot, chop onion, cut celery rib & potatoes into small pieces. Fry the vegetables with the ginger in a large pan until they start to brown. Add vegetable stock, lentils, potatoes, cumin, coriander and curcuma and cook for 20 minutes.

Enjoy your meal!

Minestrone

Minestrone is a very popular Italian vegetable and pasta soup. There are as many recipes for Minestrone as there are Italians. This version is really fast and easy to prepare. I usually cook this soup after a long day of work when I don't feel like spending a long time in the kitchen.

Serves: 4

Prep and Cook Time: 30 minutes

• 200 grams (~ 2 large) carrot
• 100 grams (~ 1 large) yellow carrot
• 100 grams celery
• 100 grams cauliflower
• 50 grams leek
• 3 tsp frozen spinach
• 2 tsp tomato purée
• 1/2 tsp harissa (optional)
• 1 liter vegetable stock
• 1/4 liter water
• 2 tsp fresh parsley
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 chopped garlic cloves

Cut vegetables (carrot, yellow carrot, celery, cauliflower, leek)  into pieces, put in a large pot with garlic, harissa, cumin and tomato purée. Cook and stir on high heat for 5 minutes until the vegetables and tomato purée start to brown. Add water, vegetable stock, spinach, cinnamon and cook for 20 minutes.
Serve with fresh parsley. 

For a real minestrone you can add some cooked pasta, but it's also delicous as simple vegetable soup. 

Enjoy your meal!

Shurba

 

Actually, "shurba" means just "soup", but when people talk about "shurba", they almost always talk about this kind of soup. There's a different recipe in every country, every region - even in every family - how to prepare it.My version is fast & easy to prepare. You can also add some vermicelli to it.

This soup is traditinally served for iftâr, the evening meal when Muslims break their fast during the Islamic month of Ramadan.

For 3-4 Servings:

• 0,75 liter chicken stock
• 0,2 liter tomato purée (passata di pomodoro)
• 1 chicken breast 
• 200 g cooked chickpeas (canned or "homecooked")
• 1 chopped onion (~ 150 g)
• 1 chopped carrot (~ 100 g) 
• 1 chopped garlic clove
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 4 cloves 
• 1 tsp seven spices (mixture of paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin, fenugreek, thyme, dill and mustard seeds)
• 2 tsp chopped fresh dill
• 2 tsp chopped fresh coriander
• 2 tsp chopped fresh parsley
• 100 g cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 lemon 

Peel the chickpeas. In a large pot, heat onion, carrot and garlic for 5 minutes until they start browning. Add chicken stock, chicken breast, tomato purée, chickpeas, cinnamon, cloves and seven spices & cook for 20 minutes. Cut the cherry tomatoes into pieces. Take the chicken breast out, cut into small pieces and put back into the soup again. Add cherry tomatoes, 1 tsp chopped dill, 1 tsp chopped coriander, 1 tsp chopped parsley and cook for 5 minutes.

Remove cinnamon and cloves & serve with 1 tsp chopped dill, 1 tsp chopped coriander, 1 tsp chopped parsley and a few sprinkles of lemon juice.  

Enjoy! 

Soba & Spinach Soup

This soup is really fast and easy to cook, but it's also very delicious. I especially love the savoury and salty taste of the buckwheat soba and it harmonises perfectly with the sweet carrots and the earthy spinach.

By the way, I really love spinach. It's my favourite veget ... wait ... I already said that about carrots. But really, I love both of them and can't decide which one I like better. So, my favorite vegetables are carrot and spinach. And avocados. And egglpant. And ... some more ;)

For 4 Servings: 

• 750 ml vegetable stock
• 200 g spinach leaves (fresh or frozen)
• 1 carrot, sliced
• 3 bunches buckwheat soba noodles (you can buy these in any Japanese supermarket)

In a small pot heat water and add a pinch of salt. When it's boiling, add the soba and cook until al dente (about 2-3 minutes).

In another pot, heat the vegetable stock. When it's boiling, add the spinach and the carrots and cook for 2-3 minutes. 

Put the soba on soup plates and add the soup. 

Enjoy! 

Cream of Carrot & Pepper Soup

My favourite vegetable are carrots - and I really love this creamy carrot soup. It's sweet and salty, spicy and keeps you warm on a cold winter's day.

I got this recipe from my host mum Sarah in England. I lived with her family in Cornwall when I went to school there many many years ago.

For 3-4 servings:

• 4 large carrots, grated
• 3/4 litre vegetable stock
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 teaspoon pickled green peppercorns
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 pods star anise
• 1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric
• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 4 tablespoons soy cream (you can use normal cow's milk cream of course, but soy cream tastes slightly different and I think it's better with this soup)

In a large cooking pot, cook carrots, peppercorns and vegetable soup until the carrots are soft. Purée the mixtrue using a blender. Put back into the cooking pot, add honey, cinnamon stick, star anise, tumeric, cardamom and cook for another 10 minutes. 

Stir in the soy cream. You can add some extra soy cream and some strips of carrot for decoration.

Enjoy your meal!