Published:  14:42 Wednesday - November 02, 2016

Every part in lotus plant can be used as a traditional medicine and in cuisine. Especially, lotus roots contain many different nutritious that has many benefits for your health. Lotus roots are still main material for many dishes as lotus root soup.

Ingredients (Yields: 8 servings)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil (or any neutral oil)

1 (8-ounce) piece firm tofu

1 (12-ounce) piece fresh lotus root (2 attached segments), peeled and thinly sliced

1 yellow onion

1 Okinawan potato

2 pieces preserved radish

2 tablespoons dried gojee berries

1 (6-ounce) package dried south almonds

5 dried jujubes

1 chunk rock sugar (about 2 ounces), (to taste)

1 tablespoon mushroom seasoning salt (or regular salt)

2 tablespoons peanuts, halved

½ teaspoon black pepper, freshly cracked

Directions

Preparing the stock:

Peel and dice the Okinawan potato into small pieces.

Fill a large stockpot with 4 quarts of water. Bring to a roaring boil. Add the preserved radish, onion, dried almonds and dried jujubes to the pot. Bring the liquid  back to a boil. Cook for about 20 minutes. Gather a few potato pieces, then strain the broth (discard the solids) and return to the pot.

Assembly time:

Peel the lotus root and thinly slice.

Bring the broth back to a boil. Add the lotus root and gojee berries. Cook over low heat for 3 hours until softened. Bring the broth back one more time to a boil. Season with mushroom seasoning salt.

Lower the heat to a bubbly simmer. Adjust seasoning by adding rock sugar (to taste). Stir well, add the peanuts, return the sweet potatoes and cook for an additional 10 minutes. The broth is ready. Turn off the heat.

Cover and let the soup sit for about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with black pepper.

Tips

You should not salt the broth at the beginning, but wait to add salt until the potato is fully cooked and maintains a nice texture.

You can find both rock sugar and dried jujubes (also called black dates or táo tầu in Vietnamese) in most Asian markets. Dried jujubes are sold in 6-ounce packages.

If you don't have dried jujubes and dried gojees (called kỷ tử in Vietnamese), you could replace them with more rock sugar or 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar.

You can find store-bought, 14-ounce packages of preserved radish. It's excellent for making vegetarian broth.

You can find the ingredients listed above in most Asian markets.

You can also use a slow cooker to make controlling the heat during the cooking process a simple task.