KYOTO SALMON SOUP

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 15 minutes

            During a trip to Kyoto, we learned valuable cooking secrets from our host, Yoko. She made this fish soup for us when we arrived, jet lagged and tired. She made it in a boiler pot, right on the table, adding ingredients to cook as she removed the cooked items into our bowls, and it was an ongoing sampling feast.

            I have modified the dish for a western kitchen. This soup is intended to be an entire meal, and once you have the correct ingredients lined up, you can’t go wrong. Play around with different fish (although shrimp doesn’t work well). I prefer Atlantic salmon because of its rich flavor and amount of fat. In Japan, Yoko even used blowfish (that’s the one that kills you if you get any contamination from the poison sac). Basically, any fish firm enough to withstand poaching will be fine, but I focused on salmon.

MUSIC: Let’s see: twenty minutes. Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto no. 1 is gorgeous. Or, the Japanese composer Toru Takamitsu is important and beautiful, worth listening to. Or forget about all those, and put on Tenderly, by Buddy DeFranco, and then the version by Chet Baker, as you are cutting the fish.

HERE’S ALL YOU NEED:

1. Salmon, 1 pound, warmed to room temperature. (You can use any other fleshy white fish instead of, or along with the salmon).
2. Bok choy, one large or three baby, chopped coarsely
3. Tofu (soft, silken variety), one container
4. Ginger root, cut in thin strips, total about 1 heaping Tablespoon
5. Green onions, one or two, chopped coarsely
6. Mushrooms, quartered into small bite size pieces. (button, Cremona, Enoki, oyster, shiitake are fine), total up to 2 Cups max.
7. Soy sauce, 2 Tablespoons
8. Rice vinegar (NOT low calorie/low sodium), 2 Tablespoons
9. Garnish: soy sauce, rice vinegar, spiced soy (eg Ponzu).
10. Rice: about 1 Cup Japanese sushi rice, cooked in a rice cooker is best, but any rice is fine.

HERE’S WHAT TO DO:

• Cook rice.
• While rice is cooking, cut tofu into cubes, and fish into large bite-sized pieces
• In a 4 quart 10 inch sauce pan or wok or boiler pot, place enough water to accommodate the ingredients (2 inches in the sauce pan, or about 1 ½ to 2 quarts).
• Add onions and ginger and heat to near boil.
• Add soy sauce and rice vinegar.
• Add mushrooms and boil gently for 1-2 minutes.
• Add bok choy.
• Add fish and tofu and adjust heat down so there is no active boiling.
• Cook until fish is done, about 5 minutes (with salmon, just done, or a little underdone is better for texture than over done.

CADENZA: Serve soup over rice in a bowl. Splash with additional flavorings: soy sauce, rice vinegar, flavored soy such as Ponzu or other Japanese equivalent. Black or mixed ground pepper is also good. Don’t burn your mouth!

WINE: Tea is best. Beer is second best. Sauvignon blanc third. I often go with the third. Why is that?

Chanterelle soup

                        

                                                Prep time: 10 minutes

                                                Cook time: 12 minutes

                                                Serves: 4 to 6

            I used to live in Portland, Oregon, where, along the coastal range that overlooks the Pacific Ocean, chanterelles are indigenous. One time when friends visited in September from Paris, they returned, astounded, from a hike in those mountains, holding a shirt full of the light-tan mushrooms (one of them had removed his shirt so they could use it as a bag), and proceeded to make an omelet that was more mushrooms than eggs. It was delicious.

            If you have never eaten chanterelles, you are in for a treat. They are my favorite mushroom, but they have a delicate flavor that can be overpowered easily. That is why this soup works well. It captures, full-on, the unique nutty flavor of chanterelles. If served as a separate course, there are no competing flavors. A handful of mushrooms is enough for six servings of soup as a starter.

            The inspiration for this recipe came from one of my favorite restaurants in Portland when I lived there, called Bread and Ink. It still has this soup on the menu. The chef came out and gave me the basics, but it was never written down so I don’t think there are copyright infringements here. In essence, the soup consists of chanterelles sautéed in butter and garlic, with chicken broth, some Marsala, and a bit of cream for richness.

MUSIC: Put on something French, anything from Satie, Debussy, or Ravel, to French Rap/hip-hop by MC Solar (there’s no “explicit” lyrics to worry about because you can’t understand the words, and there is always some melody in the background of French hip-hop).

HERE’S ALL YOU NEED:

1. Chanterelles¹: about 1 to 1½ Cup of coarsely chopped mushrooms that have been brushed off or gently rinsed.
2. Butter, unsalted, 2 Tablespoons
3. Garlic, 1 small to medium clove, chopped (don’t overdo the garlic!)
4. Marsala, about ¼ Cup
5. Chicken broth,  1½ to 2 Cups
6. Cream: half and half ½  Cup, or table cream 1/3 Cup, or heavy cream ¼ Cup. These are approximates. Just don’t put too much cream or it tastes too fatty.
7. Black pepper
8. Italian parsley (or crinkly), chopped, for garnish.

HERE’S WHAT TO DO:

• Sauté chanterelles in butter and garlic for about 3 minutes until softened. they don’t need much cooking, but you won’t hurt them by cooking longer.
• Season with plenty of ground black pepper.
• Add Marsala.
• Add chicken broth.
• Salt to taste.
• Add cream and reheat.
• Serve with parsley garnish.

WINE: A nice white, either dry or a little fruity, goes very well with this soup: Pinot Gris (same as Pinot Grigio), Chablis, Pouilly Fusse. Red wine also can go very well, if you choose something in the Burgundy realm, like Beaujolais or Pinot noir. 

¹About chanterelles: They are expensive, but if you seek out the ones that have dried more and avoid the water logged larger ones, you’ll spend less for more ‘shrooms.