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Vietnamese Soup with Lemongrass and Shiitake
Jana Verboom's version of a soup served at a retreat in Waldbrol
A warming soup with lots of lemongrass, ginger and coconut, shiitake and lime leaves.
Ingredients for 4 people:
- Fresh ginger, a piece about 5 cm long
- Fresh galangal, a piece about 3 cm
- Two large stalks of lemongrass
- 1 chili pepper (remove the seeds if you do not like your soup to be too spicy)
- Two vegetable bouillon cubes
- 10 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in water
- 3 large carrots
- 3 potatoes
- 1 leek or other vegetables of your choice
- 10 dried lime leaves, or 5 fresh
- About 200 ml (1/2 cup) coconut milk
fresh coriander, parsley and / or scallion for garnish
Bring 1 liter of water to a boil in a large pot.
Wash, peel and chop the ginger, galangal, chili and lemongrass into pieces, crush the lemongrass with a large knife for extra flavor.
Put the pieces of ginger, galangal, chili and lemongrass in the stockpot and dissolve the bouillon cubes in it.
Bring the water to the boil, reduce the heat and cook for at least 20 minutes.
Strain the broth. (You don’t use the aromatic roots anymore. I have used them to make a second broth which I put in a sauce the next day.)
Peel the carrots and potatoes and cut leek, potato and carrot into pieces. Cut the soaked shiitake into pieces (in Waldbröl there were whole mushrooms in the soup) and remove any hard pieces of stem.
Add the potatoes, vegetables, shiitake and lime leaves to the broth and bring to the boil. The soaking water from the shiitake may be added as well. Consider the cooking time of the vegetables, and add them in stages, so add the leeks about 5 minutes after the potatoes and carrots.
Let all cook for about 10 minutes on low heat.
Stir the coconut milk into the soup, bring back to boil - check if the potatoes are done, but beware that the vegetables are not overcooked.
Turn off the heat and bring the soup if needed to taste with salt and pepper, and chopped cilantro, parsley and/or scallion.
Enjoy!