Cream of Pine and Mushroom Soup (essence of the northern food forest in a bowl)
This post shares a recipe for a nutrient dense, flavor packed and medicinal grade hearty soup that is a distillation of the essence of the pine forest.
(This post serves as the 22nd post which is part of the Stacking Functions in the Garden, Food Forest and Medicine Cabinet : The Regenerative Way From Seed To Apothecary series).
This soup is the culmination of my love for pine trees, wild/homegrown mushrooms, my recent exploration into the world of sea vegetables and my research into the many medicinal gifts all of those beings offer into a nourishing soup.
I was inspired by the Korean dish called Jat-guksu (잣국수) or Pine Nut Kalguksu and then I combined that with local seasonal ingredients to make this recipe.
Rather than use dairy, I experimented with making a nut milk out of pine seeds (aka pine “nuts”) and instead of using the typical Mediterranean spices that pair well with mushrooms in creamy soups (such as rosemary) I used White Pine needles and ocean vegetables to enrich the broth and added them to the finished soup for additional flavor and health benefits.
The eastern white pine needles, kelp/seaweed, shiitake mushroom stems, Egyptian walking onion bulbs and bok choy stems to build a hearty broth. Then I added dried powdered nettle and fermented ramp leaves from the garden/forest, and instead of using dairy I used homemade pine nut cream/milk to thicken up the broth and give it a really nourishing, ‘foresty’, stick to your bones character.
Using mushrooms like Oyster, Shiitake and Lion's Mane offer a potent array of medicinal benefits and flavors, the seaweed adds another layer of umami and medicinal benefits and then the pièce de résistance is the double essence of forest goodness provided with the finely diced eastern white pine needles (that offer a more subtle yet present rosemary-esk flavor) and pine nuts (adding richness). It is a very satisfying soup.
Two of my other motivations/inspirations for making this recipe were rooted in distilling down regenerative agroforestry compatible harvests from my bioregion into a soup while also honoring the foods and medicines of my ancestors. That led me to first look at what I can grow in the northern food forest (and/or forage for locally) and find an interesting and delicious way to combine those northern food forest foods into a recipe that is filling and nutrient dense. Then secondly, I wanted to look to my indigenous ancestors for inspiration and incorporate ingredients they used in their medicines and nourished themselves with in their daily lives. This led me to use the sea greens and pine foliage as my Gaelic ancestors did in their traditions.
I have made two batches of this soup now (one with fresh white pine needles, homegrown shiitake and wild harvested freeze dried mushrooms and the other with freeze dried spruce tips and store bought shiitake and cremini mushrooms) and both turned out fantastic.
I think that using fresh spruce, fir, larch or pine tips (the new growth nodes that emerge in the springtime) would be especially delicious and a wonderful way to preserve the seasonal abundance of both fresh ramps (instead of the fermented ramps I used) and fresh spruce tips via freezing some soup. Since the creaminess comes from emulsified pine nuts and not dairy, the soup freezes a lot better than dairy based cream soups which adds another degree of versatility for both plant based diets and preserving seasonal abundances.
Due to the fact that pine needles, pine nuts, medicinal mushrooms, seaweed/kelp, ramps, stinging nettle, kale and peppers are main ingredients in this soup this recipe offers a wide spectrum of medicinal benefits (including but not limited to Innate Immune System Enhancing, Ocular-Regenerative and Ocular-Protective, Spike Protein Detox, Cardio-Protective / Cardio-Regenerative, Osteoprotective/Osteoregenerative anti-inflammatory, Radioprotective, antimicrobial, antioxidant, antitumor, cytoprotective properties, mild diuretic, anti-cancer, stem cell/immune response activation, Immuno-modulating, Improves circulation, Invigorating, Detoxifying and anti-aging effects).
Ingredients:
- Two handfuls Eastern White Pine Needles attached to small branchlets/twigs if possible (you can substitute any edible pine needles here, and/or spruce foliage, Larch Foliage, Balsam fir, Eastern Hemlock, Douglas Fir etc).
