Soup/Stew

Oats lend an interesting texture to this soup, but because they are added in such a small quantity and are puréed with the rest of the ingredients, they’re impossible to detect.

With fresh ginger, garlic, and lime, this Thai-style soup imparts lovely fragrance and warmth on a cool autumn evening. Adjust the amount of red pepper flakes depending on how spicy you want the soup to be.

Substitute other available squashes or even pumpkin if you can’t find butternut. Toss leftover spicy pumpkin seeds into a salad, or enjoy them on their own as a snack.

Gazpacho is traditionally made by adding olive oil to vegetable purée; in this light version, we left out the oil and used only a small amount to cook the shrimp.

A cup of this soup is delicious, served hot or cold. Try packing it in a thermos for a light picnic lunch. To chill quickly, place the soup in a bowl and set that bowl into an ice-water bath. Stir frequently until cool.

Capture the sweetness of fresh corn in this three-ingredient soup. Freeze portions for up to six months, then heat them straight from the freezer.

Depending on the weather, serve this comforting soup hot or cold. You can quickly chill it by placing it into a metal bowl set into an ice bath; stir frequently until the soup reaches the desired temperature.

In this recipe for a popular Chinese dish, an egg is stirred into the simmering soup to form tiny ribbons. For more flavor, add a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil just before serving.

To serve this Mexican mainstay, ladle the hot soup into bowls, and then let everyone pick and choose from among the suggested garnishes.

Add a slice of toast topped with melted cheese, and you have a light dinner or lunch. This recipe makes enough soup for eight people, but you can easily freeze the leftovers if serving fewer (directions for freezing are below).

This version of vegetarian chili uses textured vegetable protein as a substitute for the ground beef. Although it looks a little like granola in its dry form, it absorbs the flavor of whatever you put in the dish, so in the end even meat eaters don’t realize it’s not really beef.

I used to be very apprehensive about different ethnic foods until I studied abroad. The first time I had a tagine was in France and I wondered where it had been all my life! That first tagine was the furthest thing from being vegetarian-friendly, as it came with every kind of meat you can imagine, but an all-vegetable version is just as good. This is a great meal for when you have friends coming over or to take to a potluck.

Everyone who has ever tried this says it’s spectacular. Even my mom, who doesn’t like cheese, likes this soup, which is saying a lot. The soup itself is an awesome combination of cheese and onions. And the soda bread is so nice and crunchy on the outside and squishy on the inside. It’s quite perfect. The only proper way to eat this is to dip the bread in the soup, which means it’s an excuse to eat a lot of bread. This is a great cold weather food, although sometimes in summer I suffer through eating it with the air-conditioning turned way up.

This soup is perfect for a chilly autumn night, when you just want to wrap yourself in a warm blanket and watch television. It is as easy as cutting up the vegetables and waiting for them to cook. And the best part is, because the vegetables get puréed in the end, it doesn’t matter how big or small or funny shaped they are. But do be careful not to put too much in the blender at a time, unless you’re trying to redecorate your kitchen.

Soup is great because you can make a lot when you have time and freeze it in smaller portions so that you always have a quick home-cooked meal on hand. You can even take the frozen soup with you if you have access to a microwave to reheat it. Plus, it is chock-full of vegetables and pretty low in calories.

Who doesn’t like lentil soup? This soup is as easy as cutting up a few vegetables and putting them in the pot. The hard part—if you’re hungry—is waiting for it to cook. This is great on a cold fall day when you need a little something to warm you up. It reheats really well, and you can even freeze it if you have any extra.

Here is the Vietnamese version of the familiar Chinese egg drop soup. At its heart is a base of onion and tomato, which is cooked down to concentrate flavors and impart a lovely color. The pork adds richness, and so do the eggs, which also contribute a creamy finish to round out the tangy notes. This soup was a weekly standard at our family dinner table, and my mom would sometimes substitute tofu cubes for the pork to vary the flavor. When I have extra time, I mince the pork by hand for an authentic touch. For instructions on how to do it, see page 69.

The Vietnamese love exotic meats, and when such delicacies are unavailable, they enjoy dishes that mimic the real thing. This northern stew features a stand-in for ba ba, a freshwater snapping turtle that thrives in the south, where heavy rains offer it perfect muddy living conditions. Since the turtles are hard to find in the drier, colder north, cooks there add extra pork instead. The original southern stew also calls for pork belly. Although I’ve never tasted the real stew, I grew up eating the mock version, which, with its brilliant yellow color, robust flavors, and varied textures, is excellent in its own right. The fried tofu has a meaty consistency, and thick rounds of unripe plaintain (peel included) add interesting starchiness, astringency, and texture. Both ingredients soak up the sauce and complement the savory, rich chunks of pork. While pork shoulder works well, the best way to imitate ba ba meat and the classic stew is to use skin-on boneless pork shank (available at Chinese and Viet markets). It provides a nice balance of chewy meat and gelatinous skin to imitate the turtle, while its fat recalls the original pork belly. The sour cream is a substitute for a tangy fermented rice mash called me, a favorite northern Vietnamese ingredient that is scarce in the States. Fresh red perilla and garlic add the final flourishes to a delicious combination of flavors. Serve the stew with plenty of rice.

This stew is so popular that practically every Viet cook has his or her own version. I have read recipes that call for curry powder, annatto seeds, tomato paste, and beer. But this is how my mother learned to make bò kho decades ago. Although in Vietnam it is traditionally eaten for breakfast, here in the States it has become lunch or dinner fare in the Vietnamese American community. It may be served in shallow bowls with warm French bread for sopping up the flavorful sauce, or it may be spooned over rice or wide rice noodles (bánh pho). The addition of chopped Vietnamese coriander or Thai basil leaves is something that my parents picked up when we lived in Saigon. Also, despite the name, this is not a kho dish. Here, kho means “to simmer” or “to stew.” No caramel sauce is involved. Traditionalists like to use the boneless beef shank sold at Chinese and Viet markets for this dish, which they cook for hours to yield a chewy-tender result. Once in the States, my family switched to beef chuck, which is flavorful, suited to long cooking, and more readily available.

Most people are introduced to galangal, a relative of ginger, by way of Thai curries and seafood soups. The rhizome is seldom used in Vietnamese cooking, but when it is, it is paired with other bold-flavored ingredients. Here, its pungent heat brightens a northern fish kho, with the bittersweet caramel sauce tempering its fire. Use the smaller amount of galangal if you want a dish with less intensity. Although salmon isn’t native to Vietnam, it takes on the robust flavors of the kho remarkably well. Fresh side pork (pork belly), which you can find at Asian markets, is the stealth ingredient here, enrobing everything with its richness to create a unique surf-and-turf combination. The result is spicy, savory, and a touch sweet.