It has been too hot to cook, so I made soup/stew at night over the weekend and have been making that last.
I had half a cabbage and (what I thought was) a spaghetti squash in my produce drawer, so I came up with a daring plan to try to make another soup/stew with the two of those, some ham, and chicken stock.
When I went to cut up the squash, however, it turned out to be a random asian melon.
It made a rather wonderful breakfast, but it was a surprise.
Food experiment: Tofu Shirataki
Yeah, so this was a total shot in the dark as to whether they would be edible, but they were both weird and on sale so they fit my standard requirements for a culinary adventure.
Shirataki noodles are made from a root (often translated on the packaging as yam) and – in this case – tofu. They are packaged wet, kind of like sauerkraut.
Because the packaging warned that they are often parboiled to get rid of the smell (other notes included “distinctive texture”), I drained the packaging liquid and set it to marinate in a spicy cooking sauce. Then, I fried it all up in a pan with eggplant and shredded cabbage.
Right after cooking – fairly tasty, but still not as sexy a texture as proper noodles… they ended up having an almost al dente texture. Maybe I should have parboiled, but I was more worried about the flavor.
After freezing – No. Just no. So the website has a warning not to freeze, but the packaging didn’t, and ew! It turned into thin strips of plastic, I swear! So I am picking those out and dropping them in my trash so I can eat the rest of the goody.
I think I am going to make soup tonight – maybe something vaguely ministrone-ish, but without white beans and I’m still waffling on the inclusion of pasta product.
I have stock, yellow squash, zucchini, canned tomatoes, roasted garlic, and greens. (ETA: onions, a couple baby carrots, and some seasonings.)
Is there anything else that would be really spiffy in the soup that I should run over to the farmer’s market across the street to buy before I go home?
Hmmm… I also have carrots. Is this a carrot kind of soup?
Comments – the only suggestions from those wise asses was celery
Last night’s dinner was all full of experimentation.
My grocery has had cheap chuck roasts (and small ones, too!). And instead of making my standard pot roast or swiss steak, I happened across a recipe on the internet for beer braised beef (from [redacted]’s del.ici.ous links)
So I went and bought a six-pack of Negra Modela on my way home. I added the salt and pepper to the raw meat, and then I let it sit for a hour because I went to a demo at the restaurant school nearby last summer and the chef had said that rubs that included salt are used incorrectly when they are added right before cooking – instead they should sit on long enough that the salt not only draws out moisture, but also then re-dries forming a little crust of salty goodness on the outside of the meat. Whatever – I gave it a try.
After the browning stage with just the salt and pepper, the roast smelled wonderful and was very tasty (What? I hadn’t had lunch!).
I put in all three onions that the recipe called for (but none of the shallots because I didn’t have any and how were you going to notice the difference between onions and shallots in a dish with flavors this heavy?) and then I remembered that my roast was a little smaller than the recipe called for, so I pulled out some of them halfway through cooking – they are destined for an onion and potato curry with yellow thai noodle sauce.
Added beer. Cooked. Ate some ramen (because starving!). Flipped the roast. Dipped a piece of bread in the goody and ate that – MMmmm tasty! Cooked. Ate a yogurt cup. Made and ate a side dish. And then the roast was finished! So I nibbled at a corner and put it aside to be tonight’s dinner because I was full and it was 10pm.
Verdict: even with mexican beer, the beef tastes belgian. I think I’ll thicken the sauce to make gravy, and maybe that will give it a more yumminess. I secretly think that I should have added one of those mini cans of tomato paste to the braising right at the beginning, but I am not wise in the ways of tomato paste and do not keep those little can in stock. Maybe I should start.
ETA: Pulled beef out, brought liquid to a fast boil, and put a heaping Tablespoon of whole wheat flour in a little mesh strainer and sifted it in slowly while stirring – made a very tasty gravy.
About half an hour before the roast finished, I started preparing a side dish. Well, it ended up being two side dishes by accident. But I was trying a new vegetable kohlrabi.
A bit of preliminary research turned up that it was a member of the cabbage family and “just like broccoli.” Only it’s leafy and bulbous, and not much like either of those things, so I was puzzled.
Finally a found a recipe that seemed made just for this vegetable, instead of randomly substituting it into a brussel sprout recipe: Braised kohlrabi with garlic and parmesan
And thus I had a theme for the evening – braising everything!
And then I cheated on it because right after I had prepared the kohlrabi for the recipe, I realised that it wasn’t going to use the greens – so I cut them up into little strips and threw them into some olive oil a few minutes after I threw in some garlic. If I had thought it through, I think this is a dish that would really have been improved with the use of my fancy olive oil (I am starting to be able to taste the differences). And then, since I was shredding parmesan anyway, I tossed in a goodly handful of cheese before eating it
verdict (Greens): Reminded me a lot of broccoli rabe leaves. Soft and tasty without being bitter, but with a lovely amount of spiciness.
Right, so the real recipe – sauteing garlic and kohlrabi in butter was a brilliant way to start. Turns out that half an ice cube tray of duck stock melts out to exactly 200mL – win! So I had much more flavorful stock going in that is called for.
verdict (bulb): Again, color me unreasonably skeptical – it was just like broccoli. Well, broccoli stems. Only easier to peel and with more surface area. I’ve been using broccoli stems for years to replace water chestnuts from recipes – and kohlrabi will be even better. I am all impressed with this new (to me) vegetable.
Now I have leftover duck broth infused with the essence of garlic, butter, and kohlrabi. Do I (a) use it to marinate a chicken leg quarter as I thaw it, or (b) make some rice, pour that in, maybe cook a few greens for on top, and call it dinner?
Ever since I had a cold last week that had me with almost no appetite, I’ve been having trouble getting back to normal.
I drank about 6 liters of water yesterday, and I still feel dehydrated.
And I keep being ravenously hungry and then getting full on small portions – and then being ravenously hungry again.
This is relevant because I was going to make soup yesterday, but I only got as far as deciding that I’d try roasting again and putting the sweet potatoes, garlic, and apples in the oven before I gave up and made myself an omlet.
So here’s the thing. I shall be making sweet potato and apple soup tonight. To eat tonight and tomorrow, but with no other leftovers. And then next week, I shall be making pumpkin soup. I want this soup and the pumpkin soup to be very different soups.
So I have three roasted sweet potatoes, a roasted pod of garlic, 3 small roasted apples, and a whole bunch of not roasted apples.
First question is whether I put them in a stock base or a cream sauce base.
Cumin or not to cumin?
I think the pumpkin soup next week should have lentils in it. And maybe tamarind. That’ll make it different. I’ll have to buy lentils.
Comments suggested:
You could make next week’s soup a thai mulligatawny, with thai green curry paste, a cinnamon stick, lemongrass, minced ginger and garlic, red lentils, and then, added at the very end, some coconut milk and lemon or lime juice and fresh cilantro.
1 part lentils to 3 parts pumpkin