Ingredients

Let’s Cook!

• 1
  OPTIONAL STEP: If you use deli rotisserie chicken as an ingredient, you can remove the meat and use the chicken carcass to enrich store-bought chicken broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for a few hours. Remove and discard bones.
  
• 2
  Place the dried shitake mushrooms in a small bowl and pour in 2 cups of boiling water. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap to keep the heat and steam in. Allow to sit for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
  
• 3
  Remove mushrooms from water (save the water!), squeezing water back into bowl. Remove and discard any mushroom stems, and slice the mushrooms.
  
• 4
  Add all the soup broth ingredients and the reserved mushroom water to a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce to low, cover, and allow to simmer. The sliced shitake mushrooms can either be added to the soup broth or the optional ingredients selection.
• 5
  If you're using bok choy (my favorite!), cut the white stem from the leafy green and mince the white. Add the chopped white stem to the seasoned pot of simmering chicken stock. Slice the leafy greens and place in optional ingredients dish.
  
• 6
  Prep and place your remaining optional ingredients in the dish. I like to use a big divided dish for the optional ingredients, but you can use individual containers if you want.
  
• 7
  When you're about ready to serve the soup, heat up about 3-4 inches of peanut oil in a medium-sized saucepan. While the oil is heating, have each diner place the optional ingredients they want into their soup bowl. Ladle the very hot broth into each bowl. Too hot to eat, but it's warming up the ingredients in their bowls and cooking any thin steak slices while you're doing the rice cakes, which is pretty quick.
  
• 8
  When the peanut oil is hot (about 380°F), drop in the rice cakes. Don't crowd the pan; cook in batches if necessary. I cook 2 to 3 rice cakes per bowl of soup. Keep close watch because they cook quickly. They'll puff up and float to the top. Then continue frying just a minute or so, flipping as needed, to lightly brown.
  
• 9
  Remove the rice cakes (I recommend a kitchen spider), place in each bowl of soup, and listen to it sizzle! SO good!! Enjoy! (Click the video to hear the sizzle)