June 24, 2021

The best Shitake mushroom Laksa soup recipe from Medicine Room

Deconstructed Shitake Vegan Laksa is true food as medicine.

We had so much fun at our Medicinal mushroom Long table wellness day on Sunday. I know that only a very few lucky medicineroom family can come. We only have 12 places available and there are thousands of you there online and watching our work. So, I'm adding in this recipe to share with you the fun.

Here is the recipe we made. This pic is some pf our guests serving lunch. As you see there are lots of options for the toppings.

Lets talk the base first!

Firstly I want to say that a true decoction in Chinese medicine practice is to slow simmer the roots, barks, seeds and stems of plants for a few hours. Sometimes longer. So what I did as the base of this delicious soup was take 400 grams of dried turmeric chips, 100 grams of dried ginger chips and boil it with 6 litres of water, 2 tablespoons salt, 8 cloves of garlic, three star anise, 10 pods cardamom, and a big tablespoon of good quality garam masala. We simmered this for three hours, as the liquid quantity decreased we kept adding boiling hot water and topping it up. reducing it again and at the end we had 2.5 litres of a very rich and potent decoction. Now we are ready to make your soup!

This base is going to be cooked again with some other ingredients. What we do is make the base into a delicious soup with the shitake and then cook all other vegetables so that they are ready in little bowls for people to make their own soup at the table! Its fun and gives people many options for their meal. You simply add a couple of scoops of the liquid soup to the bowl and everyone adds the rest!

1. Take your base and make sure you strain off the herbs so that you are only left with the 2.5 litres of potent stock decoction base! Add it to the heat again with 250 grams of dried shitake mushroom and 1 can of coconut cream or 100 grams of the pure coconut powder. Bring to boil and simmer for a few minutes. Have it hot and ready to go when all the other ingredients are ready.

Now get the rest ready and serve it all up at once.

2. We roasted pumpkin and onion in olive oil in 1 inch pieces. 1/2 pumpkin is a good amount to feed 14 people!

3. We sliced lots of greens, beans, bok choy and celery. This was steamed to be ready when the soup was ready.

4. We roasted 500 grams of button mushrooms with 500 grams oyster mushrooms in olive oil and some sea salt.

5. Slice capsicums, fresh herbs, red onions, fresh greens and whatever else you like to pop on bowls of deliciousness.

6. We had sides of chilli and spices. You can add nuts, seeds, super foods and whatever else you want.

Now when its all cooked up you serve.

Super simple and delicious.

The health benefits of this winter soup are too many to describe in one blog. The Shitake mushroom is full of immuno boosting properties and works as an antioxidant, as do most of the vegetables added. The turmeric and ginger are antimicrobial and also anti inflammatory, really good spices and garlic etc added are just pure winter time medicines helping the body recover, regenerate and fight off any pending ailments. Yes we loved this one.

In our herbal teas available on the web site you can purchase the shitake mushrooms and also the turmeric chips and ginger. We have lots of other mushrooms and herbs available too. have a great week.

Love Dom xox