Wednesday 27 April 2016

Oriental mushroom and prawn soup


Once my boys are asleep, I'm usually too tired in the evening to watch TV, but I find reading in bed might be conducive to nodding off more smoothly. If not reading the never-ending War and Peace (I swear, the war scenes are the best sleeping remedy), then I pop into one of the famous parenting forums for the latest gossip.
Thus recently I came across a discussion of myths perpetuated on forums, including a never-ending chicken. I confess that it made me smile. I don't doubt that in some families who have hearty appetites or simply  bigger number of family members, there are no chicken leftovers.
In our case, we always have leftovers, I'm not inventing stories just for the blogging purposes.
Whenever I buy a whole chicken and cook a roast, I save the carcass and small pieces like wings to prepare a fresh stock for a soup.

Oriental mushroom and prawn soup
Ingredients:
chicken stock made with a chicken carcass + 2 wings
1 carrot
1 leek
1 vegetable stock cube
1tbsp olive oil
200g mixed speciality mushrooms like enoki, eryngii, shiitake and oyster
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1tbsp soy sauce
juice of 1/2 lime
200g king prawns

First prepare the stock or broth with the chicken leftovers and peeled whole carrot.
After simmering the stock with the carrots and stock cube, I discard the bones, leaving any pieces of meat for the soup. Take the carrot out and chop it into smaller pieces, put back in the broth together with the finely sliced leek. Cook for about 5 minutes.
Slice mushrooms and give them a quick fry with the olive oil and a clove of garlic. Add the mushrooms, soy sauce, lime juice and fresh king prawns (shells removed) to the soup and cook for another 3-4 minutes.
Serve hot. Sprinkle some chopped fresh coriander or flat leaf parsley before serving.



This is a lovely light soup, flavourful and fragrant. I buy a big pack of Oriental mushrooms at Sainsbury's. The same pack of exotic mushrooms in Waitrose is twice as much. If you cannot find this selection, you can use either oyster or shiitake mushrooms.


1 comment:

  1. I never have much luck with fresh stock, it turns greasy and horrid. Your soup looks lovely

    ReplyDelete