Category: Soups and Stews

Soy-Free Ramen Noodle Soup

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Do you know what I love watching? Shows with food. I don’t mean cooking shows (although I have my favorites!) I mean shows where food is somehow the centerpiece or an important backdrop to life. My best remembered TV episodes always featured something to do with food, like Mrs. Bridges’ Baron of Lamb on Upstairs, Downstairs when the king comes to visit, or the cake making scene in Sleeping Beauty, and who doesn’t remember Rey’s puffbread thing in Star Wars: The Force Awakens? Food is important to us in so many ways, and I’ve always been fascinated by it (I know you’re shocked. I mean, a food blog? About food??)

This is a very long winded-paragraph of me saying that one of the things I’ve always loved is ramen. Anyone remember the scene where they make ramen in Ponyo? Or, honestly, in any anime featuring high school students? And I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we all have our preferred brand of instant noodles: Nissan, Maruchan, Nongshim… There’s even a couple of museums!

When my allergies weren’t so bad, I could indulge in a steaming bowl of ramen from time to time, and add all manner of embellishments, but these days I have to be more careful. A lot of instant ramen brands rely on milk, egg, and soy, but also corn-derivatives to lengthen the shelf life of their products, as well as give it that wonderfully savory unctuousness of an hours long broth. Ramen restaurants, no matter how chic, usually use those same ingredients in their more natural state. Can’t blame them, it simply is what it is.

In order to give myself a treat, I came up with this lunch recipe to remind myself of those ramen noodle bowls of the past. I love the rich chicken broth simmered with chunks of chicken, the bite of ginger and garlic, and the slick, savory chew of the noodles. It’s a wonderfully filling bowl, perfect for lunchtime and easily paired up with any kind of topping you enjoy: jalapenos, spinach, cilantro, green onions, fried garlic and sesame oil, or red pepper flakes! The fun of lunch time (as opposed to dinner, when I at least am often too tried to really get into having all the options under the sun) is that you get a good lunch while at the same time having the energy to get creative. I hope you like it!

You’ll Need (serves 1, but is easily doubled):

1 – 1 1/2 cups chicken broth

1/4 tsp. fish sauce

1 garlic clove, grated

1/4 inch ginger, grated

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. white pepper

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/4 cup onions, chopped

2 tsps. olive oil

1 package of ramen noodles, or rice noodles

Toppings:

1 small handful cooked chicken, chopped

1 stalk green onion, diced

1 small handful spinach, cleaned and dried

1 half of a jalapeno, sliced

Grab a saucepan and heat the olive oil on medium. Add the onion, ginger, garlic, and all the spices. Once the onions have softened and turned a bit translucent, and you can smell the other ingredients, add in the chicken broth and fish sauce. Bring the mix to a light boil, and then add the noodles. Cook them through (usually takes about three minutes for gluten noodles and around a minute and a half for thin rice noodles) and then remove the noodles from the brother and put them in a bowl. A good slatted ladle works for me, but you could a fork or anything like that.

Add the chicken to the broth to warm it up, and then pour broth and meat over the noodles. Now, you get to go wild with the toppings! I liked cilantro, green onion, spinach, and jalapenos on the day I took the top picture, but you could also add red pepper or pickled vegetables if you have any that are safe for you to eat. I think this would also be wonderful with some fried garlic bits and sesame oil, or bok choy and some lemon juice!

Peppery Potato and Leek Soup

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Look, I love soup. I just do! I make a lot of broth, I spend a lot of time figuring out ways to use it, and if it’s not in a sauce, then it’s definitely going to show up in a soup later on. I can’t help it! It’s so easy and filling, and I don’t think it’s too much to say that, when you start staring into the cupboard, wondering what you can possibly make with what you have left…soup is going to be the answer almost every time.

This soup, when hot, is more of a winter/fall menu item, where you could maybe stretch into a particularly cold early spring. If served cold, I think it could be a passable Vichyssoise in the spring and summer months, though I confess it’s not my go-to summer dish (that would be strawberries and chicken salad). It’s very simply, requires nothing much from the pantry, and you can beef it up with anything from a good piece of toast to a pat of butter to a smattering of chopped green onion. I add more pepper, which possibly says something about me as a person.

You’ll Need (serves 2 – 4):

6 small potatoes or 4 large ones, peeled and chopped

1 – 2 large leeks, cleaned and chopped

1/4 cup onion, chopped

2 tsps white pepper

2 tsps black pepper

1 – 2 bay leaves

3 cloves roasted garlic

3 tsps salt

4 cups chicken broth

1 Tblsp olive oil

Get a large pot with a lid and heat the pot on medium-low with the olive oil. Add the leeks and onions, salt and peppers, and begin to wilt them, stirring occasionally. Once they begin to soften, add in the roasted garlic and smush them all together, stirring for two minutes until you can smell the garlic.

