What a wonderful soup for these cool evenings when its a bit too chilly to fire up the grill!
If you don't need to be GF, any favorite noodle will work, but the soba noodles make a wonderful noodle soup for any palate!
For a mix of textures in each bite, a mix of mushrooms is best. I used shitake, oyster, maitake, baby bella and some trumpet. Getting the package of mixed fancy mushrooms for part of the batch works well. But any mushrooms will work. You want that nice umami flavor that they impart when you cook them until the liquid has evaporated and they are browned a bit. Then using GF organic tamari sauce and rice vinegar rounds out the flavors nicely. If you don't need GF, soy sauce works just fine.
Recipe
Ingredients:
2 pounds mushroom mix torn into bite size pieces
3 large cloves garlic- chopped
3 large shallots - sliced thin
2 fresh hot peppers - serrano or Fresno (if can't find jalapeno will work) or 3/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 cup Tamari sauce
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
8 cups water
8 oz soba (buckwheat) noodles
Cilantro to garnish
Squeeze of lime to serve
Directions:
Sautee garlic and shallots in olive oil, medium heat, until lightly browned. Add torn mushrooms and one sliced pepper and cook until water has evaporated and starts to brown. The browning creates the nice umami flavor for the broth. Add tamari, rice vinegar and water. Cook about 20 minutes for flavors combine.
Cook soba noodles in salted water until slightly cooked. Drain and rinse with cool water to stop cooking if not putting into broth immediately.
Add noodles to broth and let simmer until noodles are cooked and flavors combined.
Ladle into pasta or soup bowls and enjoy!!
Serve at table with cilantro, lime wedges, extra sliced pepper (for those who like spicier!) and crusty GF bread.
Note: Crusty bread for dunking is delicious! I brushed multigrain GF bread slices with butter, pinch of kosher salt and chopped garlic, bake at 350 degrees until browned and crunchy. Turn over once while baking. Put it in the oven when you add the noodles to the broth. Timing works!
Bon Appetit!