Sure Beats The Foam Cup

 

Supper, Saturday April 18, 2020: ramen (homemade noodles, shiitake/chicken broth, shrimp, roasted chicken, egg, shiitake, bellas, scallion, cilantro, fish sauce, soy).

When the pre-packaged ramen in the cello bag and the version in the styrofoam cup flooded the US in the 80s I was a teenager and my mother found that buying them by the case was a good way to keep me and my brother fed. During my college years (a lot longer than they should have been) I would have starved if I didn't have a microwave and cases of salty chewy noodles. (I paid my own way through college. Long story.)

Fast forward to nearly the present, about three years ago. I still have a place for those chewy noodles in my heart, but I really shouldn't eat them on account of the salt. Plus my tastes have changed. I know there is a movement(?) that loves to show how to dress up the plain Jane noodles, and better versions are available at specialty stores. I've just never been motivated to explore that. 

Then I went to a conference in San Diego. When we visit new cities we try to take in regional flavors and independent restaurants. Up to that point I had been to noodle houses but none that had ramen. I was only vaguely aware that ramen houses were even a thing. So when I saw one in downtown SD I was intrigued. Long story short: I had to figure out how to make that sh*t.

The broth is negotiable. Traditionally a rich, slowly and carefully crafted extraction of beef, pork, or less often chicken is used. Also seafood stocks or something akin to a nabeyaki broth are enjoyed. I suppose miso? Whatevs. If you look at a ramen house menu the central philosophy is choice. It should be what you like. The same goes for the other ingredients aside from the noodles.

The noodles are easily purchased. Making them at home is not difficult BUT it requires a speciality ingredient - kansui. It is a solution of potassium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate. It is quite alkali and responsible for the yellow hue and springiness of the pasta. It is a little hard to get. Not all Asian groceries carry it. It might seem expensive online BUT a little goes a long way so it is worth the investment. To my knowledge it can't "go bad" (as long as the bottle is closed and the water doesn't evaporate).

Initially on the interwebs I found some sites that proclaimed it is possible to make ramen noodles with homemade sodium carbonate (made by baking baking soda (LOL, cooking sodium bicarb in the oven for four hours)). My experience with this method was:

Nope. Buy the kansui.

They Just Sploded!

Supper, Thursday October 24, 2019: pea soup (bacon, onion, carrot, celery, split peas, stock, salt, pepper, pinch of cayenne); mashed potato balls (leftover mash, cheddar, egg wash, breadcrumbs).

There is a little bit to look at here. First let me comment on the soup. Whether it is ham, bacon, smoked turkey. . . I like to brown the meat first, add oil if necessary. Then I set it aside to saute the mirepoix. When it is beginning to get tender I add some stock. I will use chicken stock I have canned or vegetable base and water depending on my mood. Simmer until the veggies are soft. 

At this point I have added a lot of flavor with the vegetables but split pea soup should be smooth sans bits of the seasoning meat. So I use a hand blender to puree the veggies. That is why I set the meat aside. Now add the peas and spices and simmer til the peas fall apart. 

What I want to say about the balls is that I made them too well. I am very good at breading things. These were so well breaded that the coating formed a hermetic seal around the potato and cheese filling. The coating cooked hard then the inside began to melt and finally boil. Those suckers started ejecting their contents like Kilauea. Seriously, they were spewing. I had to get them out as quickly as possible. I haven't attempted that again so I don't know what to do. Poke holes in them?

They were tasty though. 

Captain Beefheart

Supper Sunday June 2, 2019: heart stew (beef heart, garlic, onion, celery, mushroom, roots).

If you are looking for a strong beefy flavor, look no further. We have a grocery that caters to the latin and hispanic communities. It has a large section of imported foods from spanish speaking nations. At one end of the meat counter is the "weird stuff." Chicken feet, honeycomb tripe. . , and heart. They are vacuum wrapped halfs (a whole heart is as big as your head).

I trim off the sinewy parts and fat. Just wait before you go off about fat and flavor. Cube the remains and toss with salt and pepper. 

The fat et al goes into the pot to render. I let the dogs have the rendered gobbets. At this point they are losing their minds 'cause the the house smells like beef blood. For obvious reasons the metallic odor of blood is strong.

Brown the meat in the rendered fat. Add oil as necessary. 

Add the onions and garlic to sweat.

