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Spicy Mushroom Soup

It’s been some winter so far. Not content to bury us under successive blankets of snow, the heavens punished us yesterday for some undisclosed sin we’ve collectively committed by raining shards of ice on our heads. Knowing icy vengeance was coming our way, I made a pot of, well, I’m still not sure what to call this soup. It’s very, very loosely based on yuk gae jang, a mind-blowingly spicy Korean beef soup. It was a favorite of mine in my 20s, but the beef was always just a little too chewy for my taste, so I started tinkering with meatless versions sometime in my 30s and landed on this one in my 40s.

So you could say it’s been a long time coming. I’m not done with it yet, but it’s a dish that obviously can handle a fair amount of tweaking.

The secret ingredient in this bowl of bliss is gochujang, a fermented condiment heavy on the red pepper. Looking for an expiration date on the jar that’s been in […]

From the Market: Week 5

gluten-free

Right off the bat, I’ll admit that yes, I cheated a little here. Asparagus hasn’t been seen at the Ringwood Farmers’ Market for the past two weeks, but 1) I had a craving and 2) didn’t it make for a pretty — if slightly pornographic — shot?

Because I operate under the assumption that pretty much everything is better when topped with a fried or poached egg (especially the super-fresh ones we get from Nina), I went with a variation on a shaved asparagus salad from the pages of Food & Wine for Sunday’s lunch:

The ricotta salata I substituted for the Parmesan was creamy and subtle, but I think I’ll try the recipe as written next time for even more of a punch.

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Deeeeep breaths…

The Saints game is about to start. As such, I have no time nor the presence of mind to write a real post, so I’ll leave you with a few pictures and a promise to do better next weekend. I’ve been creatively moribund since the holidays, but hope it’ll pass soon.


Got my gris-gris going first thing this morning with shrimp & grits. I hope the spirits aren’t too upset that my coffee lacked chicory.


And since it’s old home day, why not have a little old-fashioned banana pudding with Nilla Wafers? (I’ve been playing with the recipe I got from my mom, who got it at her wedding shower, but it’s not quiiiiite there yet. Will post it once it is.)


And on the topic of comfort foods, all I wanted last weekend was graham crackers and milk.


OK, that’s not entirely true. These Szechuan noodles with shrimp really hit the spot.

Something old, something new


This isn’t your halmoni’s yuk gae jang.

I’ve been in love with Korean cooking for years, ever since I dated a Korean cowboy-type from Tulsa during my days of indentured servitude in grad school. He came from a family of amazing cooks and it really showed. Being me, I learned everything I could from him and then some, with the help of a basic, but now out-of-print cookbook.

The dishes that probably spring to mind when you think of Korean food are kimchi, savory-sweet bulgogi or my entry in the grilled-meats-that-can-make-you-weep contest galbee, but my favorite has always been yuk gae jang. It’s a beef soup so spicy with hot pepper paste it’ll turn your tongue inside-out. And I’m a fire eater, so you know, be careful if you order this in a restaurant.

Traditional versions of this soup still crop up in my kitchen from time to time, but over the years I’ve bastardized the recipe to make it more veg friendly. It’s meat-free, not vegetarian, but it’d be easy enough to substitute a mushroomy vegetable broth if you want to avoid animal products entirely.

Odds & ends

As you can see, I’ve been cooking. Oh, how I’ve been cooking. But there hasn’t been a lot to say about the food. I mean, we can all get behind a great roast chicken, but really, what more could I possibly tell you about it? Well, OK, just a word about this one, then we’ll move on…

I was craving another Zuni roast chicken for dinner during the week, but my way-back machine was in the shop and I couldn’t have one seasoned in time for that evening’s meal. So I did the next best thing; I used Thomas Keller’s method of seasoning and dry roasting a chicken in a 450-degree oven for an hour. (Thanks for the heads-up, Dietsch.) It’s very similar to the Zuni method, only it requires no advance planning. It’s also very similar to my grandma’s roast chicken: 500-degree oven for an hour, but she bastes it in butter whereas this one stayed completely dry, the better to crisp the skin, my darlings. It was a delicious bird, only not seasoned through the way it would have been if […]

The beet and the coconut

It’s not unusual to plan a meal around one ingredient, I think. You find a beautiful cut of grass-fed beef or see a flat of ruby red strawberries and the wheels start spinning as you think about the best way to highlight their natural beauty. This sort of thinking influenced a couple of our meals this week.