- one large (at least 1x3 inch piece or equivalent amount or smaller pieces of Kelp (aka Kombu or Saccharina japonica)
- one handful of dried Pacific Bull Kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana)
- half a handful of Atlantic Dulse (Palmaria palmata)
- three pinches of small Irish moss (Chondrus crispus) peices
- 1 cup sliced shiitake (and/or cremini) mushrooms (stems and caps)
- 1/2 cup diced Oyster mushrooms ((or other mild flavored store bought mushroom)
- 1/2 cup diced fresh (or re-hydrated) Lion's Mane mushrooms (or other hearty store bought mushroom)
- 1 cup diced Egyptian walking onion bulbs (or red onions)
- 1 cup chopped Bok Choy (stems and leaves)
- 1 cup diced Red Russian Kale (stems and leaves)
- 1 handful mild or medium heat red peppers (I used fermented cayenne peppers from my jar of fermented ramp leaves)
- 1/2 cup diced fermented ramp leaves (or if you cannot find ramps, just add more garlic to make up for it).
- 1/2 cup small pieces of dried Stinging Nettle leaves (or 3-5 organic tea bags of nettle, ripped open and poured loose into the soup)
- 2-4 cloves of organic garlic
- 1.5 cups Pine nuts (1 cup for making milk/cream and 1/2 cup for garnishing) or you could just use dairy cream or another nut milk if you cannot forage or afford pine nuts (they are expensive).
- some lemon juice (for making the cream/milk)
- good water for building the broth
- your preferred oil for sauteing veggies (I used organic butter one time and avocado oil another time, both were great)
optional ingredients:
- a pinch or two of sage
- miso paste for enriching/expanding the broth (if you want to expand volume add even more nutrition)
- organic noodles (like ramen etc to give the finished soup a Korean flare).
- handful or two of wild rice (pan fried to help crack it open)
Directions:
Add oil to a medium sized pot. Add the onions, mushrooms, bok choy stems, kale stems, some diced pine needles, dulse, bull kelp, irish moss, garlic (and wild rice is using) sauté until mushrooms are softened.
Add the pine needle sprigs, big kelp pieces, diced ramp leaves and peppers and then add enough water to cover all the ingredients by 1/2 inches.
After adding the broth building ingredients and water, bring to a boil. Add the nettle.
Turn down to a simmer and let the flavor infuse on low for 20-30 min ( stirring every 5 min or so).
While that is simmering make your Pine Nut milk/cream.
Pine Nut Cream directions:
Makes almost 2 cups
-1 cup pine nuts
-½ tsp lactic acid powder* or a squeeze of lemon
-filtered water
1. Soak pine nuts in enough filtered water to cover for about 2 hours. Drain.
2. Put soaked pine nuts and lactic acid (or lemon juice) into a blender. Blend on high, adding additional filtered water to achieve a cream like consistency. I find somewhere between ¼ and ½ cup water is about right.
Next remove the large pine needles/pine sprigs and large kelp pieces from the soup, and add them to the compost.
Add the remaining fresh greens (kale and bok coy).
Next add your pine milk/cream to the soup slowly, stirring on medium heat. Bring it to a boil briefly then turn off the heat.
Taste the soup after you have brought to a boil briefly and allowed it to cool a bit. Adjust broth consistency with some miso infused hot water according to taste/preference.
Add some to a bowl, garnish with pine nuts and enjoy with a big slice of homemade sourdough bread!
I hope you guys will give your own version of this soup a try. I find it soo nourishing and I love how I can get ingredients like the pine needles and nuts without having to harm the trees :)
The recipe above was a sneak peak preview of the kinds of recipes I will be including in my next book (Stacking Functions in the Garden, Food Forest and Medicine Cabinet : The Regenerative Way From Seed To Apothecary).
If you would like to have access to well over a hundred other fun and nutritious recipes like this (including over 15 unique soup recipes!) there is info to where you can purchase either a physical or digital copy of my first book below.
For those interested in purchasing a physical copy of the book you can do so through this link:
Yum! Wish you lived next door, Gavin! 🥣 🌲 💚
Dude! I fancy myself a pretty good cook, but that is inspired and sophisticated Chefing! Huzzah! 😁