Seafood and vegetable noodle soup

I'm obsessed with soups. If you can blend it into a soup, I'll eat it. There's something so comforting about soup, and made right, it can also be super filling and satisfying. This soup is one of my go-to's after a long day at work. I guess you might be wondering why I don't just order delivery, but I find cooking helps me unwind.

Like most of my recipes, you can easily substitute most of the ingredients for others. Personally I like this with prawns and fish balls, but you could totally do it with tofu, chicken or even keep it just as a vegetable soup.

Prep time: 15 mins

Cooking time: 20 mins

Serves: 2

Ingredients

3cm ginger, finely grated

2 spring onions, finely chopped, half the green parts reserved

1 large garlic clove, finely grated

1 tsp dried chili flakes

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp soy sauce

500ml vegetable stock

500ml water

1 cup Chinese cabbage, chopped

1 cup bok choy, chopped

1/2 cup mix of Shimeji and Oyster mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup wood ear mushrooms

5 fresh prawns, deveined, cut in half

75g firm tofu, diced

4 fishballs, cut into halves

200g noodles of your choice, I like glass noodles or shirataki noodles for this dish

Sesame oil, to season

Birds eye chili, chopped, to your liking

Method

1. Pour the olive oil, three quarters of the chopped spring onions, chili flakes, ginger and garlic into a saucepan put onto a medium heat.

2. Let the mixture become fragrant, keeping an eye so that the garlic doesn't burn.

3. After about 2 minutes, pour in the soy sauce and stir, letting it sizzle and mix, again, careful that it doesn't burn and become acrid.

4. Stir for 30 seconds to a minute, then pour in the stock and water and bring it back to the boil.

5. Meanwhile, take your noodles of choice and cook them as per package instructions. Once cooked to your liking, drain, and rinse in cold water to stop the cooking process, then evenly disperse them into your eating bowls. I used shirataki noodles which don't require cooking, so if you use shirataki also, you can forget this step.

6. Add your mushrooms, tofu, and fishballs.

7. Once your soup has come to a boil, reduce it to a simmer and add your bok choy and Chinese cabbage. Let it simmer all together for 5 minutes.

8. Finally add the prawns and turn off the heat after one minute, allowing the prawns to finish cooking in the heat of the soup.

9. Ladel your soup into the bowls with noodles, and top with remaining chopped spring onions, a few drops of sesame oil and chopped chili to your liking.

Notes

• As mentioned above, you don't have to make this a seafood soup. You can replace the protein with any other protein, or take it out completely.

• Do cook and keep the noodles separate. Adding them to the soup will overcook them and if you're saving the soup for another day, the noodles will absorb most of the broth and become super gluey.

• Chili is totally optional. I love heat. But it's just as delicious without.

• You can take this a step further and create your own chicken broth, (link to this coming soon), and follow the instructions but add star anise, cloves and ginger to lend a more suitable base for this soup. It'll also add richness of flavor.

• Other ingredients that would taste amazing in this soup are daikon, seaweed, zucchini, broccoli or other varieties of mushrooms.

• Additional tasty topping would be toasted sesame seeds.