RESTORATIVE ASIAN SOUP
I don’t quite know how it happened, but somehow I got a cold in the middle of August. While San Francisco isn’t exactly known for it’s sweltering summers, I found myself craving something that would warm me to the core and nourish me at the same time. Recalling the virtues of chicken noodle soup, I figured I would try my hand at creating a chinese-style broth infused with the healing qualities of garlic and ginger. So, with a batch of homemade chicken stock in the freezer and a handful of asian ingredients and cooking techniques, I set out to create a soup that would have me feeling healthy again in no time.
Drawing inspiration from Barbara Tropp’s iconic, China Moon Cookbook, I began by making a simple “infusion” that would serve as the backbone of my soup. The long, slow simmering of copious amounts of roasted garlic and other aromatics imbue the broth with a rich and savory quality while the basil stems thrown in during the last fifteen minutes of simmering add a beautiful floral finish. Once infused, the broth is good enough to eat by itself, but I was feeling a bit adventurous, and wanted to add some protein and vitamins. Using a technique called “velveting,” the marinated chicken breast is only partially cooked in simmering water before it is drained and finished in the soup. The pieces end up being juicy, extremely tender and pleasantly salty. Finished with some shiitake mushrooms, baby bok choy, spinach and a good pinch of Szechwan pepper-salt, I had a soup that is as delicious as it is healthy.
