We’ve been flirting with springtime for several weeks here in New Mexico. I’ve been lightening up the menu since early February, accented by the occasional heavier stew or soup when needed.
Now we are about to touch upon some much warmer days and I know that May will usher in a long and lovely hot summer. But no matter how hot is gets, I am a dedicated, all-season soup lover!
The secret to great soup is the broth.
A warm weather soup can be more challenging than autumn’s squash bisque or winter’s hearty bean and root veggie soup. A summer soup calls for a broth that is both light and deeply flavorful. A successful soup broth will rend a delightful soup.
Umami for you, umami for me.
I have heard this word “umami” a lot in the past few years and decided to check out what it really is. Believe it or not, there is a website called “The Umami Information Center” which was enlightening. Seems the Japanese word “umami” has to do with the taste imparted by glutamate.
I react to that piece of information as if they said a bad word. Glutamate? As in Mono Sodium Glutamate? No way I’m using that in my food!
Turns out glutamate is naturally occurring in many foods which can be used in cooking to create the coveted Umami flavor. Some of the foods on the list I absolutely knew were umami-rich. Others, I hadn’t thought of before.
“Wow!” I thought, “This is enough to keep me souping in my kitchen all summer long!”
Without a doubt, the best umami, the best food, the best meal comes from your own kitchen. Even if you are a novice.
Okay I will get to the soup recipe. I promise! But I’ve gotta take a little side trip here. I’m going to make a umami-rich broth made with real food ingredients and condiments. It is not difficult and it can even be considered economical because one way to get a highly-flavored soup broth is to save the cooking water from boiling or steaming other veggies and voila! you have umami. Or, you can consciously decide to create umami from specific foods that you choose just for your soup recipe.
Either way, the point is–cooking for yourself with real food in your own kitchen wins flavor-wise and health-wise every single time over buying soup in the store (natural food store or not) or ordering it in a restaurant. Forty plus years of savoring my own cooking versus even the best dishes in the best restaurants has taught me that.
Lemon Fennel Soup
Making the umami-rich broth:
2 quarts spring water
4-6 inch piece of kombu seaweed
1 head of nappa cabbage (sometimes called Chinese cabbage)
Naturally brewed soy sauce (“Nama” brand is far and away the best flavor and the most umamiful.)
- Quickly clean the dried kombu by brushing it off with a clean, damp paper towel or vegetable brush. Place the kombu in the bottom of a large pot and add all the water. Bring this to a boil.
- Meanwhile wash a head of nappa cabbage, cut it in half and again in quarters. The core may be cut out and separately sliced fine. Cut the cabbage into 1-inch pieces. If you don’t want to use all the cabbage at once, just use the amount you will probably eat. The cabbage itself will not wind up in the soup. It will be served separately as a lightly boiled salad.
- Put the cabbage in the boiling water and cook for just about a minute or until the green parts become bright green. This may take less than a minute! Immediately remove the cabbage into a colander to cool.
- Continue allowing the broth to simmer with the kombu for about 15 minutes, then remove the kombu. (Save the kombu for another use or to slice up and add to another dish.
- Strain the soup broth so there are no solids in it.
- You now have a light, flavorful broth that delivers umami flavor.
Putting the soup together
1 large fennel bulb
1 shallot
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 lemon
chili flakes (optional)
- Wash the fennel and separate the bulb from the rest. Save the feathery fronds for garnish. Thinly slice the fennel, about 1/4 inch slices.
- Slice the shallot
- Heat a pan of your choice (I use cast iron) and add the sesame oil.
- When the oil is hot add the shallots with a pinch of salt and saute until they soften.
- Add the fennel slices and another pinch of salt and continue sauteing until the fennel is well-cooked.
- Put the sautéed fennel and shallot into the soup broth. Season lightly with soy sauce, add and let it all simmer a few minutes.
- Just before serving, zest your lemon and add to the soup. I use a zester that produces thin little slices of zest. In that case I’m going to add about 2 Tablespoons of this. If you are zesting your lemon with a microplane that produces grated zest, you may want to use less. Experiment with this!
- Serve the soup garnished with fennel fronds and a few drops of lemon juice.
Some more soup broth tips:
Keep in mind that some veggies, like carrots, have a very definite flavor and color. Others, such as white daikon radish taste very different when cooked than when raw. Think with the flavors to get the broth you want. Sometimes you just want lots of flavor and it doesn’t matter too much what you use. If you make a vegetable soup, you can add all kinds of things together. But if you are going for a more delicate taste like the fennel soup, then choose ingredients for the broth that will enhance but not interfere with your finished product.
Sauteing vegetables helps bring out their flavor and sweetness. Decide, however, what oil you will use based on the flavors of that oil. At first I was going to use toasted sesame oil to saute the fennel and shallots but that would definitely have brought in a flavor that might have taken over too much.
Dried vegetables, such as dried shiitake mushrooms have a concentrated flavor that provides a lot of umami, even though you will reconstitute them by soaking first. See more about shiitake and kombu in my 2013 post, “Rejuvenation and Dashi.”
Apparently tomatoes are considered to yield a very high level of umami. Hmm, sun-dried tomatoes. Gotta play with that!
