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green soup (or, the dang-we-need-groceries special)
March 22, 2011
An easy and delicious green curry soup thrown together on grocery night to use up what few vegetables we had. Use different vegetables, if you like, or tofu or cooked chicken or whatever. This is a quick meal, as it uses store bought green curry paste rather than going through the trouble of making it from scratch.
Amounts are approximations, as I don’t really measure when making stuff up.
The Cast, in Order of Appearance:
- olive oil
- one mid sized onion, chopped small, Jacques Pépin style
- a couple of cloves of garlic, pressed
- about a 5cm (2″) piece of fresh ginger, grated (about 1.5 tablespoons)
- two or three medium sized potatoes, cut into 1cm cubes
- broccoli, cut into tiny florets (I’m guessing I used around 3/4 cup, which was all we had. My method is to hold the washed broccoli out over the pot and then skim off the florets into the pan with the knife, moving slowly from outside to inside to get it as tiny as possible. Mostly I just can’t stand cleaning up all of those tiny broccoli bits off the cutting board)
- about the same amount of cauliflower, also cut into very small bits (I actually used mostly cauliflower stems instead of the flower part, because that was all I had; normally those bits go into the freezer with the broccoli stems for making vegetable broth later on)
- 2-3 tablespoons of green curry paste (don’t skimp, green curry paste is much milder than the red stuff. I used Thai Kitchen brand because it’s easy to find and doesn’t contain fish sauce. If you’re a fish sauce kind of person, go ahead and throw some in, I won’t stop you)
- 5 cups vegetable broth (or chicken, if you roll that way)
- one can coconut milk
- a good handful of frozen green peas, about 1/2 to 3/4 cup. I actually wanted to use edamame but didn’t have any already shelled in the freezer and was too lazy to shell them. The peas turned out to be better anyway, I think.
- about a cup of finely shredded kale (or substitute some other sturdy green; collards would be great, or my current favourite green thing, thinly sliced Brussels sprouts)
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- the juice of one lime
- a small handful of chopped fresh coriander (optional; I only had about 2 teaspoons’ worth that wasn’t wilted, and it wasn’t really noticeable in the finished soup in that quantity)
Warm up a good dollop of olive oil in your heavy bottomed soup pot on medium heat. Fry your onion for 3 to 5 minutes until translucent, then add the garlic and ginger and fry for about a minute more. Add your potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower, toss to coat with the remaining oil, and cook them carefully for a few minutes just to brown the edges. Then throw in the green curry paste, vegetable broth and coconut milk and bring the whole thing to a boil. Add the frozen peas, reduce heat to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper if you wish.
Simmer with the lid off until the potatoes are tender; it won’t take more than 15 or 20 minutes if you cut them small enough. About 5 minutes into the simmering stir in the kale or other greens (if you’re using something more tender like spinach then wait until you’re just about to serve the soup before adding it, giving it just enough time to get warm).
When the potatoes are cooked, taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Stir in the lime juice and coriander. Now eat it.
If you want to add cubed firm tofu or precooked chicken, right when the peas go in would probably be the best time to do that. I probably would have put some tofu in but I was all out (grocery night, remember?).
Posted by jodi on March 22, 2011 at 7.01pm
Categories: mama's in the kitchen
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