Spicy Tofu Soup with Lemongrass and Lime

This is by no means a traditional soup. I took a recipe I used to make with shrimp and red curry paste and turned it into a spicy tofu with yellow curry paste soup. The important part of this soup is the broth. Once you have that you can add any veggies you like to it.

I like to use mung bean sprouts in this soup when I have them on hand. Sometimes I also add enoki mushrooms, or fresh sliced shitake caps. Other times I will add peanut butter to the broth. It all depends on my mood. Yesterday I added the tofu for protein as I thought we were a little light on that for the day. Here is the soup we had last night.

Spicy Tofu Soup with Lemongrass and Lime
Serves 2

Ingredients:

¼ cup dried mushrooms (I used mixed)
6 cups water
2 stalks of lemon grass
3 kaffir lime leaves, thinly cut
2 tablespoons yellow curry paste (or to taste)
1 lime, zested and juiced
12.3 ounces firm silken tofu, cut into ¼ inch squares
5 leaves bok choy, thinly sliced horizontally
2 green onions, thinly sliced
½ cup snow peas, thinly sliced
4 inches seedless cucumber, thinly julienned

Directions:

Combine the dried mushrooms and water and microwave on high until the water is hot (3 ½ minutes in my microwave). Soak the mushrooms until tender (about 30 minutes). Then drain the mushrooms and soaking liquid through fine wire sieve lined with a damp paper towel or double layer of cheesecloth into a soup pot. Chop the reconstituted mushrooms into bite sized pieces. You want all the contents of the soup to fit on a spoon.

Remove the outer leaves from the lemongrass and then using the back of your knife pound the lemon grass every two inches and place them in the soup pot with the mushroom soaking liquid. Cut the kaffir lime leaves into very thin pieces and add them to the soup pot. Zest and juice the lime into the soup pot. Add the yellow curry paste. Cook for 10 minutes to infuse the broth with the lemongrass. The lemongrass will have given up its flavor when it turns from a fresh green to a khaki color. Now you can remove the lemongrass. Taste the soup for heat and add more yellow curry paste if you need more heat.

Add the silken tofu cubes to the soup and simmer for a few minutes then turn off the heat. Add the remaining veggies so they are warm but still retain some of their texture.

Serve hot.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 194.17
Calories From Fat (29%) - 56.87

Total Fat - 6.4g
Saturated Fat - 0.79g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 118.88mg
Potassium - 877.87mg
Total Carbohydrates - 22.46g
Fiber - 6.25g
Sugar - 4.91g
Protein - 15.54g

Comments:

I love Thai food so I enjoyed the flavors of this soup. My husband is okay with this, but it isn’t his favorite. The citrus flavor can be a little different if you don’t eat a lot of Thai food. Children may not like the unexpected citrus flavor.

Each serving of this soup contains approximately 4,000IU of vitamin A, 55mg of vitamin C, 190mg of calcium, 4.5mg of iron, 65mcg of folate, 25mcg of vitamin K, 245mg of phosphorus, and 100mg of magnesium.

This soup is very low in sodium so you may want to add a little to the top when serving. We have grown so accustomed to low sodium food that it tastes fine to us just as it is. If you have fresh cilantro on hand that would be great floating on top the soup.

Unrelated Note:

Today we are busy getting all those life administrative tasks done that need to be accomplished before it is back to the weekly routine. To make things easier on myself I am making a black bean soup and salad tonight for dinner. Not terribly creative, but also one of those perfect low involvement meals that I have been making a lot more of recently. Sometimes I get in these moods where I am just not feeling terribly inspired. These moods never last long. I should be back to creative cooking in a couple of days. I have a couple of ideas of recipes in my head now that I hope to get to on Monday or Tuesday.

One thing I need to do today is work out grocery list for our first “Ad Hoc at Home” healthy vegan-cooking project. Sue and I will be getting together to cook on Wednesday. There will be photos and recipes of the process on the other blog. As soon as I post something there I will put a link on this blog so you know to check it out.

I hope you are thinking of recipes for the Healthy Cooking Challenge. I have an interesting experiment for next week that I hope is blog worthy. I am going to try to make a healthy low sugar and low sodium vegan gravlax. We will see if that is possible. (fingers crossed)

For now I am off to do a little straightening up, de-cat fuzzing the house and some Pilates. I will be back later with a dinner update. I have a dessert planned with wild blueberries that I think is going to be fabulous. I hope everyone is having a great day and staying warm.