Add in the bay leaf, the potatoes, and the broth. Then, bring it to boil and simmer it with the lid covered for about twenty – thirty minutes. Check the potatoes occasionally by sticking them with a fork to see if they’re done. Once they’ve started to crumble, get a potato masher out, or a large spoon, and mash the potatoes in the broth. This makes the dish look creamy while still preserving a bit of texture, so that it’s not entirely smooth. Stir it up, remove the bay leaf, and serve!

Additional Comments:

  • A lot of traditional Leek and Potato soups add heavy cream or sour cream as an ingredient, to make a very luxurious, silken soup. I don’t honestly think it needs this, both because of my allergies and also because I don’t like just adding things like that to soups. I prefer them as personal add-ons, a dollop of non-dairy sour cream or yogurt here, a pat of butter there, so that you can enjoy this soup in the same way you might enjoy a baked potato.
    • If you do want to add dairy, or a non-dairy substitute, reduce the amount of broth by one cup and then add in the dairy close to the end of the cooking time.
  • If you like blended soups, take the pot off the hob and let it cool for a few minutes. Depending on the size of your blender, either carefully ladle the whole thing into the blender, or blend half the soup and then half again.
  • This can easily be made vegan by either substituting a vegetable broth or simply using water and upping the amount of spices/herbs and salt.

Savory Breakfast Soup

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I think I’ve told you all before, but I don’t actually eat a lot of what we think of in the US as ‘breakfast food.’ Since I can’t have eggs or soy that generally rules out quiches, bagels, omelettes, casseroles…you get the idea. The USA loves its eggs and cheese (for which I cannot blame them!) but it does tend to rule me out.

In general, I eat leftovers from the day before with my morning coffee. I honestly can’t stand the texture of most porridge (oats make me itch!) and since I almost always have cooked rice in the fridge I either end up eating that with fake butter, or a smoothie. I don’t have as much of an appetite in the morning anyway, so a little something that wakes my stomach up works just fine for me.

That being said, one of the things I’ve discovered I can eat (with attendant changes for my allergies) is this Thai breakfast soup I’ve learned from Hot Thai Kitchen. It’s savory without being too rich, and fragrant without being overwhelming. Better still, the rice never becomes mushy or sticky, and it comes together very quickly.

In Pailin’s version, this is ‘Kao Tom Koong,’ made of rice, an onion/cilantro/garlic mash, broth, and shrimp. She also calls for soy sauce, which is not happening, but her version looks delicious and entirely worthwhile. Check out her channel for more recipes!

My version is made out of chicken (I don’t often have shrimp), and I like a lot of rice and slightly less broth. When I made it this time I decided to garnish it with some red pepper and green onion, which were wasting away in my fridge, but the sky’s the limit with regards to things to add. Ginger is delicious, and I think bits of crumbled bacon might be nice as well. It’s so good and so quick, and it uses a very few ingredients. I’m pretty sure I could eat three gallons of it, but I won’t! I will just eat it many times instead.

You’ll Need (Serves 1):

1/2 – 1 cup rice, already cooked and heated for 1 minute in the microwave

1/2 cup – 1 cup chicken broth

1 clove roasted garlic

1 tsp. cilantro

1/4 cup chopped onions

1/4 cup already cooked chicken, chopped (optional)

1 tsp. white pepper

1-2 tsps. fish sauce

Salt (to taste)

1 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 tsp olive oil

Heat a saucepan and cook the onions, garlic, and cilantro with the spices until the onions are translucent. Add in the broth and then the warm rice. If you’re using chicken or some other protein, add that in too, and then warm it all the way through. Pour into a bowl and then garnish with whatever you want!

Lemony Lentil Chickpea Soup

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One of the consequences of making cookies when you’re allergic to eggs is that you wind up with a bunch of cooked chickpeas. (Sounds antithetical I know, but the liquid leftover from cooking chickpeas makes a good egg replacement!) When that happens, my horror of wasted food rises up, and forces me to Do Something.

Hummus, however, gets really old after awhile. I mean, there’s only so many times you can eat it and think “I’m having a treat.” So, when I need to make my food into a multi-tasking dynamo, I do the next best thing: I make soup!

The inspiration for this dish today comes from Yotam Ottolenghi, who makes dozens of dishes I would love to try, but sadly can never eat because of my allergies. Lemony Lentil Chickpea Soup is nourishing, tangy, and smoky with cumin, roasted garlic, and onions. It doesn’t take long to put all the ingredients together (I often use pre-cooked lentils and chickpeas, and just cook the onions through. It’s also great for those times when the pantry is looking a little scarce, and you need a solid contender for lunch or dinner.

I can eat way too much of this, frankly, and so it keeps for about a week in my fridge. It can also be frozen in single servings for a month, but the texture becomes a little too mushy for my tastes. However, if you want a pantry staple in your back pocket for those times you have leftovers and don’t know what to do, or simply have odds and ends that don’t quite seem to go together, then I submit this recipe. I hope you enjoy it!

