VEGETABLE LEMON GARLIC CLEAR SOUP

VEGETABLE LEMON GARLIC CLEAR SOUP

This is my husband Yo’s favorite soup and he always loves to order this whenever we go to our favorite restaurants. I always wanted to make it at home as my 2 princesses are soup lovers as well. The problem was I didn’t know how to make it. So this time when I went to the restaurant I ordered for the soup and tried to savor my soup till I could recognize each and every ingredient just like how it is done in the Master Chef series. This soup is a cross between the Chinese clear vegetable soup and the lemon garlic soup. So I would like to call it the Vegetable Lemon Garlic Clear soup. It’s not thick as other soups. Its very light and refreshing. The tangy tastes of the lemon and the crunchiness of the different colors of vegetables is not only a visual treat but also a delight to the palette.

Ingredients

Onion – 1

Garlic – 2 cloves

Ginger - ¼  inch piece

Chilli padi- 1 small red chilli (1-2 according to taste)

Carrot – 1 thinly sliced into rectangles

Broccoli – ½ cup florets

Baby corn – 2 pieces

White Tofu (the soup tofu) – a few slices thinly sliced

Green Cabbage – a few leaves thinly sliced

Celery – ½ stick thinly sliced

Leek – 1 thinly sliced

Lemon – 1 big

Parsley – 2 tbsps chopped

Dill – 2 tbsps chopped

Coriander – 2 tbsps

Cumin powder -1/4 tsp

Pepper - 1/4 Tsp          

Soya sauce – ½ tsp

Corn Flour - 2 tsps

Any vegetable oil – 1 tsp

Salt to taste

Method

Dice the onion. Mince the ginger very finely and crush the garlic with the back of a knife, chop the red chilli padi finely.

Chop or slice all the above mentioned vegetables and tofu as mentioned above in the ingredients.

Heat the oil in a sauce pan, add the ginger, garlic and the chopped chilli to the oil, and add some salt. Stir for a couple of minutes till you smell of the ginger and garlic in the oil. Now add the onion and sauté till its translucent. After this, add all the above mentioned vegetables and stir and let it cook for a couple of minutes. Add the soya sauce at this point. Add about 2 cups of water, let it come to a boil.

The vegetables should be half done by now, still crunchy. Mix water with the corn flour ensuring that there are no lumps. Cook for some more time. Ensure that the vegetables are half cooked and crunchy. This way they retain the color and the soup looks colorful as well. Add the cumin powder and freshly grounded black pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes and then add the Parsley, Dill & Coriander and turn off the heat.

Now, add the lemon juice check for salt and spice, if needed, you can add it at this point. The lemon in the soup is very refreshing. Since we are using vegetables with different colors, the soup looks colorful and interesting to kids. You can add a dash of pepper to taste and serve steaming hot.