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We live in a very ... soupy part of the world. A soggy city with Pantone Cool Gray skies, a puffy jacket dress code and a culture that craves hygge, the Nordic art of coziness. Whether you’re cold, in bed with a cold or feeling blue, the solution is always soup!
At Ballard’s Ginger & Scallion, they make one thing and they make it very well: khao soi, a creamy, coconut curry noodle soup from northern Thailand. Choose your protein, like melt-in-your-mouth,rosy, sous vide duck breast, skin torched to order, or tender, long cooked goat. Then each bowl is topped with a rainbow of flavors and textures: crunchy, pickled mustard greens, fried and fresh shallot, cilantro, scallions and a nest of fried noodles to contrast with the chewy egg noodles lurking beneath the turmeric tinted broth.
The brothers behind Ginger & Scallion are masters of the single-concept restaurant. They started with Secret Congee, another cozy, cold weather dish, and just opened Seattle’s first dedicated okonomiyaki restaurant, grilling up thick, savory Japanese pancakes in the old Northlake Tavern and Pizza House building near the U-District.
Next up, I cook with my dear friend Caroline Wright, Seattle’s self-titled Soup Lady, who started a soup subscription business after beating an aggressive form of cancer. A longtime cookbook author with a culinary degree from France and a resume that includes producing for Martha Stewart and writing for the country’s top culinary magazines, these days you can find Caroline with her glasses fogged up as she hovers over tall stock pots of vegan, gluten free soup. If you’re a member of her Soup Club, you get a weekly delivery from Caroline herself, seven months out of the year: a pint of soup (no repeats!) with a hunk of locally baked, crusty bread and a few of her chewy chocolate chip cookies.
I like to lovingly tease Caroline about how weird her (delicious!) soups are; unexpected, creative combinations inspired by her travels, international flavors she’s tried in restaurants and dishes she loves. She uses intelligent techniques to coax out flavor and texture since, not only are the soups vegan, they are all made with water, not stock.
My favorite is her Roman Noodle, from her cookbook Seconds. The ingredient list reads like it was scribbled in the dark, after waking up from a strange dream: szechuan peppercorns, 10 cloves of garlic, four bunches of scallions, nutritional yeast, spaghetti, coconut cream, frozen peas, escarole, tamari, lemon juice. But magic happens in that pot, and a single spoonful will remind you to always trust Caroline –– when it comes to soup, the Soup Lady always knows best.
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