Meera Sodha’s vegan recipe for quickish wonton soup | The new vegan

I am a sucker for new year rituals. In Colombia, it’s traditional to run around with an empty suitcase to invite a year filled with adventure, but, personally, I prefer to start the year with a fitness challenge. This year’s is an ab-focused one, in the hope that I’ll get the type of muscles you could play a drum solo on. When it comes to cooking, meanwhile, and after the heaviness of festive food, I like something nourishing but undemanding, and inevitably that means soup. This week’s is a simple recipe that involves a stir, a boil, with the last step – and my favourite new ritual – being to add some readymade frozen wontons.

Quickish wonton soup

The best frozen wontons I’ve found are made by Fresh Asia, which has a few vegan options – my favourites are the mushroom and bamboo ones. They’re readily available online and in Chinese supermarkets. You’ll need a large lidded pot, big enough to hold at least two litres of liquid; I use a five-litre saucepan.

Prep 15 min
Cook 30 min
Serves 4

100g spring onions (about 2 bunches), trimmed, whites and greens separated
3 tbsp rapeseed oil
8 garlic cloves (25g), peeled and thinly sliced
100g ginger, peeled and grated
2 carrots (250g), peeled and grated
20g dried shiitake mushrooms
20g piece kombu, or roughly 20cm x 15cm
4 tsp mirin
4 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp fine sea salt
¼ tsp ground white pepper
24-32 frozen wontons, or 6-8 per person

Chop the spring onion whites, put them in a sieve and rinse under the cold tap. Shake off the excess water and pop them in a bowl. Very finely slice the spring onion greens, rinse them in the same sieve, then put them in a second bowl.

Pour the oil into a large pot set over a medium-high heat. When it’s hot, stir in the spring onion whites, then add the garlic, ginger and carrots, and cook, stirring regularly, for 10 minutes, so the vegetables take on some colour. Add two litres of water, the shiitake and the kombu, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to low-medium, cover and leave to cook for 20 minutes.

Strain the stock through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl (discard the solids), then pour the liquid back into the pot and return it to a low-medium heat. Add the mirin, soy, salt, white pepper and spring onion greens, taste and check you’re happy with the seasoning. When it’s to your liking, add the wontons to the stock and boil for five to six minutes, until cooked.

To finish, divide the stock and wontons between four bowls and serve.