Hot & Sour Lemon Grass Soup with Scallops

This is a really wonderful soup if you are feeling under the weather. It clears out the sinuses and warms the belly nicely.


2 tblsp olive oil
2-3 cups sliced mushrooms (shitakes would be great, but regular buttons are fine)
½ medium sized onion – cut in half again and then slice thinly
1 cup if thinly sliced carrots
3 ribs of celery sliced thinly
½ cup if fresh ginger peeled and julienned
1 jalapeno pepper finely diced (I removed ½ the seeds to keep some heat but tone it down)
2 tblsp grated zest of lime
2 tblsp dried lemon grass
¼ cup of fish sauce
¾ cup of rice wine vinegar
4 cups of water
2 cups of vegetable stock
salt ant pepper to taste
2 tsps of mirin
1 lbs of scallops
4 scallions finely sliced
1 healthy handful of cilantro chopped


Heat the olive oil and when very hot add the mushrooms. Resist stirring the mushrooms until they begin to brown. Add the onion, carrots, celery, ginger, and jalapeno and sauté over medium heat until the onions are soft and translucent. Add the lime zest and the lemon grass and sauté for 1-2 minutes more. Add the fish sauce, the rice wine vinegar, the water, and the vegetable stock. Simmer for 10 minutes then add salt and pepper to taste. Add the mirin and the scallops and simmer gently until the scallops are just done. Right before serving add the scallion and the cilantro. Serve piping hot.

Notes:

I had some cooked rice leftover in the refrigerator so I threw it in to make the soup more hearty. You could also hydrate some rice noodles in some boiling water for 5 minutes and toss those in at the end too.

Other things that could be added are tofu, pea-pods, bean sprouts, fresh basil, etc. I would add all of these things at then end. They only need to simmer just briefly in the soup and adding them earlier would make them mushy and unappetizing. You could of course leave the scallops out or replace it with shrimp.