Clear Soup

Yeild: 2 lit

Ingredients

• 1.89 liters Dashi
• to taste salt
• 14.79 mililiters Japanese soy sauce

Garnish:

• 1 no lemon zest strip, yellow part only
• 15 no snow peas
• 10 no medium shrimp

Procedure:

1. Bring dashi to a simmer ... Carefully add salt to taste.
2. Add soy sauce. (soup should be crystal clear.)
3. Cut lemon zest into very fine julienne.
4. Trim and wash snow peas ... Cut them crosswise at an angle, making diamond shapes ... Blanch them 1 min in boiling water ... Drain and cool.
5. Peel and devein shrimp ... Blanch them in boiling water just until cooked, no more than 1 min ... Drain.
6. Rinse soup bowls in hot water to warm them ... In each bowl put one shrimp, a few pieces of snow peas, and a few threads of lemon zest.
7. Make sure that soup is very hot-almost at the boiling point ... ladle 200 ml into each bowl ... Serve at once.

Garnish Variations:

• Tofu, cut in small cubes.
• Cooked pork loin or chicken breast, in small dice, batonnet, julienne.
• Lobster tail, thinly slice.
• Cooked fish, separated into flakes (such as snapper or cod).
• Small clams, steamed and removed from shell (the broth can be clarified, diluted, and used for soup base instead of dashi).
• Carrots, julienne.
• Fresh white mushrooms, thinly slice.
• Dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked, simmered, and cut into julienne.
• Wakame (a type of seaweed); soak it until soft, cut it into small pieces ...discard the hard ribs, and simmer in the soup 2 minutes.
• Chinese cabbage, shredded.
• Watercress leaves.
• Fresh ginger, finely shreds (use only a few shreds per serving).
• Bamboo shoots, thinly slice.
• White radish, thinly slice or shreds.

Note:

• Lemon zest may be doubled.