Soups for Winter: Asian Vegetable and Noodle Broth

The arrival of winter means soups, pies and other warm, hearty foods, well, provided you don't live in the tropics. To fill up before heading off to work with grease laden food at my favourite place of employment I whipped up this clean tasting Asian-style broth -- hopefully it'll keep me from scarfing down chips at the end of my shift!

Asian Vegetable & Noodle Broth -- serves 1

500 ml water
2 cm chunk of fresh ginger
the juice of 1/4 of a lime
2-3 springs of fresh coriander, picked, no stems
120 g bok choy, chiffonade (thinly sliced)
60 g of firm tofu, 1 cm cubes
4 g of Asian rice seasoning (Furikake -- for rice balls, inari, etc-- a mixture of shredded seaweed, sesame seeds, etc.)
22 g rice stick noodles
10 ml light soy sauce
2 ml kecap manis (sweet soy sauce)
1 spring onion, cut into 3 portions

Bring the water to a boil along with the ginger root, rice noodles, rice seasoning, soy sauce and kecap manis. Turn down to a simmer and add the tofu, bok choy. Simmer until the noodles are soft and bok choy is tender. Before serving remove spring onion and ginger root. Garnish with fresh coriander and add a squeeze of lime. After finishing the broth you'll find crunchy toasted sesame seeds and shredded nori at the bottom of your bowl for added texture and interest.

108 calories/3.3 g fat/9.1 g protein/98mg calcium