This one has a back story and tribute to a friend that passed away. If you just want to get cooking, the recipe is just below. If you want the story, it’s at the very bottom of this post.

If you can’t find lotus root you can use potatoes for this recipe, but if you do it takes a lot longer to cut out all the little holes in each slice. 🙂 Lotus root isn’t easy to stir fry. Like potatoes, they hold a lot of water, so they don’t like to cooperate in a pan. But they do add a nice crunch to a stir fry and that’s why it makes for a unique but quick weeknight meal. They also make great chips if you ever want to try them that way.

You can mix this recipe up however you like and it makes a great “clean out the fridge” meal. Pick a meat, add the lotus root, and throw in whatever vegetables you have available and you pretty much can’t go wrong. I usually go with baby bok choy, bell peppers, snow peas, and always a sprinkle of green onions!

Prep time, 20 minutes

Cook time, 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 lb pork or beef, sliced into thin strips
• 1 lotus root
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/3 cup sake
• 1 tbsp gochuchang
• 8 baby bok choy or Chinese spinach
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3 green onions, chopped
• salt and pepper, to taste

RECIPE:

Soak the lotus root in a bowl of water with a tsp of vinegar for at least 10 minutes. Remove, dry off, and slice thinly.

Sprinkle some salt and pepper over the sliced pork.

In a wok or stir fry pan, fry the pork over high heat in a tbsp of vegetable oil for about 5 minutes or until just starting to cook through. Add the lotus root and continue to cook, stirring frequently for another 5 minutes. Reduce to medium, add the soy sauce, sake, and gochuchang and mix well. Cook for 5 minutes, covered. If it starts to stick add some more sake or water. Add bell pepper to the mixture and when just about cooked add the bok choy. Let the bok choy wilt slightly but do not overcook.

Top with green onions and serve!

BACKSTORY:

I was introduced to lotus root about 20 years ago when my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I were invited to eat at a Japanese friend’s house. His name was Fumihiko (Fred) Ebihara and he was notorious for knowing just enough English to create trouble. I once told him he was a pain in the ass and he responded with, “No, Bruce-san, I want to be pleasure in your ass!” That kind of trouble. Or the time he wanted to make his own beer and I told him to start by bleaching all his equipment. Imagine the surprise when we started making the beer and the pot bellowed suds like a freaky bubble bath! I asked him to show me his bleach, and he pointed to the laundry room stash and said, “I used this! Tide! With BREACH!”

One more…..Fred was stuck in a rut on an engineering project and I had an idea how to help. At first he scolded me for being too young and inexperienced but I mocked up my idea and we put it to the test. It worked and I was completely dumbfounded when Fred was so happy that he told me, “Bruce-san, you are my masturbation!” I told him I wasn’t sure how that phrase worked in Japanese but it didn’t translate well to English.

I could go on and on about Fred stories. He was a gold mine.

Anyway, back to the evening when my wife and i were invited to his family’s house for dinner. If he was a fledgling at English back then, I was the equivalent at cooking. They started with edamame. I had never seen it before and didn’t realize I was doing it wrong eating his expended hulls rather than the ones with the beans still in them! But his wife, Tomoko, made an amazing dish with lotus root that night that inspired this recipe. Now, I always think of Fred and his family when I cook this.

Sadly, my friend Fred Ebihara died last year of a heart attack and is survived by his wife Tomoko and two beautiful daughters, Kyoko and Momoko. I miss him and the humor he brought into my life. He could do a great Shania Twayne impression by the way……

I’m not gonna lie. I cheated. I not only put bacon on top of this, I started the recipe with bacon. That means this entire recipe is wrapped up in bacon. If you have anything against bacon, turn away. There are other recipe blogs for you. This one is not for bacon haters. Okay, fine, you can start with olive oil instead and skip the bacon topping, but dogs aren’t gonna like you and they pretty much like everyone.

I love making this soup on a cold, winter night. It’s super flavorful, hearty, and well, warm! I usually use shrimp and some form of white fish – orange roughy, cod, whatever – but scallops and lobster also make great ingredients.

If you’re ever served this at our house we refer to it as Stone Soup. The origin is a bit of a mystery, but I started making it right around the time a kid I know coined the name for some mystery soup his mom made. Nobody ever knew why that kid called it Stone Soup, but it sounded like a good name for a meal at the time so we threw the moniker on this recipe and it’s stuck ever since!

Prep time, 30 minutes

Cook time, 1 hour

INGREDIENTS

• 5 strips bacon, sliced thin
• 1 cup onions, chopped
• 1 cup red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 32 oz chicken broth
• 1 cup carrots, chopped
• 4 cups small new potatoes, quartered
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp thyme, dried
• Salt, to taste
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 cups half and half
• 1 15 oz can of cream style corn
• Hot sauce, to taste (optional)
• 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 lb cod, orange roughy or other white fish, chopped bite size
• 2 chopped green onions
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley

RECIPE

In a large stockpot cook bacon on medium high heat til crisp. Then remove, leaving the wonderful bacon grease! Confession: I added enough bacon to this recipe that your pups could have some as treats while you cook. Go on, now. This is your time to be their hero. Give them a tasty morsel! You don’t need it all for yourself. Look at it like a diet. They’re eating it as a sacrifice so you don’t.

Add the onions, bell pepper, celery and garlic to the bacon fat, and stir and cook until the onions are tender. Add the flour and stir until coated, for about 2 minutes. Next, add the wine, stir, and let thicken for a couple minutes. Then add the chicken broth. Bring to a boil then add the next 6 ingredients and cook at a simmer (you’ll have to adjust the heat), stirring often, until the potatoes are tender but not quite done. This should take about 20 minutes.

Next add half and half, corn, and hot sauce. Bring to a boil and add the shrimp and fish until cooked through.

Serve with chopped green onions and parsley on top with the bacon bits you didn’t give to your dogs. For the bacon haters, I’m sure your soup is pretty good-ish too. 🙂