Asian Mushroom Noodle Soup

With all this cold weather, I thought, "what's better than a bowl of warm soup?" I knew I wanted to use the cellophane noodles since they seem to add a special touch. Fortunately, I had some around. I also looked forward to using the shiitake mushrooms I recently got. And then, I thought some baby bok choy might go well, but I didn't quite make it to the Asian grocery, and I wasn't about to pay double or triple for the small, yellowed ones I saw at the regular grocery store. Luckily, I got a good deal on some spinach, so I used that instead. If you do use the bok choy, you would want to put that in with the soup to cook it a bit as opposed to just pouring the soup over the spinach like I did. Although this soup tasted quite delicious, next time, I would use fewer mushrooms (having forgotten about them expanding as they rehydrated) and maybe add in some miso to give it some additional flavor.

What's your favorite soup?

Asian Mushroom Noodle Soup

by CJ Huang

Materials:

Mass	Weight	Volume	Number	Material	Notes
			1-2 portions	cellophane noodles, soaked
		2 teaspoons		garlic, minced
			5-10	mushrooms, sliced	I used dried shiitake mushrooms.
			2 handfuls	spinach
			2	carrots, julienned
		2 teaspoons		ginger, minced
		1/2 teaspoon		pepper, ground
				stock or water
				green onions, sliced

Methods:

1. Add all ingredients except noodles, spinach, and green onions to a pot and bring to a boil. If you're using bok choy, you'd probably want to add it in at this point.
2. Stir in noodles and simmer for a few more minutes.
3. Place a handful of spinach in each bowl, and pour the soup on top. The heat from the soup will cook the spinach. I know a handful sounds like a lot, but the spinach will cook down quite a bit.
4. Sprinkle green onions on top, if desired.