Usually when I buy beets, both root and green are destined for a salad inspired by an episode of Lidia’s Family Table — roasted beets, boiled greens, and sliced green apple are tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, topped with hard goat cheese, and seasoned only with salt & pepper. It’s simple and delicious, especially when the produce is at its freshest and most vibrant.

But wanting something different last weekend and thinking (incorrectly) I was prepared to deal with a certain amount of frustration, I decided on a beet tart adapted from this one. The process involved me buying my first tart pan from a store that fascinates and repels me in equal measure — New York Cake & Baking Distribution, conveniently located across the street […]

Fuh.

I was very disappointed to read of Martha Stewart’s plan to fold Blueprint recently, despite my initial lukewarm feelings toward the magazine. Each issue managed to teach me a little something new and always inspired me with its eye candy and functional-yet-beautiful design. To say my sad goodbye, I had the bright idea to cook a recipe from the last issue and frame a post around it; since I’ve been on a bit of an Asian kick lately, the pho from the soup story sounded promising. I knew not to expect authenticity, but expected better than I got.

It all started so well, too. I made the beef stock a day early and it smelled heavenly — rich with chuck roast, bone marrow, star anise, and fish sauce. After looking forward to it all the next day, I got started as soon as I walked in the door.

While the noodles were boiling,

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I assembled the vegetables we’d use as garnish.

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When the noodles were ready, I drained and rinsed them in cold water, then added the thinly-sliced beef

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before pouring the boiling broth over, which immediately began to cook the meat.

My new wonton technique is unstoppable

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Happy 2008, everyone! Keeping with our tradition, Gil and I stayed in for a movie marathon last night rather than endure the crowds in the city and the loooong drive home. This year’s feature: The Lord of the Rings trilogy. (No, really, it was his idea. Something about the big screen HDTV, battle scenes, I dunno. I wasn’t going to argue.) We started late and only got up to about the 45-minute mark of The Two Towers, but it’s a rainy day, so I’m sure we’ll finish what we started before nightfall.

With hours of Middle Earth fun ahead of us, I wanted to make something festive for dinner that wouldn’t require too much time in the kitchen, and after my success with two recipes from Simple Chinese Cooking, I turned to its pages again for inspiration. The shrimp dumplings practically leaped off the page and demanded an audition, so I obliged, despite the potential for disaster — eviscerated dumplings churning in a pot of boiling water isn’t as appetizing as you might think. But Kylie Kwong’s step-by-step photo illustrations of dumpling assembly made the […]

Virtuous living

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After our gluttonous journey through south Louisiana, I wanted our first home-cooked meal to be fresh, light, healthy, and flavorful. As luck would have it, all of these conditions were met in the pages of Kylie Kwong’s Simple Chinese Cooking, a holiday gift from my mother-in-law. The size of this cookbook is the only downside I’ve found so far — it’s really more of a kitchen atlas than a useful cookbook in its current form. I lack counter space in my kitchen, so I had to copy the recipes I’d chosen to a notebook and cook from there. But in all other respects it’s a wonderful book — great recipes, clear instructions, gorgeous pictures, and handy step-by-step illustrations of some of the more difficult preparations. (Cutting a whole chicken the Chinese way and making wontons are two of my favorites.)

The dish pictured above is steamed cod with ginger and green onions. I’ve made steamed fish before, but this was far beyond the Cooking Light recipes I’ve used in the past. It’s a very refined dish elevated by the surprising element of hot peanut oil drizzled over the top […]

A rainbow in your bowl

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R – red bell pepper
O – carrots
Y – yellow bell pepper

G – green cabbage, cilantro, basil, mint, lime juice, green onions

B – OK, the conceit breaks down a little here
I – yeah, yeah, so sue me
V – purple bell pepper! Ha-HA!

To look at this site, you’d think we only eat brown or red food around here. I guess my weekday meals are more multi-hued than the dishes I make (and post about) on weekends, but still: They say you should eat the rainbow to get the most nutritional benefit from foods, so I thought I’d give it a go in one dish last weekend with a Vietnamese chicken salad from the pages of my beloved Cooking Light.

For once, I didn’t really depart from the recipe much, except to use a little less chicken and a little more veggies than called for. I might use the proper amount of chicken next time, but this salad already was delicious with its balance of salty, sweet, and sour, with unami thrown in for kicks. In fact, it was Gil’s favorite dish of the weekend!

Goooo, Roy G. ‘v!

recipe after […]