Read Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans Online
Authors: Michelle Tam,Henry Fong
Tags: #Cookbooks; Food & Wine, #Cooking by Ingredient, #Natural Foods, #Special Diet, #Allergies, #Gluten Free, #Paleo, #Food Allergies, #Gluten-Free, #Healthy
When I was a kid, a casual family meal at a Chinese restaurant could be a crapshoot. Some evenings, my grandfather would insist on ordering the most authentic dishes on the menu, many featuring odd bits that made my sister and me wrinkle our noses in disgust. Geoduck? Bitter melon? Bird spit? Like, actual bird
saliva
?
But if we were lucky, dinner would kick off with a beefy bowl of West Lake Soup. With bright green flecks of cilantro and cloudlike wisps of egg, this soup is both gorgeous and satisfying—which explains why we would gladly fill up on it before the slimy sea cucumber dish was served.
½ pound flank steak , finely minced |
1 teaspoon kosher salt |
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar |
1 teaspoon Paleo-friendly fish sauce |
1 teaspoon sesame oil |
Ground white pepper |
6 cups Bone Broth or chicken stock |
¼ pound fresh shiitake mushrooms , stemmed and thinly sliced |
¼ cup arrowroot powder , mixed with ¼ cup water to make a slurry |
3 large egg whites , lightly beaten |
1 cup packed fresh cilantro , finely minced |
3 scallions , thinly sliced |
T
his soup is named after a beautiful lake in Hangzhou, China. Sadly, the lake isn't actually made of soup.
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ou can substitute other meats or seafood for the flank steak, but if you use ground meat, parboil it first or your soup will end up scummy.
MULLIGATAWNY SOUP
“Mulligatawny” is the Anglicized word for the Tamil term
milagu thanni
—the fragrant “pepper water” invented to appeal to foreign palates when the British took over the Indian subcontinent in the nineteenth century. Mulligatawny’s burgeoning popularity soon brought this rich curried soup across the seas to Westerners craving a taste of the exotic. These days, it’s become a mainstay of Indian restaurants across the world, though few pause to remember its very British origins.
But even if you’ve never pondered why a Southern Indian soup has such an Anglo-sounding name, you can love mulligatawny for what it is: an assertively spiced curry soup that can be easily made with common ingredients found in any Paleo eater’s pantry. It’s versatile, too; throw in some emergency protein in the form of cooked chicken, lamb, or mutton, and your mulligatawny instantly becomes a complete meal.
Makes 4 servings | 2 tablespoons ghee or fat of choice |
Hands-on time: 15 minutes | 1 medium yellow onion , roughly chopped |
Total time: 45 minutes | 1 teaspoon tomato paste |
¼ cup shredded unsweetened dried coconut | |
2 garlic cloves , minced | |
1 ( 1 -inch) piece fresh ginger , peeled and finely grated (about 1 tablespoon) | |
2 teaspoons Indian curry powder | |
3 cups chicken stock or Bone Broth | |
1 celery stalk with fibrous strings removed, roughly chopped | |
1 carrot , peeled and roughly chopped | |
½ ripe banana , peeled | |
¼ cup diced Braeburn, Empire, McIntosh, or Cortland apple | |
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro |
D
on't worry, banana haters! You can't taste it in the soup!
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ecret ingredient alert! my super-chef sister taught me that diced apple can add sweetness and texture to puréed soups!