Hot & Sour Vegetable Soup With Burnt Garlic

It is soup weather now, at least here in Bangalore!

Winter is setting in deeper in the city, bit by little bit, giving me the perfect foil to make a variety of soups. 🙂 We are quite the soup-loving family, and a bowl of hot soup makes the perfect evening snack for us most evenings.

Today, I present to you the recipe for Hot & Sour Vegetable Soup, a simple soup that you can whip up within a matter of minutes. You can use whatever vegetables you have on hand, and it will taste absolutely wonderful! Especially, the burnt garlic that I temper it with adds a whole lot of oomph to the soup. Do try this recipe out, and let me know how you liked it!

Let’s now check out the recipe for the Hot & Sour Vegetable Soup With Burnt Garlic.

Ingredients (serves 4):

1. 4-5 beans
2. A small piece of cabbage
3. 2 pieces of babycorn
4. 1 small onion
5. 1 medium-sized floret of cauliflower
6. 1 tablespoon + 1 tablespoon of salted butter
7. Salt to taste
8. 1 tablespoon sugar
9. Juice of 1/2 lemon or to taste
10. 2 tablespoons hot Sriracha sauce
11. 2 tablespoons wheat flour
12. 2 tablespoons soya sauce
13. Black pepper powder to taste
14. 5-6 cloves of garlic
15. 1 tablespoon finely chopped coriander

Method:

1. First, we will prep the vegetables we need to make the soup. Remove strings from the beans and chop finely. Chop the cabbage, onion, cauliflower, babycorn and garlic finely. Keep aside.

2. Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a thick-bottomed pan. Add in the finely chopped beans, cabbage, onion, cauliflower and babycorn. Add salt to taste. Saute on high heat till the vegetables are cooked, but still retain a bit of a crunch.

3. Mix 2-3 tablespoons of water into the wheat flour, and make a paste without any lumps. Keep aside.

4. Add 4 cups of water to the pan. Add in the wheat flour paste. Mix well. Cook on medium flame till the soup thickens and begins to boil.

5. Now, add in the soya sauce, Sriracha sauce, sugar and black pepper powder. Mix well. Check and adjust salt if needed. Cook on medium flame for 1-2 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon butter in another pan. Add in the finely chopped garlic. Saute on medium flame till the garlic browns, allowing it to burn slightly, but not overly so. Add the burnt garlic to the soup in the other pan.

7. When the soup has simmered for 1-2 minutes, switch off gas. Mix in finely chopped coriander and lemon juice to taste. Serve hot.

Notes:

1. Vinegar can be used to sour the soup, instead of lemon juice. You can even use a mix of lemon juice and vinegar.
2. I have used salted butter from Amul, Sriracha sauce from Thai Heritage and naturally fermented soya sauce from a Thai brand called Shoyu.
3. You may skip the sugar if you want to, but I personally wouldn’t suggest that. The sugar doesn’t make the soup overly sweet, but helps in rounding up the other flavours beautifully.
4. Be careful while adding in salt to the soup. Remember that the butter and soya sauce that we are using in the soup contain salt as well.
5. Here, I have used whatever vegetables I had handy at the moment. You may use any other veggies of your choice to make this Hot & Sour Soup.
6. Paneer or tofu can be added to the soup as well. Here, I haven’t.
7. You may lightly roast the wheat flour before adding it to the Hot & Sour Soup. I haven’t. I have used raw wheat flour here.
8. I haven’t used any ginger in this soup. You may, if you want to.
9. Corn flour can be used to thicken the Hot & Sour Soup, instead of wheat flour.
10. You can use herbed butter in the soup, instead of ordinary salted butter.

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This post is for the Healthy WELLthy Cuisines Facebook group that I am part of. The members of this group cook for a particular theme every fortnight. This fortnight, all of us are cooking different types of soups.

Check out what the other members have prepared for the theme!:

Vegetable Manchow Soup by Jayshree| Vegan Wonton Soup by Geetanjali| Creamy Cauliflower Soup by Rosy| Bottlegourd Soup by Seema| Thukpa by Sasmita

I’m also sharing this post with Fiesta Friday #251. The co-hosts this week are Mollie @ Frugal Hausfrau and Monika @ Everyday Healthy Recipes.