Cooking for One: Soup and Fall, a Reprise

By the time I returned to Brooklyn, after more than 24 hours of straight travel, I was craving soup again. It wasn’t just that the city I had returned home to was suddenly autumnal, the days short and the breeze chilly, but also that I needed to recover from the carb-heavy diet of my trip. Much to the embarrassment of my laid-back, acclimated hosts, I refused to eat any vegetables that hadn’t been thoroughly cooked, and I limited myself to meals of fresh local fish and French fries (I mean, I was pretty happy with this choice, admittedly). For the remainder of my menu, what I ate the most of were fluffy white Portuguese rolls spread thickly with margarine and guava jelly.

So on that first afternoon back in my apartment, while I fought to stay awake to a normal New York bedtime hour, I put a bunch of pots on my stove and made soup. Soup making was partly a response to the new season and partly an effort to detox from my trip. The second reason is why I added nourishing, purifying ingredients, like chopped garlic, ginger, and scallions. But the second reason is also what led me to make a slight—mainly aesthetic—gaffe:

I had bought a beautiful red cabbage, and I added lots of thin slices of it to the soup when it was partly done cooking. Before I knew it, my pale, mild soup had turned a dark shade of reddish-brown (well, the soy sauce helped with this), and I worried that though it smelled and tasted delicious, it had ceased to look at all appetizing. I panicked for a moment or two before I remembered that the soup was intended for my eyes and my palate only. Even so, when I reheated the soup to actually eat it, I found the color bothered me far less. And once I’d added noodles and various other condiments, I had almost convinced myself that this disaster, maybe, maybe, wasn’t one.

From my kitchen, where big boiling pots are my welcome-home gift to myself, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

the culprit: red cabbage wound up defining my soup

Asian Broth with Shredded Veggies and Noodles
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 onion, thinly sliced
4 scallions, white and green parts, sliced

3 cloves of garlic minced

1 1/2 tablespoons of grated ginger

1 large carrot (or 1/2 cup baby carrots), cut into julienne

1/4 large cabbage (red or white), finely sliced
1/2 yellow pepper, julienned
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 lime

For serving:

2 cups rice noodles cooked according to package directions (you can also use regular pasta—I like whole wheat angel hair here)
1-2 teaspoons sesame oil
Sriracha
Fresh cilantro

1-2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

Combine the onion, scallion, 2 cloves of garlic, ginger, and carrot in a large pot with 7 cups of water. Bring to a boil slowly. Simmer for 15 minutes, until the vegetables have wilted. Add the cabbage, pepper, cilantro, and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, and simmer for another 15-20 minutes until all the vegetables are very tender. Remove from the heat and squeeze in the lime. Taste for seasonings, and add more soy sauce if you’d like.

When ready to serve, reheat the soup to nearly boiling. Distribute the rice noodles amongst four servings. Ladle the soup over each, then sprinkle with a few drops of sesame oil and a 1/2 teaspoon of sesame seeds. Garnish with a sprig of cilantro, and pass the sriracha around so people can add to taste.