Cover with water and/or vegetable stock/bullion. There is plenty of beef going on here. Toss in a little thyme and parsley. I like a tiny pinch of tarragon - been kinda into tarragon lately. Now heart is tough (duh). It needs to simmer a bit. This is why I don't flour the meat to make the roux with the browning meat. I don't want to chance the gravy sticking during the extended simmer. Time? Depends on the simmer heat, the age of the meat. . . It can take a few hours. It's like cooking goat curry. Simmer until it is starting to get tender then add the veggies. Whatever vegetable you like. I didn't have parsnips this time. I like them in this. A little barley is good too. 

Finish with a light brown roux salt if necessary.

Too Much Lettuce

Lunch, Sunday June 24: bean soup; cheese, lettuce, and cucumber wrap; olive; stuffed pepper.

Not much to say. We have a lot of lettuce from the garden so instead of a salad "how about a wrap.?"

Green Soup Is Always A Little Intimidating

Supper, Sunday November 07: nasturtium and leek soup;* wilted greens salad, whole wheat biscuit.

*We had a friend over for dinner. Traditionally this would be made with chicken stock. Our friend is a vegetarian so I made this with vegetable base instead. Truth be told that is what I would normally use. I make my own meat stocks but I use a commercial vegetable base concentrate. I use it whenever anything needs a little flavor boost and or some salt. Rice, add a little base. Polenta, add a little base. Soup a little weak, add a little base. 

Isn't It Supposed To Be Red?

Supper, Tuesday May 23: tomato soup; grilled cheese (homemade sour rye, habanero cheddar, smoked gouda).

That depends on the tomato. I used yellow romas for this soup. We got a case of yellow romas at the farmers market last season and put them up as crushed tomatoes. The soup is pretty straightforward. Start with a mirepoix (1 onion, 2 carrot, 2 celery) and chopped garlic and shallot. Saute in olive oil til tender. Add a couple of quarts or equivalent of crushed tomatoes. Also add some basil, oregano, and black pepper. Bring this to a boil. Simmer until everything is tender. Puree with a hand blender. Simmer until desired thickness is achieved. 

Too Much Work

Supper, Friday April 21: tossed salad (garden greens and radish, sunflower seeds, shredded parm, caesar dressing); cous-cous; not-bolognese-but-kinda-stewey-tomato-thing (onion, carrot, green pepper, garlic, kidney beans, kalamata olives, eggplant, tomato, marsala, Italian herbs).

I was gonna make bolognese. Never tried that. I know that it is a commitment. After researching it on the interwebs I came to the conclusion that I did not want to work that hard. I'm sure there are "quick" versions but I don't want to shortcut it. I will eventually make it but this was not the day. 

What I did end up making turned out pretty damned good. I diced onion, green pepper, carrot, and kalamatas and sauteed them with some minced garlic. I strained a quart jar of our home made crushed tomatoes and added the juice and some marsala. I reserved the tomato meat for adding later. I wanted to preserve the chunkiness of the crushed tomatoes. I let this simmer until the marsala/tomato juice was substantially reduced, adding thyme, basil, oregano, and black pepper about half way through.

To finish it off I added the held tomato, drained kidney beans, and the eggplant. I need to talk about the eggplant for a moment. We had a good year last summer with the eggplant. We ate it grilled, in eggplant parm, and baba ganoush to name a few. One of the things I discovered at that time was that if some eggplant is added to a marinara and pureed with the rest of the sauce the eggplant adds body to the sauce, and bonus: it sticks to the pasta. Use a quarter to a third eggplant by volume. So how did I preserve the eggplant? Bake it as if being prepared for baba ganoush (it can be used for that also). Peel it and bag the flesh and freeze it. So the eggplant I added was cooked peeled and coarsely chopped. 

Once all the ingredients were in the pot I simmered it until I got a stew-like texture.  I came up with cous-cous 'cause I thought "It's Italian in the flavor profile so it would work with some kind of pasta, and it's got the consistency of a, say, Moroccan stew. . . ah, cous-cous, yeah." Topped it with a little parm because cheese.  

A Kinda Surf And Turf

Supper: Saturday April 8: french onion soup; garden salad with smoked oysters.

I was looking for something to add a little more protein to the meal. Rummaging around in the pantry I spied a tin of smoked oysters. Rich broth and pungent cheese, smokey oysters. Great fit.

Greens And Feta Are A Great Pair

lunch, Friday March 10:  bean and barley soup; sauteed collards with feta, zuchini muffin

This Might Be My Favorite Food

Supper, Saturday February 11: chicken and pastry (chicken, chicken stock, carrots, onions, celery, black pepper, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, rolled pasta dough cut into rectangles); greens.

