use real butter

Hrm, some recent developments might require that I curtail the posting frequency. Not sure. We’ll see how it goes in the next few weeks.

A few folks have inquired about the lunch I had in this entry, so I figured I should write it up seeing as it is a great dish in cold weather months.

Chinese noodle soups in my mind are as versatile as sandwiches. You can put whatever you want in them. I think of it in terms of a few major components: the noodles, the broth, the fixins. Noodles can be bean thread (aka glass noodles), soba, somen, iron man, ramen, rice noodles, and the list goes on. The broth is whatever you want it to be. The fixins can be vegetables, meat, leftover stir-fry, delicious spicy chili radishes (my fav!)…

We’ll start with one of my standards: soy sauce chicken. It’s just chicken drumsticks simmered for a few hours, but what you get is chicken and a lovely aromatic broth.

ginger, green onions, sugar, star anise

I like using organic chicken. If you’ve ever made broth from organic chicken and from conventional chicken, the fats are completely different. When I refrigerate the broth to remove the fat, the conventional chicken is practically a yellow disc of fat whereas the organic chicken renders an almost colorless and slightly liquid fat.

layer the chicken and add the rest of the ingredients

The star anise adds a nice accent to the soy sauce base. Simmer for a couple of hours or until the chicken is falling off the bone.

chicken is done

Usually, after the chicken is cooked, I remove the drumsticks from the broth and chuck the skins and bone. I store the chicken meat in a tupperware. The broth is poured into a bowl or tupperware and refrigerated for defatting. Now on to noodles. My favorite noodles (almost a comfort food, really) are Japanese somen noodles.

and this is the brand i buy

My grandmother used to make these noodles for me when I was a little girl. They cook in no time flat, so be sure they don’t turn too soggy (like a couple of minutes). I prefer to boil them in water rather than the broth because the noodles tend to make the broth starchy and the whole thing is just too salty. Once the noodles are cooked, drain them and place in a bowl.

delicate, thin somen

In the same pot I just used, I’ll heat up some of the broth with a little water (it’s somewhat concentrated broth). When it comes to a boil I chuck in pieces of the chicken along with greens - my favorite being spinach.

pot o’ flavor

Pour the contents over the noodles. If I’m feeling decadent, I’ll add a poached egg (runnnnnny) and I always top the whole thing off with some spicy chili radishes. That bowl will take your energy into the wee hours, really.

so easy!

Soy Sauce Chicken

4-6 chicken drums (organic is preferable)
4-5 stalks green onions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
8 slices ginger root, peeled
2-3 whole star anise
2/3 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp sugar
enough water to cover the chicken

Place all ingredients in a pan with a tight lid (or use a crockpot). Bring to boil and then reduce to a simmer so that when you cover the pot, the liquid will not boil over. Simmer for 2 hours. I like to remove the bone and skin from the chicken and serve the meat with the broth over Chinese noodles with bok choy, napa cabbage, or spinach for a Chinese noodle soup.

Confession time. Until just a few years ago, whenever I heard the words butternut squash I envisioned the acorn squash. I was not much of a squash consumer other than zucchini and pumpkin. I was squash stupid. It was when Nicole and Andrew had us over for homemade butternut squash ravioli one evening that I became enamored with the lovely gourd.

butternut squash

the guts

Since then, I’ve had several encounters with butternut squash soup, and I love it! Searching for recipes there are several variants in the supporting cast of ingredients and I am never sure which ones to try. Yesterday I gave the apple variation a go, except I was shy a Granny Smith, so tossed in one of our snacking apples to boot. I also roasted my butternut squash. I love the sweet and nutty accents roasting can bring out in certain foods. However, has anyone figured out how to get that gel-like excretion from the rind off of your hands? It is ridiculously tenacious.

roasted, peeled, and chopped

a granny smith and a honey crisp

The apples, shallots, and onion were simmered in chicken broth for a half hour. Meanwhile, I puréed the butternut squash. I had to snarf several cups of chicken broth from the pot to get the squash to purée properly - but it all goes in the soup eventually.

simmer in broth

slightly chunky pueée - call it rustic

When the apples and co. were soft, I drained off the broth, reserving it for later, and puréed the solids. Then everything got mixed together in a large pot: the squash, apples and co., and broth. Add salt and pepper for taste and the most important part - a half stick of butter. My justification: there is a lot of soup. The recipe I have written down calls for marjoram, but marjoram and I are not friends so I left her off the guest list.

applesauce of sorts

I find the color of butternut squash to be a breathtaking orange. It makes for terrific presentation on its own. But I can’t help embellishing it with some extra garnish for added flavor and eye candy. The soup is delicious, although I am curious to try a celery/carrot/onion grouping next time.

daub of unsweetened whipped cream and crumbled bacon for the pretty

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
I swear this could serve over a dozen people

2 medium butternut squash
2 green apples, peeled, cored, diced
1 onion, chopped
2 shallots, chopped
1 tsp fresh marjoram (optional - I omitted)
2 qts chicken broth
salt
pepper
2 oz. butter

Cut squashes in half or quarters and scoop out the seeds. Roast in a 400F oven for 45 minutes to an hour or until soft. Peel and chop the squash. Boil onions, apples, and shallots in broth and simmer for 30 minutes or until soft. Purée the squash adding broth from the simmering pot as needed (I needed a few cups). Strain the apples, onions, and shallots from the broth and reserve the liquid. Purée the solids. Add both purées to the broth and mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the butter and heat the soup until it just begins to simmer. Serve hot.

