I don’t know if you can read the label but these are dried lily flowers and are the other cheat ingredient that I use before alongside the red dates in the Buddha’s Delight. Yep, I’ve had them many years and you don’t see them used in all that many recipes! I did some research and found that they’re most often used in soup. On a very cold day I needed something fast and a quick made up hot and sour soup seemed like a perfect way to go. I didn’t use a recipe but I was only making it for me so I just fiddled with the amounts of the ingredients below until I got the sourness I wanted.
I soaked the lily flowers separately then drained them when soft. In a pan I put water, soy sauce, lots of rice vinegar, chilli oil, sesame oil, lots of ground white pepper and a few strands of dried hijiki for a hint of the sea. I brought it to the boil and added some tiny soup pasta because I couldn’t be bothered messing with rice noodles. I heated the mixture then threw in the lily flowers along with a handful of frozen edamame and cooked it until the pasta was soft.
This was not a cordon bleu dish and it wasn’t the most authentic way to use the lily flowers but it was exactly what I needed on a cold dark miserable day. The lily flowers were quite sweet so they worked very well with the vinegar and chilli. I would make this again!
Have you used dried lily flowers? How?
Cooking the Vegan Books 