kimchi soup with chicken meatballs

There are some days when you realize you have to clear out your fridge and make room for fresh vegetables. A soup is perfect for using up all of your leftover vegetables from your fridge. This recipe again can vary according to your mood, taste and creativity so read it once and make your own little tweaks.  Enjoy slurping on this in your artificially cooled rooms this summer or save it for a cold winter day :)

This recipe has 3 components. 

• the soup
• the meatballs
• home made kauri/phaktu (tibetian pasta)

Today i will show you how to make the first two components. The 3rd one is optional and can even be substituted with store bought ramen/ noodle/ pasta.  How to make yummy home made wholewheat Kauri in my upcoming post.

For the soup you will need:

• 2 pieces of chicken bouillone.
•  veggies lying around in your fridge.
• juice of half a lime. (optional)
• 1 cup chopped up kimchi.
• 2 cloves of minced garlic.
• One thumb size piece of ginger peeled and gently bruised. 

 Boil 5 cups water in a saucepan and add your bouillon when it begins to warm up in medium heat. Let it melt away and some gentle stirring helps here.

 Now add all your veggies, kimchi, garlic, ginger and salt (remember to taste and adjust the salt) and bring it to a quick boil on high heat.

 You need to skim off the impurities and excess fat from the surface of the pan as shown below.

 After one quick boil, turn of the heat and cover the saucepan. the heat will slowly soften the vegetables while not overcooking. we can now work on the 2nd component; the meatballs.

•  Get 350 grams of minced chicken breast. Add some black ground pepper and salt to taste.
• crack an egg
• one large tbsp cornflour/corn starch/potato starch
• 250 gms of breadcrumbs for coating.

 Mix everything well and make meatballs coating them with breadcrumbs. (the tiny one is for IVY, my hamster)

 Fry the meatballs in any vegetable oil. I like canola oil as it has a high smoking point so makes it a good option for deep frying. You need to drop them in when the oil is hot so that they immediately start browning. this seals the meatballs while leaving the chicken still juicy inside. Fry them only for about 3 minutes till they achieve the colour shown below. Wipe with a paper towel to remove excess oil.

 These are then dropped into your warm soup and left to soak up the juices for at least 20 minutes. Remove the piece of ginger after 20 minutes soaking time. When you are ready to eat, you can bring it up to boil again for the last time to heat your soup plus cook the meatballs!!

 Roasted seaweed is a popular snack in Korea. My cousins got me some from their holiday and I instantly fell in love. I had to try to make it.
Take you normal dried seaweeed/gim/nori and cut them up into palm size pieces. Notice they are black in colour and do not make for good stand alone snack.

 Rub some sesame oil on them individually and stack aside. Place them one at a time on a hot flat pan that you usually make your eggs in. Add a small amount of salt on each sheet and roast it on both sides.

These are now light green in colour and delightfully light and crispy. You can store them in an air tight container for later when you watch the new episode of Game of Thrones tomorrow :)

 And finally you can enjoy your kimchi soup (add lime juice here if you want) with roasted crispy gim and some more kimchi. You may add some ramen/pasta in this if you plan to make it your meal of the day. Kauri from scratch coming soon !!

 IVY says hi and Remember to cook from your heart !!!