You’ll Need (2 – 4):

2 cups chicken broth

1/2 cup of lentils (dry) or 1 cup cooked

1/2 cup of chickpeas, cooked

1/2 cup onion, chopped

2 tsps. cumin

4 tsps. salt

4 tsps. pepper

1 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 bay leaf

1 small handful of cilantro, chopped

1 handful of fresh spinach (optional)

Juice of half a lemon

2 tsps. olive oil

Heat a saucepan to medium with the oil and onions. Add the garlic, cumin, salt, and pepper to the vegetables and let the onions become translucent. When the onions et al are fragrant, add in the lentils, chickpeas, and bay leaf. Stir together and then add in the chicken broth. Stir again, reduce heat to medium-low and let the soup simmer until it just starts to bubble.

Add in the cilantro and let it wilt. Then, pour in the the lemon juice. Stir and let it heat for about two minutes, and then turn off the heat, and stir in the spinach. Serve hot and delicious!

I like this soup (as you can see from the photo) with a dollop of unsweetened non-dairy yogurt stirred into it, but it’s delicious on it’s own as well. It’s also really good with a nice dense piece of bread!

Additional Comments:

  • If you’re cooking the lentils in the soup, make sure you’ve rinsed them thoroughly in cold water, and then looked them over for small stones. Increase the amount of broth by 2 cups, and add the lentils with the broth second to last after frying the onions, spices, and bay leaf, cook for about 15 minutes before you add the cooked chickpeas. I don’t recommend cooking dry chickpeas and lentils together, as they have different cooking times.
  • If you can’t find spinach safe from corn-based derivatives (often they drink up fertilizers as well as water!) then try a green safe for your consumption. I have been doing okay with the spinach from my grocery store for now, but I also wash it very well and there’s no guarantee!
  • If you’re vegan/vegetarian, you can easily sub a vegetable broth for the chicken, and still have a delicious gluten-free soup.

Hearty Lamb Stew

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A good soup or stew is the perfect all day meal during the cold season (by which I mean, any month after August), and I make them constantly. Lamb stew, however, is considered something of a treat in my family. My grandmother cooked lamb (or rather, mutton) and my mom does too. I got the basis of this recipe from them, and then added my own tweaks to call the recipe my own.

I have a hit or miss relationship with red meat, to be honest, and so we don’t eat a ton of it in the house. That’s why this lamb stew is special to me; I have to make the most out of it, because it’s not coming back around again! And this stew is something else, let me tell you. I’ve eaten it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and never been left feeling unsatisfied.

You’ll need (serves 4-6):

1-2 lamb shanks

4 carrots, chopped roughly

4 celery stalks, chopped roughly

1 onion, chopped

2 parsnips, chopped

2-3 large potatoes, peeled and chopped

3-4 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped

1 cup red wine (think Bordeaux, tempranillo, or malbec)

4 cups water

1 Tbsp cooking oil

1 large bayleaf

3 tsp parsley, chopped

3 tsp rosemary, crushed

Salt and black pepper to taste

1 Tbsp tapioca flour (optional)

Get out a good pot with a lid, and add in your lamb shanks. Brown them with the cooking oil at a medium heat, and then remove the meat to rest on a plate, while you add in all your vegetables except the potatoes, salt, pepper, garlic, spices and herbs.

Cook down your vegetables until a light brown crust forms on the bottom of the pot (the scrap-able bits!) and then deglaze the entire pot with the red wine. Don’t stand over it, unless you want a face full of alcohol-scented steam! Take a good spoon, and scrape up all the crust on the bottom of the pot, and then add in the lamb shanks, and the four cups of water. Lamb is such a flavorful meat that you don’t need to buy broth, this makes it for you!

Peel and chop the potatoes and add them into the stew. I think potatoes make the stew hearty enough not to need a thickener, but if your stew is looking a little thin, here’s what to do: Ladle out one cup of the broth into a soup bowl and add one tablespoon of tapioca flour. Whisk them together to avoid lumps of flour in the stew, and then add the slurry back into the pot.

Bring the pot to a bubbling boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer (usually I put it on medium-low or low). Cover and let it cook for at least an hour, if not more. The longer it cooks, the more rich it will taste! Stir occasionally, and let it reduce down by about a quarter.

Before you want to serve up, take some tongs and pinch out the lamb shanks. Set them on a plate and cut off all the meat. Don’t worry about being too savage with your knife cuts! This is a stew, and you want to have nice chunks of meat to go with those big vegetable pieces. Add the meat back in to warm it up, and then ladle out into a gigantic bowl to facilitate gulping it down with your biggest spoon.

Tip: If you’re making this ahead of time, I like to add the potatoes into the stew thirty minutes to an hour before serving, because I don’t want them to completely disintegrate. If you don’t have the time, add the potatoes when you add in the lamb shanks, and let them all cook together!

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