Soups and Stews

Chicken / Noodle Soup

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Tonight we have lousy weather here in Miami, rainy, cold, windy. What better way to feel cozy and warm at home than to enjoy a good, rich, flavorful chicken noodle soup ! Chicken legs, gizzards, cabbage, bok choy, ginger, garlic, jalapenos, peppers, onions, carrots, celery, maggi and chinese egg noodles. Afterwards a good glass of merlot and early to bed – Bliss !
Tomorrow will be a good day 🙂
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” Chicken / Noodle Soup “

: ” Chicken / Noodle Soup “

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Bon Appetit ! Life is Good !

Congee With Smoked Pig’s Tails & Vegetables

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Rice Porridge.
First thing that comes to mind is probably baby food or hospital gruff. Most folk’s would never think of ordering it from a menu in a restaurant, much less wake up and crave it for breakfast, if they hadn’t tasted or at least seen it before.

Now, let’s try again :
Congee. Lúgaw. Chok. Xifan. Juk. Okayu.
OK, that’s better 🙂

Sounds more interesting and exotic? These are just a few names given to rice porridge around the world. If there is a country or region which traditionally eats rice, then there is some form of rice porridge eaten.

Congee can be enjoyed as breakfast, snack, lunch or dinner. Congee most often contains rice, but other grains can be used. Ideally it is made with strong, tasty stock that infuses great taste and debt into the dish. But from there on, let your fantasy run wild. Congee can be made with seafood, meat, vegetables or a combination thereof. Then there are the toppings. Pickled vegetables, fried shallots, sliced scallions, pulled mushroom stems, crisp fried garlic, dried shrimps, 100 year eggs, cilantro, etc, etc. If you like it, put it on.
Below is a version I made on sunday for breakfast. The texture is more like a filipino Lugaw, with the rice VERY soft but still keeping it’s shape. At first I was not so sure about the smoked pigstails. I was worried they might be too overpowering. But not to worry. The taste was very rich with only a hint of smokiness. Another slightly unusual ingredient (served as condiment) was the freshly grated horseradish, although when you think of the japanese version Okayu, wasaby seems to be a fitting condiment. I prepare congee at home often, this version is definitely special and a great addition to my congee repertoire.
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All about CONGEE
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Previous CONGEE posts : 1 2 3
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Ingredient’s :

Jasmin rice,
Smoked pig’s feet,
Corn on the cob, cut into thick slices
Chinese unsmoked sausages, thinly sliced
Bell peppers, diced
Ginger, grated
Garlic, paste
Cilantro, chopped
Scallions, sliced
Salt,
Soy sauce,
Horseradish, freshly grated
Sesame oil,
Chili oil,
Peanut oil, to saute

Method :

Saute garlic and ginger in peanut oil until fragrant. Add water and pigstails. Simmer pigstails in unseasoned water for about an hour or until starting to become tender. Taste stock and if necessary season with salt and pepper. (Some smoked meats can be overly salted, so don’t season at first) Add rice and very slowly simmer for another hour or until the rice is close to the texture you desire. Now add the corn, diced peppers and sausages. Simmer for another fifteen minute. At this point, adjust texture and seasoning if necessary. If the congee is too thick for your liking, add some hot stock. If it is too thin, simmer longer or strain some of the liquid.
To serve, sprinkle with scallions and cilantro. Drizzle with chili oil.
Serve with horseradish and soy sauce. Acompanied by Oolong tea.

Bon Appetit ! Life is Good !
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Breakfast Of Champions # 11 ” Millefanti In Brodo Di Carne “

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Usually I have peppermint tea and bananas for breakfast,
but today that did not tickle my fancy at all. So I took refuge
in another one of my favorite breakfast (and late night snack )
standby’s : An Italian variation of egg drop soup.
I fortified some great beef stock I had in the fridge by simmering
it for fifteen minutes with a good amount of garlic and ginger and seasoning
it with freshly grated nutmeg, kosher salt, cayenne and maggi seasoning.
The eggs I whisked with parmesan cheese, flat leave parsley, chives and nutmeg.
I fished out the sliced ginger and slivered garlic after simmering them for
15 minutes, then whisked in the eggs, immediately removing it from the heat
and drinking it as hot as possible.
Voilà ! Instant satisfaction 🙂
Remember, sometimes the simple things………

Have a great day ! Life is Good !
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” Canton Noodles, Beef & Vegetables In Ginger/Garlic Broth “

I know these are great pictures, but boy o boy, the fragrances from this dish 🙂
Yesterday I made a great beef stock in order to have a rich soup today.
This soup was just so flavorful and the different textures made it one of my
favorite asian dishes in a long time.
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Ingredient’s :

Beef stock,
Flank steak, sliced into baton
Broccoli rabe, blanched
Canton noodles, cooked, drained
Bamboo shoots, sliced
Radish, sliced
Black mushroom, soaked in hot water, quartered
Garlic, paste
Ginger, grated
Cilantro, coarsely chopped
Salt, to taste
Cayenne pepper, to taste
Sesame oil, to taste
Sherry, to taste
Oil, to saute

Method :

Saute steak until nicely browned but still medium on the inside.
Remove, set aside. Saute garlic and ginger until fragrant,
add mushroom and radish, deglaze with sherry, add stock and
simmer for one minute. Add bamboo shoots and rabe and bring
back to simmer. Remove from heat, add beef, sesame oil and salt
and pepper. To serve, sprinkle generously with cilantro and
soy sauce and chili sauce on the side.