*rant is on*
Ever since I split my blog and made the food blog public, I’ve been posting my recipe entries on Tastespotting. Last night, since I didn’t have a recipe per se, I didn’t bother posting to Tastespotting. To my surprise, I saw one of my photos from last night’s entry show up this morning. When I looked, I saw it was submitted by GingerbreadGirl03 who makes a point of posting practically everything that comes across their browser as if this were a high school popularity contest. When I clicked on the image it took me to… not my blog entry. It went to some bullshit BBC recipe on tuna sashimi. A recipe for tuna sashimi?! That is like a recipe for eating an apple.

So if GingerbreadGirl03 had actually linked to my blog entry, that would have been fine, but to snarf my image without my permission and then to point it to some crap recipe? That’s totally uncool. I requested the entry be removed and Tastespotting quickly obliged. And I see that GingerbreadGirl03 has done this on several other posts of other unsuspecting people as well. You know, I blog because I enjoy it. I love to cook and I love to photograph and I put quite a bit of time and energy into both. I don’t appreciate someone stealing my images which is part of the reason I have that Copyright Notice at the bottom of the page. Hello? So GingerbreadGirl03 - since you obviously read this blog (or peruse it long enough to steal a photo), let me give you a little freebie pointer on blog etiquette: It is not alright to post my photos and link to something other than the entry it came from without my permission (and no, you don’t have my permission). I’m going to assume you didn’t know any better - this time.

Sheesh.
*rant is off*

I have a tiny, old recipe book that my mom’s house mother (in grad school) printed in 1974. Several years later, Mrs. Li sent a couple of copies to my mom who in turn passed them along to me and Kris. I love this book. The binding is half-missing and the pages are stained, but it contains 100 authentic Chinese recipes. I tend to be a visual person and I am a total whore for cookbooks plastered with glossy pictures, but this modest book is a simple black and white with a few line drawings to illustrate the more complex steps. Next to my parents and my grandma, this book has taught me how to cook some traditional Chinese favorites. Imagine my delight the first time I tried the hot and sour soup recipe. The kind you get in Chinese restaurants is typically heavy on the cornstarch and very light on the goodies - not so with this version.

you can find tiger lily buds in asian markets

i used dried shitakes, a staple in my pantry

The version I make is flexitarian because I use chicken broth (which can easily be replaced with vegetable broth for a vegetarian version). I don’t use pork or chicken meat in the soup. I find it to be pretty satisfying texture-wise with all of the vegetables and tofu and egg.

rehydrating lily buds in hot water

squeezed out and lined up - cut the woody tips off

Some ingredients may not be readily available at any old grocery store and you might need to make a trip to a local Asian market. However, I find that stores like Whole Foods and even my local Safeway stock canned bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and sometimes fresh shitake and fresh enoki mushrooms.

fresh enoki mushrooms - cut the base off

chop chop: bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, tofu, shitake, lily buds, enoki

The beauty of hot and sour soup is that you can mix and match the ingredients as you please. For me, the essentials are the lily buds, shitakes, bamboo shoots, and egg. Everything else is like icing on the cake. A little white pepper and vinegar (the hot and sour, respectively) before serving and you’re done, superstar!

into the pot

stirring in the egg

full of goodness

Hot and Sour Soup
adapted from Chinese Cooking in American Kitchens by Ming Li

1/2 cup cloud ears (aka wood ears or tree fungus) *I was too lazy to add these this time
1/2 cup tiger lily buds
1/2 cup shitake mushrooms
1/2 cup pork or chicken strips (optional)
1 cup tofu, cut into 1-inch strips
1/2 cup water chestnuts, cut into strips
1/2 cup bamboo shoots, in strips
1 cup enoki mushrooms with base removed
3 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp cornstarch (add more if you want a thicker broth)
3/4 tsp ground white pepper
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp vinegar (I prefer red wine vinegar)
6 cups chicken broth
1 tbsp soy sauce

If the cloud ears, lily buds, and shitake mushrooms are dried, rehydrate them separately in hot water for 30 minutes. When the lily buds are soft, remove the hard tips. When the cloud ears and mushrooms are soft, wash them free of any sandy particles. Cut the lily buds into 1-inch lengths. Cut the cloud ears coarsely. Squeeze the mushrooms out and cut off the stems. Cut the mushrooms into thin strips to match the size of the lily buds. Mix the cornstarch with 1/4 cup of water and set aside.

Heat the broth in a soup pot and add any meat if you are using it. Bring the broth to a boil. Add the cloud ears, lily buds, and shitake mushrooms and simmer for 10 minutes. Add sliced tofu, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, enoki mushrooms, and soy sauce and let return to boil. Reduce heat, stir cornstarch mixture into soup, stirring constantly. Let it return to a boil. Stir in beaten egg slowly while it cooks into long threads. Add pepper, sesame oil, and vinegar. Serve hot.