TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) views all food as medicine. It can be good medicine or not so good depending on what it is. In today’s society, our lifestyles commonly include long hours, supplemented by the cheapest of foods and topped off with less rest than our systems need. This can result in what TCM calls a Spleen qi deficiency. The Spleen isn’t viewed as the phsycial organ here but more of an energy center that keeps our immune system’s strong and helps keep our systems full of vital energy. The Spleen can be difficult to replenish given our normal day-to-day practices but this curried sweet potato soup is not only delicious but it nourishes the spleen.
This curied sweet potato soup is so nourishing for the Spleen that it should be called Spleen soup except there is nothing that sounds distinctly unappealing about that name. this soup tastes amazing and it’s not very hard to make. From the sweet potatoes, to the carrots and on to the curry spicing, garlic, onions and ginger, almost every tasty ingredient that goes into this soup is nourishing for the Spleen accoriding to TCM principles. Check out this link to learn more.
I’ve never been what you would call a soup person and I wouldn’t eat something strictly because it was good for the Spleen or for any other part of me for that matter. Curried sweet potato soup is just so good that I’d eat it even if I didn’t know how healthy it was.
Ingredients:
1 small white onion diced fine
5-7 garlic cloves diced fine
approx 1/4 inch skinned and diced fine
1 teaspoon of garam masala
3 cups of peeled, diced sweet potatoes
1 1/2 cups of peeled, diced carrots
3 cups of chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 tabblespoons of sesame oil
Equipment:
Large covered pot
Directions:
I like to start any recipe by prepping all the ingredients. That way it’s easy to put it all together. First I chop up my onions, garlic and ginger and make it look like the picture below. Start with the onion and make sure the next pile of garlic is about half the size of the onion and the ginger about half the size of the garlic. You can use a little less ginger but don’t be shy, ginger is very warming and it’s an essential ingredient in spleen soup.
Next thing I do is peel and dice my sweet potatoes and carrots (carrots pictured above, sweet potatoes below) and have them ready.
For this and many of my recipes I previously prepared a chicken broth using the cracass from a roasted chicken. If you can’t really do that, don’t worry. Spleen soup will be amazing with whatever chicken broth you can buy at the store but be sure to buy organic, it is worth the extra money to get the added nutrients.
I get my broth out and set it close at hand with my garam masala and a teaspoon.
First be sure to heat the pot to a medium hight heat before adding the oil. Don’t be surprised if the oil smokes a little when it hits the pan. Because the pan is properly heated before I add the oil I can now just add all the onions, garlic and ginger. Sautee this for about three minutes till it gets soft then add the teaspoon of garam masala, stir it all about and make sure the mixture in the pot is covered. Cook this for about another minute then add the sweet potatoes and carrots. Stif them all around and be sure they are all coated with the onion, garlic, ginger, garam masala mixture then cook for about three minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the broth and bring to a boil. Cover and turn down the heat to simmer for 25 minutes.
Once the 25 minutes are up, take the pot off the heat and run the mix through a blender a third at a time so the entire thing gets pureed.
Return to the pot, add salt and the spleen soup is ready to go. I topped mine with freshly diced green onion just for fun.