Bon Appetit ! Life is Good !
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” Veal Broth With Matzoh Ball’s & Veal Rib’s “

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For many year’s I buy most of my beef, morcilla and chorizo from an Argentinian butcher in Hialeah who sometimes calls me for “specials”.
Usually those are offal and other cuts he has difficulty selling to his American customers, but which he knows I treasure. His older Latino and Haitian customers are also not afraid of that stuff, but the younger crowd usually prefers more mainstream cuts. Wednesday he called me because he had some “specials”. To my surprise, when I got there the specials were veal ribs. It is beyond me why he called me for these, because clearly everybody loves ribs. ( Maybe he was just trying to be nice, not usually one of his outstanding attributes 🙂 Anyway, for $4.50 a pound I did not complain and came home with 10 pound of them (Plus some other goodies)
So here we go :
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Soup:
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Simmer ribs with celery, carrots, onions, leek, garlic, ginger, star anise and chopped tomatoes until ribs are tender, about 2 hours.
Remove ribs, set aside. Strain broth, season with salt, cayenne pepper, lime juice and maggi seasoning.
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Matzo Balls Recipe:

1 cup matzo meal
3 eggs

3 tblsp oil or rendered chicken fat

1/4 cup seltzer (exact amount depends on the size of the eggs and the coarseness of the matzo meal)
3 tblsp finely chopped parsley (optional)
Kosher salt and white pepper to taste

Mix all wet ingredients together, then fold in matzo meal, salt and pepper and place in refrigerator for 15 minutes. Shape into golfball sized balls, drop into boiling water, cover, turn down to a simmer and cook for 20 to 30 minutes or until fully cooked (cut one in half to check if it’s done).

To serve, combine ribs, broth and matzo balls , sprinkle with
chopped cilantro or sliced chives. Grated parmesan optional.
(Not kosher, but I use it anyway)
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Es gezunterheyt ! עס געזונטערהײט ! Life is Good !
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“ Vietnamese Pork & Mushroom Dumpling Soup “ ( NẤM RƠM & THIT HEO )

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Yesterday’s light and healthy dinner :
” Vietnamese pork & mushroom dumpling soup “.
I made twenty two dumplings, could not stop eating,
ate all of them at once ( Bella helped a bit. )
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Dumplings:
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Won ton wrappers, roundPork, very finely chopped or ground
Shiitake mushrooms, chopped
Scallions, very finely sliced
Egg white
Ginger, grated
Garlic, grated
Sesame oil
Fish sauce (Nuoc Mam)
Salt, cayenne pepper
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Soup:
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Chicken broth
Baby bok choy, blanched
Straw mushrooms
Ginger, grated
garlic, grated
Scallions, sliced
cilantro, coarsely chopped
Fish sauce (Nuoc Mam)
Sesame oil
Chili oil

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Bon Appetit ! Life is Good !
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“ Quer durch den Garten “ ( Across the Garden)

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When I was a kid, during the summer and the harvest season my mother, usually at least twice a month on a saturday, made a stew she called “quer durch den garten”, which literally translates into “across the garden”. It was never the exact same stew because she used whatever fresh vegetables were available that day and usually a stew-cut of beef, sometimes sausages or chicken.The starch was either potatoes, pasta or rice, depending on what was leftover in the fridge or readily available from the cupboard. When we sat down to the table we never knew which vegetables, starch or protein to expect. Traditionally, most folk’s don’t put egg into the stew, but I like the added richness when you mix it with the broth. However, there was always an abundance of fresh vegetables and herbs. I believe this is the dish which has installed my livelong love for stew’s of any kind in me .

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P.S.
The combination of beef, vegetables, spaetzle, herbs and fried onion is called “ Geisburger Marsch”

Bon Appetit ! Life is Good !
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” Matzo Ball Soup, Chicken & Root Vegetables “

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” During My Time “ ,

– Chicken soup cured all “weh weh’s”
If I had a runny nose, slightly elevated temperature,
a lowdown of any sort, or just pretended I was not fit for school that day,
the first order of help from my mother was usually “Chicken soup”
Whatever vegetables and starch was available in that moment went into
a pot with whatever part of chicken was available right then and there and
in no time was transformed into a bowl of comfort and goodness.
And YES ! There where fat-eyes swimming on top of the broth –
And NO- we did not die from them 🙂

Chicken Soup ! Memories !
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