Friday, November 21, 2003

note:  I updated the entry below to provide a good link to the fotolog.  I can only post six photos a day, so I'm working through the lot (this is probably only of interest to my family). Also, I forgot to mention one other activity I've been engaging in, during this period of intensive paper-writing.  I've been cooking every day, and trying to figure out things to cook that have relatively long stretches of simmering, baking, roasting, etc. so I can spend time reading or writing while that process is completing.  So, I've been making lots of soup, bread, baked things, etc.  Yesterday afternoon I realized that I could make chicken soup! (We just started eating chicken again, after a long stretch as fairly strict, occasional sushi-only, vegetarians).  I improvised this soup, but it turned out to be truly delicious, so here's a story form recipe: I got a good, whole chicken (3lbs.) at Central Market, brought it home, and read the instructions in the Joy of Cooking regarding the cutting of a chicken into ten pieces.  Despite two thorough readings, I mangled it pretty badly - I would have ended up making soup even it that hadn't been my original intent, it was so bad.  The Joy of Cooking assured me that this takes some practice! I put the chicken pieces in an 8-quart pan, along with about 8 cups of water, a liberal amount of sake, a bunch of scallions -cleaned, ends removed, crushed - and a fair number of ginger slices, about a thumb-sized knob from the rhizome's worth, smashed with the side of a knife.  I brought this to a boil, skimmed it, then simmered it over reasonably low heat for about two hours.  After about 40 minutes, my house started to smell very good.  I removed the chicken, discarded the ginger and scallions, and strained the resultant stock three times, through progressively smaller sieves (I am obsessive about this, but you can strain it 1x with reasonable results).  I removed the skin (it fell away), deboned the chicken, and shredded the meat.  I put the stock on the burner, and added the chicken, a pound of julienned firm tofu (you can press the excess water out while the chicken is cooking - just wrap the block in a paper towel, and set it beneath a heavy skillet), a julienned leek, about eight dried chinese mushrooms (reconstituted in hot water for ~20 minutes, then sliced thin. Again, you can do this at your leisure during the chicken's two hour cooking time).  I brought it all to a boil, reduced it to a simmer, and added a bunch of minced ginger, some soy sauce, worstershire sauce, sesame oil, salt and pepper.  You can add all that stuff to taste, but you'll only want about a teaspoon and half of sesame oil, max, and you should add more ginger then you feel is absolutely necessary.  I suppose I ended up with about five tablespoons of worstershire in, and about two tablespoons of soy sauce.  Remember that soy sauce also functions as salt here, and balance these ingredients accordingly.  This recipe makes a lot of soup, so it's best to season conservatively, then add to taste at the very end of the process. I didn't finish the preparation until about 10:30 last night, so I wasn't hungry by the time it was done.  I ate a very small bowl to check the seasonings, and went to bed fairly satisfied with the results, but feeling like something was missing.  Later, in a dream, I told someone that "the flavor was missing a top note."  Thankfully, I never talk like that in real life, but it was true.  When I ate a bowl for lunch today, I squeezed half a lime into my bowl, and added a tablespoon of sambal oelek, which is that red chile paste you can find in the Asian section of your supermarket.  It was pretty perfect - you can skip the chile paste if you don't like it spicy, but the lime really balances the depth of the worstershire, mushroom, and sake flavors.  Oh, and I swirled an egg white through it last night, just after I took it off the heat.  Just slightly beat the egg white into a small bowl, then stir the soup fairly rapidly, creating a whirlpool, and drizzle the egg white around the edges of the pot.  Keep stirring until you get those shreds of egg that you see in your Chinese restaurant wonton soup.  The heat of the broth will cook the egg.  After some reflection, I feel the critical step is the chicken's long simmer in water and sake - the sake is absolutely necessary to get the depth of flavor you'll want.    3:16:18 PM