On a cold November day after Thanksgiving, nothing is better than a warm hearty bowl of turkey noodle soup. The roasted turkey carcass was converted into nectar of the gods and the noodles were homemade. Thick, rich and creamy, this was the perfect thing to warm the soul. Not much too it, really. I cooked all the leftover turkey bones and carcass with carrots, celery and onions to make the broth. Strained it off. Peeled whatever meat was left on the bones off and cooked it all together with more fresh vegetables and noodles.
soup
Lamian Noodles, sort of
Lamian (also called la mien) are hand-pulled Chinese noodles. I have been fascinated with the plethora of youtube videos showing Chinese artisans stretching and pulling these noodles. I so wanted to try this myself. The dough is seemingly simple but if you don’t have the right ratio of gluten in the flour it will never have the right stretchy consistency to pull the noodles no matter how much you knead it. It also needs a pretty high hydration to be pliable enough to stretch. I tried this just using all purpose flour but it was not stretchy enough. I need to get some lower-gluten pastry or cake flour to make these noodles. I resorted to rolling out the dough and cutting the noodles with a knife. They turned out really tasty but I still want to try pulling them some day.
I made the dough using about 3.5 oz of all purpose flour and 2 oz of water. The dough was kneaded for about 25 minutes the allowed to rest for a few hours. It was kneaded by hand again for 20 or so minutes but it just wouldn’t become stretchy and relaxed enough to pull. It was silky smooth though and made for a great texture in the final product.
I made this soup very simply. I used a Korean beef dashi powder to make a broth and cooked some sliced carrots and celery in the broth for just a few minutes before serving. The noodles were cut and immediately thrown into a pot of salted boiling water. They were cooked for about 3 minutes, strained out and placed into large bowls. The soup was ladelled on top of the noodles. Meanwhile I quickly stir fried some thinly sliced sirloin tip, garlic and a bit of chili sauce. This was placed on top of the soup. It was YUMMY, filling and perfect for a cold winter’s day.
Divine Dining Redux #3 – Creamy smooth gazpacho
When most people here in the US think of gazpacho, they think of a chunky, tomatoey, thin cold substance that reminds me of bland salsa. However, the authentic dish in Spain is nothing like that. It is creamy, and rich, and delicious. What makes it so? Two things that have been neglected here: bread and olive oil. Let me tell you how gazpacho should be.
First, let me give credit where credit is due. I got this recipe from Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s America Public Media radio show, The Splendid Table. It was passed to her by David Rosengarten who was a guest on her show recently. David’s recipe can be found here in its entirety. I doubled his recipe and it was more than enough!
I started with about 4 oz of day old French bread. This was ripped into pieces and soaked with cold water for a couple of minutes. The water was squeezed out. The bread is important as it helps to thicken the soup.
Next I chopped up about a pound of ripe garden fresh tomatoes, a medium sized sweet onion, about a cup and a half of cucumber (peeled and seeded), a large green bell pepper and a large red bell pepper.
Everything was placed in the blender and 2 tsp of sherry vinegar was added. The mixture was puréed while pouring in 1/2 cup of good extra virgin olive oil. That makes it rich and creamy.
Once puréed, the mixture was seasoned with salt and pepper and then strained through a seive. The soup was chilled well before serving. I garnished it with more of the basil oil I described in my last post.
Sushi and more
I was in the mood for Japanese cuisine and it’s been a while since I’ve made sushi rolls. They really are not that hard to make and you can put whatever you want inside. These are stuffed with crab, avocado, carrots and cucmbers.
Of course the most important aspect of sushi is the rice. Unfortunately I didn’t have a great sushi rice on hand but at least I had a sticky shorter grain rice. Actually it was too sticky and became a bit gelatinous, but it was ok. Sushi rice preparation is something that is almost an art in Japan. Right out of the steamer, while still hot, the rice is seasoned with rice vinegar usually sweetened with some sugar. The rice is traditionally cooled by fanning by hand. I like to lay out a thin layer of rice about 3/4 of the way up a sheet of nori. It helps of you wet your hands with some water to prevent the rice from sticking.
Simply lay your ingredients in the middle of the rice. Here are the cucumbers and carrots.
Next, the avocado and crab.
Real sushi chefs can roll these by hand without the aid of a rolling mat, but mine turn out best if I use a mat. The idea is to roll the sushi pulling it in tight to make a firm roll. The edge is sealed by wetting with a little bit of water.
Here is the roll all ready to be sliced.
You can slice them however thick you want them. I like a pretty good mouthful myself.
Along with the sushi I made an Asian-inspired soup. I started with a stock pot filled with kombu (seaweed), dried shitake mushrooms, garlic and ginger. This was simmered for about an hour until the mushrooms and seaweed were tender and the broth was flavored.
The broth was strained and flavored with some soy sauce, clam dashi powder, a splash of mirin and a dash of sesame oil.
The mushrooms and seaweed were sliced finely and placed back in the soup.
Served with soy sauce and wasabi, the sushi was really tasty. The soup was very satisfying with a full robust flavor yet lightness that went well with the delicate flavors of the sushi.
Savory Rhubarb and Lentil Soup
I like savory rhubarb dishes and my rhubarb corner in the garden is overflowing with bounty right now. I was thinking about soup since I just bought a nice new Le Crueset soup pot on sale from amazon. A quick google search pointed me to just the inspiration I was looking for. I found a recipe for Rhubarb-Lentil Soup with Crème Fraîche. My proportions were slightly different and I made it from what I had on hand. The soup turned out really wonderful. The rhubarb completely disintegrates in the soup. If you didn’t know it was there you probably wouldn’t be able to identify it as rhubarb but it does add a foundation of tartness that is so important for this recipe.
Here is the ingredient list for my savory rhubarb lentil soup:
1 cup green lentils
1.5 cups chopped onions
1.5 cups chopped carrots
2.5 cups chopped rhubarb
6 cloves garlic
3/4 cup white wine
3.5 cups chicken stock
2 pinches dried thyme
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
4 tbsp plain yogurt
1 tbsp fresh dill
First the lentils. I used dried green lentils and presoaked them with boiling water for 15 minutes to soften them and speed up their cooking.
The rhubarb, carrots, onions and garlic were all finely diced or chopped.
I started with a hot soup pot (I really love this Le Crueset!). A tbsp of olive oil and the onions and carrots went in first. These were seasoned with salt and pepper and sautéed for about 5 minutes until the onions were starting to soften nicely.
Next the rhubarb and garlic were added. These were cooked for 3-4 minutes until the rhubarb started to soften and disintegrate.
Here’s what it looked like after the rhubarb was broken down.
I deglazed the pot with the white wine (2004 Santa Rita sauvignon blanc from Chile). The chicken stock and lentils were then added. I threw in a couple of bay leaves and a pinch of thyme. The soup was brought up to a boil, covered and allowed to simmer.
After about 40 minutes the lentis were nicely cooked through. I took about 1/3 of the soup mixture and puréed it in a blender until smooth. This was added back to the rest of the soup.
Instead of crème fraîche I used plain yogurt. This was mixed with fresh dill and dollopped on top of the soup. I also served a side salad with stawberries and walnuts. The greens were dressed with a bit of the yogurt/dill and some balsamic vinegar.
