My housemates and I were throwing a housewarming party on Saturday night. One of them suggested that we throw a few big pots of soup on the stove the satisfy the hungry. After protesting that we could do better -(maybe some fried food? everybody loves croquettes!) – I took up the task of handling our vegan and gluten free option. I was up for the challenge of cooking for dietary constraints, but also aware that this would clear me to cook the meat at the next party.

What to cook. My housemate suggested lentils? But I want to surprise, and lentils would be a typical American vegan/gf option. I drifted towards my Asian cookbooks. In retrospect, I think I could have done something really good with coconut milk from southeast Asia, but I ended up in Japan. I saw a bunch of soups and simmered-vegetable recipes that featured many obscure ingredients that I could find from a specialty store, thus giving our guests a unique experience. I selected one that highlight taro roots and had no offending katsuobushi. Be careful though: usuage (deep-fried tofu pouches available frozen in Asian markets may have gluten in them if they are pre-seasoned.). A triple-batch was necessary for a 50-person party. The recipe includes: taro roots, naga imo, carrot, daikon, burdock, konnyaku, usuage, momendofu, shiitake, shimeji, enoki, negi, komatsuna, and seri in a broth of inaka miso and konbu. Of these, the komatsuna (Japanese mustard greens) and the seri (*wild* and not conventional Japanese parsley) were the most difficult to find and required going to a Japanese market.

Looking to impress, I made sure to get very high-quality and thick konbu. The resulting broth was delicious and umami-packed. After boiling the vegetables in the broth, it became even more delicious. That being said, the preponderance of potatoey taro root in the soup was a bit fatiguing. I’d recommend cutting the taro, actually, and/or upping the amount of broth. Overall, guests complimented the soup, particularly those with dietary constrains, but the accompanying spicy chicken-tortilla soup that my housemate whipped up was about twice as popular (perhaps more as we ran out by midnight). I don’t believe that the increased popularity of the chicken-tortilla soup was due to its having meat. It was more tasty. Had I selected a better recipe, I believe the guests would have eaten all of it. My soup did have a novelty factor; guests got to try a bunch of new produce!

Joe’s Rating: 6
Difficulty: 5