In one of my vlogs, I was making this Carrot & Ginger Soup and I got some requests for the recipe. I used Elise Bauer’s from Simply Recipes version as a guideline but modified a few things.
Ingredients
3 Tbsp Butter/Margarine
2 lbs carrots – peeled & sliced
2 large onions
1 Tbsp of minced ginger
2 cups of chicken stock
2 cups of water
1 chive – diced (optional for taste)
Salt
1. Melt the butter on medium heat and cook the onions and carrots for about 5 minutes. Get the onions soft, but not brown. Sprinkle some salt over the carrots.
2. Add the chicken stock, water and ginger. Bring to boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until carrots are soft.
3. Put the soup into blender in small batches. I only blended it for a few seconds. I tend to like it a tiny bit chunky, but its up to your own preferences how smooth you want it.
4. Taste it and add a little bit of salt (or pepper-optional) if required. Garnish with leeks.
Koreatown is full of restaurants that look like they serve the exact same thing. Usually for soup the destination is Owl Minerva, but since there’s a whole couple blocks of similar things, we ventured into another for fun. We ended up at Lim Ga Ne. It had a nice homey feel, like someone’s Korean mother was going to cook us dinner.
When we placed our order we were soon presented with these chive pancakes. At first I was slightly confused and thought the waiter heard our order wrong. Apparently this is one of the freebies you get and it was delicious.
Then we were presented with even more of the traditional sides.
I ordered the Yukgaejang, which was shredded beef brisket in a hot broth. The portion was very hearty. I enjoyed it for the most part, except these weird veggies that looked like coffee stir sticks, but they were easy to pick out.
Nash had the Kimchi soup with pork. Despite both our soups being red, they were actually different in taste. His was more sweet and sour and mine was more meaty and spicy.
What we didn’t realize until we got our bill is that taxes are included on the menu so everything is conveniently round numbers. This is definitely a place worth checking out, even for the freebies!
Excuse the shitty photos, I was hungry and ate the soup right after I vlogged it, so they are screen captures.
The place may sound like a caucasian’s attempt to speak Chinese but it is a pretty decent Korean restaurant at the heart of Koreatown in Toronto. The restaurant is known for its tofu soup and there are only 9 items on the menu with most of them just being variations of the soup. None of the items are over $9.
I ordered the Seafood Soon Tofu + Dolsotbab in medium heat. It had chunks of oyster, mussels, shrimp and of course tofu. There was a raw egg for me to crack into the soup while it was hot. The tofu was pretty melt in your mouth and even my tofu-hating boyfriend liked it. It was served with purple rice which was scooped out of a stone pot for me. The stone pot was then filled with water. I originally thought this was a way for the restaurant to keep the pots clean but I discovered its actually Koreans call Noo roong ji, where dried rice is purposely mixed with water to become some kind of “burnt rice snack”. I guess I’ll have to try that next time.
Nash dug into it before I took a picture
Nash ordered Stone Pot Bibimbop which was the standard beef stone pot with veggies and an egg on top.
We had four sides on the table to go along with the dishes. Kimchi, pickled vegetables, beans and beans sprouts. For meals under $10 a person this was flavourful and definitely filling!
I always wanted to try Korean pork bone soup and there was probably no where better to try it than Korea Town’s Owl of Minerva which I have previously read about on BlogTO.
Pork bone soup known as “Gamjatang” was listed on the menu for only $6.20. Since the price was so low, I assumed it would be a small portion so I included the $3 add on of dumplings and noodles.
Not only was the portion pretty large and comparable to that of Pho, but it also came with a bowl of rice and a few sides. The soup was chocked full of pork. I expected a single pork bone, but there were many and the meat was fall off the bone tender. The red colour meant it was spicy, however it was a manageable heat. I totally did not need the add-ons though, there was plenty to eat for $6.20.
We never order the same thing (because that is silly), so Nash got the “Kalbitang” also known as Short-Rib Soup.
It came in a white broth that had a black pepper and garlic aroma. Ingredients included green onions, short ribs, onions, egg and glass noodles, which were very tricky to pick up! I have to admit I like my soup a bit better.
For under $20 the meal was filling and tasteful. We will definitely go back to try the non-soup dishes of which there are plenty!
Yesterday I attended Soupstock at Woodbine Park. There were over 40,000 people in attendance trying out soups from 85 different booths. Bands also played in support of their land. The festival existed to raise funds to stop and raise awareness for the high-land mega-quarry. To put it shortly, the Highland companies want to blast a pit deeper than the Niagara falls in more than 2300 acres of farm land in Ontario. It would also require tons of water to be removed from the pit every day, water that people who live downstream from it need. All this just for some limestone. Though many people (including myself) originally came just for the soup, most learnt about and supported the cause.
Nash signing a giant petition.
Soup tickets were $10 for 3 and me and Nash bought 6 altogether. I brought my own bowls from home. I brought these old ugly ones because we chucked them away before heading off to a concert for the night. The first soup we had was a Pumpkin, squash and pear soup. Pumpkin, squash and pear soup
The booth was in a corner, and lines were non-existent, but it was actually one of my favourites. I generally love butternut squash soup but this was perfect in texture. It was bursting with flavour and the hint of pear was lovely. It wasn’t something we immediately tasted, but when thought about, it was definitely there.
Next we braved a line at the Rock Lobster soup tent. disappointing lobster soup
We both unanimously decided that it was definitely not worth the wait. The broth was too thin, and almost water-like. It was also pretty flavourless, or rather had a strange after taste that felt like spicy, but was definitely not spicy. There were a handful of mini lobster pieces, but not enough for it to have been worth the long line.
Chilli
After that thin soup, I wanted something with more substance so we tried the chili. It wasn’t spicy, but they had plenty of hot sauce at their station to add whatever amount of heat was desired. We dabbed quite a bit and enjoyed the filling beans, meat and cheese combo.
Susur Lee serving me soup
Up until this point we were just wandering about looking at the stands without a map, but while in line for chili, I heard one of my favourite food network chefs Susur Lee was serving soup! I haven’t been to his restaurant yet (not in my budget) but I have tried a couple of his items at various other food festivals. Sunday he was serving hot and sour soup!
Hot and sour soup
To be honest, I’m not regularly a fan of hot and sour soup. I always thought it was one of those fake Asian foods made for white folk. However Susur’s was delicious! There were a ton of flavours going on including a mouthful of flowery coriander. The ingredients in his soup reminded me of shark fin soup (which I have had plenty as a kid), without the shark fin.
Since the lobster soup was a fail, we decided not to judge a soup by its line. Instead for the last two, we went to booths with virtually no line at all. The first was the Fraser Cafe which had a lemongrass noodle soup. Lemongrass noodle soup
There was a strong flavour of lemongrass, and pieces of it were visible in the soup. The noodles were thin and soaked up the flavour. Strangely, it almost kind of reminded me of the pumpkin soup in aftertaste.
Lastly, we got a potato leek soup with sweet breads in it. Potato leek w/ sweetbreads
Sweetbreads, just as a reminder is weird organ meat. We’ve tried it once before at last year’s Food and Wine festival. The potato leek soup was perfectly thick. The sweetbreads were thick and this time, we didn’t mind the texture at all. In this soup it was a soft meaty delicacy.
Though I hope the mega-quarry doesn’t happen, I hope another Soupstock does, even if to raise support for another cause. It was a lovely Sunday, with a lovely mixture of happy people, food and music.
Tiana Feng 