Making Vietnamese Style Beef Soup

Vietnamese style beef soup

Vietnamese style beef soup is a healthy addition to your meal. You can enjoy it from the comfort of your own home without having to go to a Vietnamese restaurant.

To make the Vietnamese style beef soup you will need three different stocks - vegetable, shrimp, and beef. You can make them simultaneously but you will need three pots. If you don't have three pots you can make them one after the other. But if you do that make sure to rinse the pot each time.

To make the vegetable stock:

Add the following ingredients to a pot filled with water - medium onion, large carrot, few stalks of celery and some Napa cabbage leaves. Add sea salt and place over medium heat. When the water comes to a boil simmer for about 40 minutes. Once done, remove the vegetables from the pot. You can discard the onion but keep the rest of the veggies for the soup. If you feel they are too soft you can throw them away and add fresh ones when you eat the soup but keep in mind that carrots and celery won't be soft.

To make the shrimp stock:

Take shrimp in its shell (at least 1/2 a pound), wash it and place into a pot filled with water. Cook the shrimp until it turns pink. When done remove the shrimp onto a bowl. Remove the shells from the shrimp, place back into the pot of water and let it cook a little bit more to bring in more flavor to the stock. When done remove the shells from the pot. You can use a skimmer to do that or drain through a colander. 

To make the beef stock:

Take a handful of thin slices of beef fat, rinse under running water and place into a pot of water. When the pot comes to a boil cook the beef fat for about 4 minutes.

To make the soup:

Combine the three different stocks in a large pot. Add the cooked slices of beef fat, and the cooked shrimp. Then add slices of carrot, Napa cabbage and celery - from the stock and/or fresh ones. Stir everything. Add some sea salt if you think the soup needs more salt. Then heat and enjoy!

You can also add some Enoki mushrooms. Before adding the Enoki mushrooms to the soup you need to cut off about an inch from the bottom of the stem, separate the strands and rinse under running water. Enoki mushrooms can be eaten raw so you don't have to cook them but they are a bit hard. To soften them, simply add them to the soup when you are heating it up on the stove. If you prefer you can place them into boiled water, cover, and hold for about 3 minutes, then drain, before adding them to the soup. This will make them softer.  

Tomato Carrot Soup with Basmati Rice

Tomato soup is a favorite of mine. I always order it at a restaurant if it is on the menu but I am not always lucky. Often enough it is either not available or not offered at all, which leaves me very disappointed.

I thought about it and decided to make tomato soup myself. It's not complicated and I can enjoy it whenever I want to without having to search for a place that serves it that day. 

There are many varieties of tomato soup. The one I came up with is Tomato Carrot Soup with Basmati Rice. It is hearty and delicious and oh so easy to make. 

The next time you crave for some tomato soup give this recipe a try. You are going to love it and even may find yourself making it again and again. 

Tomato Carrot Soup with Basmati Rice

Cabbage Soup with Mushrooms

I love eating cabbage soup. It is healthy, nutritious and at the same time delicious. It can be eaten hot, cold, or warm. Either way it tastes great. Preparing this soup is easy and it's not very time consuming at all. 

It's also great for losing weight so I've heard. Although the type of cabbage soup people make for their diets doesn't look or taste delicious. How do I know? My mom made it once years ago and after trying a spoonful I quickly spit it out. My soup tastes so much better and I am sure eating will help people on diets who watch their weight.

I make cabbage soup all the time and not just because it's part of my tradition since I am originally from Belarus.  I make it because I love it and it's good for me. I don't always make it exactly the same way. Today I chose to include mushrooms in my recipe. And I just had myself a huge bowl with a teaspoon of sour cream. It was heaven on earth. All that was missing was some freshly baked bread. 

Cabbage soup with mushrooms

Making Artichoke Soup - Update

Today I made artichoke soup for the very first time. The soup required vegetable stock and I didn't have any on hand. I could have probably gone to the nearest supermarket and bought canned vegetable stock but I chose to make it from scratch. This would make the recipe have the freshest stock without any unnecessary added ingredients such as artificial flavors or chemical terms I am not familiar with.

To make the vegetable stock I used a few stalks of celery, a few leaves of napa cabbage, an onion, a large carrot, and a white turnip. I also added some salt to the pot. That was it. No other spices or herbs. Just some sea salt. To help enhance the flavor of the soup I let the pot come to a boil and then lowered the heat, allowing the ingredients to simmer for approximately one hour. It was after the vegetable stock was done that I started to make my artichoke soup.

I started out with a small chopped onion and a minced garlic clove and fried them in a skillet with some oil. Then I opened two 14 ounce cans of artichokes, drained the water, and removed them onto a bowl. Then using a cutting board and a knife I cut each artichoke in half and then cut it in half again. I placed the artichokes along with the fried onion and fried garlic into a pot and added the vegetable stock and mixed everything. I let the ingredients come to a boil and then lowered the heat, covered the pot with a lid, and let it simmer for about five minutes. After that was done came the most crucial step in the recipe - to turn the soup into a smooth mixture with no chunks of anything. It's similar in texture as creamy soups like cream of corn, etc. minus the pieces of vegetables inside it.

I do not have a blender so I used a food processor to do this. Trying to save some time I poured a lot of the soup into the processor and turned on the power. As soon as I did that some of the already processed ingredients spilled out of the food processor. Not sure how that happened as there are no cracks in it and the lid was closed but I am glad it did because it taught me a lesson - never put too much into the food processor at once, especially if it contains lots of liquid. So, from that point I did it little by little, removing the mixture into a large bowl every time. Yeah, it took a little more time but at least there was no more mess to clean up, aside from the one I had already made. 

When all of the soup was now a smooth mixture I decided to pour it through a colander to remove any clumps or tiny strands of artichoke. That took time as well but it was very much needed as there were clumps to discard at the end. 

Having finished with the food processor and the removal of unnecessary clumps I poured the contents back into a pot and added the half-n-half along with some butter, which I melted in a sauce pan. I stirred everything and then placed the pot into the fridge with the lid covered. I let it sit in the fridge for 3-4 hours before eating the soup as it's meant to be consumed chilled.

When it came time to eat the soup, I poured myself a large bowl and garnished it with a few olives. This was done purely for photo purposes. Garnishing the artichoke soup with olives made it look even better. I removed them when I was done taking the photo. I wonder though how the soup would taste if I actually put chunks of olives in it. Maybe I will try it next time. There is still a lot of soup left to eat.

Chilled Artichoke Soup