This is a post for @qurator's #hivetopchef. The theme this week is soup.
Soup is one of my favorite foods to have especially now with the weather being so miserable making soup a welcome comforting dish.
They say you should eat hot things in hot weather to make you sweat and get your body's cooling system going. This may be true however I have a good heating system in my apartment so I will adjust the heat as I need.
I was raised by my Canadian father after my Thai mother got sick, so my lunches often consisted of canned soup, peanut butter sandwiches and cartoons while I ate. I loved it.
Today my soup will be a peanut soup with tomatoes to remind me of those lunches that I loved. I put a spicy Thai spin on it to remind me of my Thai roots.
I normally use only store bought vegetable broth but there happened to be the right ingredients in the fridge and freezer to make a broth.
The first part of the broth would be a combination of typical vegetable broth items, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, pepper, parsley, plus the more exotic lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, cilantro, shallot, and galangal root and bay leaves.
I added these items to a hot pot with a little oil on the bottom and when the items were browned, I covered them with water. They were simmered for about one hour then strained.
Meanwhile I roasted tomatoes, onion, garlic and shallot in a 450F degree oven.
They were taken out when the skin of the tomatoes started peeling off. Then I blended the tomatoes, onion shallot, and a few of the roasted garlic in a blender with 1 cup of peanut butter and a handful of peanuts.
I had cubed tofu tossed in black bean garlic sauce, and covered with some vegetable broth, salt and pepper. This was put in the oven in the last half of the roasting of the tomatoes.
The tomato mixture and the broth were combined and set aside.
I sauteed cabbage, carrots, onion, garlic, ginger, Thai basil, fresh hot peppers, dried chilies, toasted cumin powder, toasted coriander powder, and the oven baked tofu. When they were cooked down I added the peanut tomato broth.
I also added a little cane sugar, around a tablespoon, 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar, and I happened to have purchased some sweet preserved radish from Chinatown, not knowing what to do with it so I decided to toss some in. The greens were tossed in toward the end so the green color wouldn't fade. I think it was Chinese broccoli. I often buy Chinese greens not knowing what they are.
At the end I decided to add some coconut milk.
The soup had a lot of flavor however I felt that it would be further boosted by some nice garnished.
I don't often deep fry anything but in this case, some crispy onions would be sprinkled on top.
It wouldn't have been complete without chopped peanuts and green onions.
I accompanied it with jasmine rice, although I didn't have much of it because the soup was quite rich and tasty.
Have a great day/night folks and thanks for stopping by.