Our office is a place where plenty of food talk and exchanging of recipes and their tips happens. Conversation about food is always swirling in the air.

“If you add this kind of pink salt to your neebu juice, it takes it to the next level…”

“If you go down the steps from St Stephen’s Church in Bandra, there’s a small place serving the most outstanding Nepali food…”

“I always use mustard oil while cooking bhindi and baingan.”

“It’s a sweet made from channa. Made in just 10 minutes.”

“I have never cooked fish before…”

“Batter from Atta Girl makes really good idlis…”

The chit chat goes on and on. It’s a lot of fun. Like we are Food Network Central or such like. Someone recently tried to make a different kind of sambar and there’s an update on how it turned out. Another is offering tips on the way to roast baingan for bharta to get it much smokier.

Menu recommendations for landmark south Mumbai eatery Olympia Café are being trotted out. A debate is happening about the pros and cons of recently-distributed Agra pethas. A few colleagues are planning to order a giant handi of biryani and collections are on.

Some can talk more animatedly and graphically about food than others and get everyone’s digestive juices doing a little jig in a few seconds flat. Ashish is one such person. He loves khaana-oriented gupshup.

Ashish is always exclaiming about a dish he has tasted somewhere or a recipe he or his wife tried over the weekend and his talk is peppered with “mind-blowing” or “unbelievable” or “awesome,” as he makes extravagant gestures about the food, kissing his fingers or his hands doing little wah movements in the air. And he invariably whips out his phone to show pictures, muttering, “Food is everything.”

Last week he stopped by my desk and the topic went to bok choy. He rattled off the outlines of a recipe for soup, describing it, of course, in exotic terms. I had never tried bok choy soup and the idea sounded inspiring. It so happened that evening, Instagram pushed me a  Chinese congee (kanji) recipe for another kind of soup. I decided to combine bits from both recipes and add a few other touches.

Ashish promises to send in his recipe for bok choy soup sooner than later (Watch this space). Meanwhile try this Bok Choy Rice Porridge Soup.

Bok Choy Rice Porridge Soup

Serves: 3-4

Ingredients

• ¾ cup basmati rice
• 4-5 cups water
• 2-inch piece ginger, grated
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• Salt to taste, about 1 tsp (add carefully, since the soy also has salt)
• 1-2 tbsp toasted sesame oil (available online)
• 10 pods garlic, crushed or minced
• 1 tbsp oil for frying the garlic
• 1 large bok choy, white portion and leaves chopped separately
• 1 large orange carrot, peeled, grated
• 10 beans, top, tailed and finely sliced

For the garnish

• 4 eggs
• Pinch salt
• 1 tbsp chilly oil for frying the eggs
• 1 onion sliced
• Oil for deep frying the onions
• 4-5 tbsp chopped greens of spring onions

Method

• Boil the basmati rice with the water, in a large saucepan, over low heat, for a long time, about 45 minutes to an hour, adding more water as you go, so it becomes a thick kanji or rice gruel.
  Use a masher to keep mashing the rice grains.
• Meanwhile cut 10 beans fine, grate the carrot, chop the white parts of 1 large bok choy and greens separately.
  Keep aside.
• When the rice has turned into a gruel and has a thick soup consistency, add the ginger, soy, beans and the white part of the bok choy and simmer further.
• While the soup is simmering, get the garnish prepared and first deep fry the sliced onions in a small frying pan, over medium heat, till crisp and red, but not burnt.
  Drain onto a paper towel or tissue-lined plate.
  Keep aside.
• Pan fry the garlic in a little oil till reddish in a frying pan over low heat.
  Keep aside.
• Beat the eggs (don’t add milk), so the whites and yolks mix and add the salt.
  Heat the chilly oil in a frying pan, over medium heat, and pan fry the salted scrambled eggs till well cooked.
  Keep aside.
• Now add the grated carrots, toasted sesame oil, fried garlic to the soup and salt if needed.
  Simmer a few more minutes and add the bok choy greens and take off heat.
  Divide the soup between 3-4 soup bowls and garnish each bowl of soup with a little of the green onions, fried onions and 1-2 tbsp scrambled eggs.
  Serve hot.

Zelda’s Note: If you don’t prefer eggs, garnish the soup with a little fried and crumbled tofu. And some may like to add shredded, boiled chicken instead.

In addition to bok choy, and instead of beans and carrots, sliced baby corn will do fine. So will chopped zucchini. Or mushrooms.

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