Vietnamese Vegetarian Coconut Soup (Canh kiem chay)

"Canh kiem chay" is the best Vietnamese vegan soup with a sweet-savory taste that comes from all the root vegetables, such as pumpkin, sweet potato, Idaho potato, and fresh peanuts. Also, the other ingredients, such as long beans, mushrooms, corn and coconut milk play a big part to make this soup the healthiest vegetable soup ever. From 1968 to 1969, my family were refugees at the Vinh Nghiem Pagoda. It is the biggest temple in Saigon, Vietnam, and this soup was served on special Buddhist celebration days, such as Phat dan sanh, Buddha's birthday, Le vu Lan, which is similar to Mother's Day or Phat thanh dao, the day Siddhartha Gautama became Buddha. I was about 7 years of age, but in my mind the soup that was made at Vinh Nghiem temple is the best soup that I ever tasted. I asked the young monk then, his name is Luc, how can this soup have all different kinds of vegetables? And his explanation was that because in the history of Buddhism when the Buddhists visited temple, they would donate any vegetables that they could find in their gardens. The cooks then made this soup with whatever ingredients were available to them. The coconut milk is the main ingredient to make this soup creamy, and its flavor goes very well together with the starchy vegetables. The southern Vietnamese always make this soup too sweet, and it is sweet like a dessert and in some cases uses too much coconut milk. The Venerable at Vinh Nghiem Temple was from the North of Vietnam; therefore, most of his meals were prepared to the North Vietnamese taste, which is in line with mine. Even though this soup I ate at Vinh nghiem as a young girl, it is still fresh in my mind. I want to duplicate this recipe to my own taste in keeping the original tradition. Although there is a long list of ingredients, the method of making this soup is very simple, and the result is so fantastic.
Ingredients:
Broth:
4 cups Kombu/ vegetable broth*
2 cups water
1 can 14. oz coconut milk
Vegetables:
1/2 Kabocha squash, peeled, seed removed and cut into big chunks, about 2 inch pieces
1 large sweet potato, peeled, cut into big chunks, about 2 inch pieces
1 large Idaho potato, peeled, cut into chunks
1 large carrot, cut into chunks
2 oz of long beans, cut into 3 inch lengths, about 1 cup
1 cup cooked peanuts*
1 cup thickly sliced baby portabella mushrooms
1 package of firm tofu, cut into bite-size pieces and then deep fried
2 dried wood ear mushrooms, soaked in hot water and sliced
1/2 cup frozen corn
2 tbs fresh ginger, chopped
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Garnish with fresh herbs: mints, basil, and cilantro
Serve with steamed rice or cooked rice noodles

 Directions:
Prepare all the vegetables and place them onto a large plate.

Into a medium saucepan, pour kombu/vegetable broth and water and bring to a boil. Add squash, sweet potato, white potato, dried wood ear mushrooms, and carrots. Cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes. Add long beans, mushrooms, fried tofu, fresh ginger, corn, and peanuts. Cork for 10 minutes. Add coconut milk and bring to boil,simmer for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

 To serve:
Ladle soup into the soup bowl. Garnish with fresh herbs and serve with a bowl of rice. If served with noodles, place cooked noodles on the bottom of soup bowl. Ladle soup over noodles. Garnish with fresh herbs

* Cook raw peanuts in salted, boiling water for 15 minutes.
*Kombu/vegetable stock posted on January/2/2012