Recipe: Japanese Buckwheat Soup
- Words by Peppermint
As the weather starts to truly turn, we’re delighted to share our second cosy extract from The Fruitful Kitchen – beautifully designed cookbooks printed in small quantities in Melbourne, using only recycled and FSC papers. With each book containing 13 eclectic, mostly vegetarian recipes featuring seasonal produce, the aim of their delicious game is to get people excited about each season. Written and photographed by Rachel Pitts and designed and illustrated by Nicole Stewart, you can snap the books up here – and after you do that, whip up this delicious, wholegrain soup – ideal for keeping the winter chill at bay.
This soup was inspired by one I ordered in a very hard-to-find little restaurant in an isolated part of Japan called the Iya Valley, where buckwheat is grown. I loved the idea of the soup before I even tasted it – a vegetable soup not with the usual buckwheat (soba) noodles, but with actual buckwheat grain. It is a bit of a revelation, especially if you don’t eat gluten (most soba noodles contain wheat flour too), or if you are just into whole grains like me.
The soup also happens to be impressively quick and easy, made with only water. The vegetables make their own light stock in the water while they cook. I use pine mushrooms in autumn, but you can also use fresh or dried shiitake.
Grated fresh ginger on top is another revelation. It gives the soup fresh heat and makes it taste incredibly, well, Japanese.
Ingredients (serves 3–4)
1.25 litres water
2 large carrots, diced
7 fresh or dried shiitake mushrooms (rehydrated in hot water if dried), or 5 fresh pine mushrooms (saffron milk caps), diced
½ cup buckwheat kernels
200g tofu, cut into small cubes
2½ tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon mirin
Generous knob of ginger, grated
1 spring onion, finely sliced (optional)
Method
Combine the water, carrot and mushroom in a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 12 minutes.
Meanwhile, put the buckwheat kernels into a small saucepan and cover with generous water. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes, or until the kernels are just soft. Drain and rinse the buckwheat.
Add the tofu, soy sauce and mirin to the soup and cook for another 3 minutes. Stir in the buckwheat and heat briefly, then turn off the heat. Taste for soy and mirin, adding more if needed. Serve in bowls with dollops of grated ginger. Garnish with spring onion if you have it – although the soup is also perfectly great without.
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Pattern via the link in bio! 🪡
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“In the 1940’s, Norwegians made and wore red pointed hats with a tassel as a form of visual protest against Nazi occupation of their country. Within two years, the Nazis made these protest hats illegal and punishable by law to wear, make, or distribute. As purveyors of traditional craft, we felt it appropriate to revisit this design.”
Crafters have often been at the heart of many protest movements, often serving as a powerful means of political expression. @NeedleAndSkein, a yarn store in Minnesota, are helping to mobilise the craftivists of the world with a ‘Melt The Ice’ knitting pattern created by @Yarn_Cult (with a crochet pattern too), as a way of peaceful protest.
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Raise those needles, folks – art and craft can change the world. 🧶
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Before you celebrate, take the time to learn the truth. January 26 is not a day of unity it’s a Day of Mourning and Survival for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
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As the world careens towards AI seeping into our feeds, finds and even friend-zones, it`s becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
We just wanted to say that here at Peppermint, we are choosing to not print or publish AI-generated art, photos, words, videos or content.
Merriam-Webster’s human editors chose `slop` as the 2025 Word of the Year – they define it as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” The problem is, as AI increases in quality, it`s becoming more and more difficult to ascertain what`s real and what`s not.
Let`s be clear here, AI absolutely has its place in science, in climate modelling, in medical breakthroughs, in many places... but not in replacing the work of artists, writers and creatives.
Can we guarantee that everything we publish is AI-free? Honestly, not really. We know we are not using it to create content, but we are also relying on the artists, makers and contributors we work with, as well as our advertisers, to supply imagery, artwork or words created by humans. AI features are also creeping into programs and apps too, making it difficult to navigate. But we will do our best to avoid it and make a stand for the artists and creatives who have had their work stolen and used to train AI machines, and those who are now losing work as they are replaced by this energy-sapping, environment-destroying magic wand.
Could using it help our productivity and bottom line? Sure. And as a small business in a difficult landscape, that`s a hard one to turn down. We know other publishers who use AI to write stories, create recipes, produce photo shoots... but this one is important to us.
`Touch grass` was also a Merriam-Webster Word of the Year. We`ll happily stick with that as a theme, thanks very much. 🌿
