Vegetable Essence Asian Style

Ingredients for 2 servings:

• 1 bunch of soup vegetables (celery, carrot, leek and parsley)
• 1 piece(s) ginger, approx. 2 cm
• 1 stalk of lemongrass
• 1 red chili pepper(s)
• 2 tsp, heaped vegetable paste (alternatively granulated stock)
• e.g. salt and pepper
• Oil for frying
• n. B. Coriander leaves for garnishing

Instructions

Working time approx. 15 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 20 minutes; Total time approx. 35 minutes

great taste and a real cold killer

Peel the celery and carrots and cut into very small cubes. Also clean the leek and cut it into fine strips. Peel the ginger (works great with a small spoon) and finely slice it, just like the chili pepper. If you don’t want it too spicy, remove the seeds from the chili pepper. Crush the lemongrass to release its flavor. Heat oil in a pan. Roast the celery, carrots, and leek. Add salt and pepper sparingly; the final seasoning is for you at the end. Finally, add the ginger and chili pepper and sauté briefly. In the meantime, bring water to a boil in the kettle. Deglaze with the boiling water until all ingredients are well covered. Now add the lemongrass and the vegetable paste. Instead of the homemade vegetable paste (recipe available at Chefkoch), you can also use granulated stock; in this case, I would use 2 level teaspoons. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer with the lid slightly ajar for about 20 minutes. The essence is ready when the vegetables are soft. Fish out the lemongrass and press the rest of the ingredients through a fine sieve; it contains plenty of liquid (and flavor). The fine cubes make squeezing much easier, so take your time chopping. Season the essence with salt and pepper. Serve the vegetable essence and garnish with coriander. If you don’t like coriander, you can also use parsley. It’s also healthy and is included with the soup vegetables. A little tip: supermarkets have frozen Asian-style herb mixes that usually contain the ingredients mentioned above. If you want to make things easier, you can use this instead.