As soon as the days start getting colder, I feel like having soup. Don’t you? This is one of my favorites, and I have served it to many different crews. Everyone says they love it! My secret ingredient: ginger root. I also use napa cabbage; although sulfites are a no-no in our household, which means no onions and generally avoiding cabbages, this one seems to go down well. If you have sulfite sensitivity, I hope you will be still able to try and enjoy this soup, as my Significant Other has, without any problems!
Ingredients (for 6 heart-warming bowls)
– 400 ml / 13.5 oz natural coconut milk; the only added ingredients in the can was guar gum, which, to my knowledge, is not chemically processed)
– 300 g / a little under 1 lb chicken breast, preferably organic or at least cage-free chicken, cut in strips
– the lemon rind of one organic lemon (I usually have one in my freezer, from a previously squeezed a lemon)
– 1 napa cabbage head (500 g / about 1 lb), chopped into thin strips
– fresh ginger root, which I peel, cut up into small pieces, and then press in a garlic press so as to squeeze out 2 tsp of ‘ginger juice’
– 2 carrots (200 g / ½ lb)
– 1 liter / 4 cups mineral spring water
– 2 tsp coarse sea salt, unrefined, also known as ‘celtic sea salt’
How to:
1. Put water to warm up. You will need it to be boiling by step 5. Prepare chicken, napa cabbage, and ginger juice.
2. Put coconut milk to boil in a large saucepan. Add chicken strips, lemon rind, cover and cook on lower heat for 5 minutes.
3. Add cabbage to pot, stir with wooden spoon so as to coat well with the coconut milk, cover again and cook 5 more minutes.
4. Meanwhile, cut carrots into julienne strips using a nifty gadget called “julienne cutter”. Feel free to munch on leftover raw bits of carrots.
5. Pour boiling water, ginger juice into the pot. Add salt and carrot strips, stir and let your carrot strips relax in this warm bath as Cleopatra might, except you will want to do it for only about 2 minutes, no more!
Serve immediately. The ginger adds a spicy note to this simple, yet sooo good soup. Note that you can also make it with shrimp, provided you know they haven’t had been sprayed with sulfites!
sulfite-free cooking 