Some people calls it chicken -n- dumplins mm-hmm, I calls it chicken -n- pastry. I'm not kidding. This really is one of my favorite things. I like this also with the fluffy-biscuity dumplings, but when I was a child it was always a special treat to have it this way. 

Seriously, I Have A Lot Of Pumpkin

Lunch, Wednesday February 1: pumpkin, bean, and kale soup; grilled cheese; pickled green tomato.

Pick a good pumpkin soup recipe, add some beans and finely chopped kale. I used cranberry beans here. Cannellinis would be really good I suspect.

Soup Is For Using Up Stuff.

Supper, Sunday January 29: french onion soup, tossed salad with avocado.

I am an almost pathological "user" of leftover food. We throw almost nothing away and what we do throw away goes in the compost. It comes from a combination of experiences during my childhood and the time that I spent in the restaurant business. I do mean almost. I know what a hoarder is and I am not that. 

The leftover in this case was bratwurst "stock." At least once, sometimes more often, I do a tailgate at my alma mater, a small liberal arts college. I like to bring a lot of brats and share them. Now, put eighty or so brats in a pot with caramelized onions, beer, and water, simmer for several hours, then what you've got is a lot of yummy brats to crisp up on the grill, AND a pot full of bratwurst stock. Add more onions, reduce a bit, a little black pepper, a little bit of thyme. Voila! Soup! 

I pressure can it in quarts for later. 

Noodles Or Rice?

Supper Tuesday January 10: beef stew (onion, carrot, celery, barley, mushroom, thyme, bay, garlic, black pepper, medium brown roux, oh yeah and beef)

I have always liked noodles with stew. In particular, medium curly egg noodles. 

Holy Crap I Haven't Posted In A While

Supper, Friday January 6: split pea soup (onion, carrot, celery, peas, smoked pork,* pork stock, pepper); chard and mandarins; sweet potato.

* I have a friend who bought a couple of smoked shoulders from his church during a fundraiser that they periodically run. Two whole shoulders were too much for his family really so he gave me a large portion of one of the shoulders. Now traditionally the recipe would be split pea and ham, but what is ham? The cured and or smoked rear leg of the pig. The shoulder is the front leg or the front shoulder region (Boston Butt). Not only is this a reasonable substitution with respect to texture and flavor the other advantage is that the shoulder was not salt cured. I could create a lower salt version of one of my personal favorite soups

We've Got A Lot Of Pumpkin

Supper, Thursday December 1: pumpkin and oyster chowder (chopped bacon, fry and reserve, onion, carrot, celery, soften, fish stock, diced potato, soften then puree all with pumpkin, diced potato milk or cream, return bacon) mixed vegetable (greens carrot, pepper, onion, feta); biscuit.

Lunch: Friday November 4, 2016

Why Does Borscht Get Such A Bad Rap: borscht (beets, carrots, cabbage, garlic, onion, ground pork, salt, pepper, a touch of vinegar, sour cream); open grilled cheese with liver mush.

I've never even eaten borscht much less made it. It is sort of an old cultural joke isn't it? Well it's pretty damned tasty. I should add that ground pork is not traditional I just had some cubed pork in the freezer. I ran it through the grinder.

Supper: Sunday October 23, 2016

Sometimes Leftovers Are Just Good Enough As Is: sheep share chili; Mexican cornbread; mexi-rice.

Lunch: Sunday October 22, 2016

Because someone is feeling under the weather: homemade chicken noodle (onion, carrot, celery, homemade chicken stock, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, black pepper); cheesy bread (poppy seed bagel, cheddar, smoked gouda).

Supper: Wednesday October 19, 2016

Friends come over for dinner or It's fun to play with your food: nine pepper lamb chili (cubed lamb, chili spices, habenaro, green, cherry, banana, poblano, jalepeno, maya, hot lemon, pepperoncini, red and white beans, home canned crushed tomato and tomato sauce, garnish to taste)

Supper: Monday October 10, 2016

It's not just for crayfish: cuttlefish etouffee (trinity, fish stock, tomato sauce, browned roux, bay, thyme, oregano, cuttlefish); wild and basmati rice; sour rye.

To brown or not to brown. . .
I was unaware of contention over the state of the roux. A quick check of the web (in order to make sure I was not missing something important) revealed recipes that were emphatic that the roux not be brown. I have had etouffee at several different restaurants in NOLA and every plate has some level of brown to the roux. Some were quite darkly browned. I consider the rich nuttiness it brings as one of the hallmark flavors of the dish.Why anyone would instruct to "make sure not to brown the roux" is utterly beyond me.