CSA week 14 - hot and sour soup

I have to admit up top that this didn't come out as quite the restaurant style soup I was aiming at. I can think of three possible reasons why, but I really can't be sure until I buy a bowl and do some direct comparison. My first mistake was that I used Szechuan peppercorns for the 'hot' part. This is a Szechuan recipe so that is traditional, but I can't imagine any restaurants bother with it. I should have stuck with white pepper. Second, bok (or in this case mei qing) choy isn't a usual ingredient for this soup. I think it's more of a Fukien-style soup vegetable. Third, most restaurants go too light on the sour aspect. I may have overcompensated with too much vinegar. All three of these additions add to the high notes in the flavor profile so while it seems like the soup is lacking something; it may be a lack of a lack.

So, anyway, there are two philosophies on making hot and sour soup, judging from the variety of recipes. You can either stir fry everything, add the broth, thicken it up and soups on or you can boil the broth, dump in the other ingredients in turn, cook for a few minutes, thicken and serve. If I was working with a good quality chicken stock I thick I would have gone with the first version, but since all I've got is soup from a can, I went with the latter. (As soup in a can goes, Swanson low sodium chicken broth isn't too bad.) I had accumulated a good two cups of mushroom soaking liquid in the freezer from various risottos and such so I used that along with four cups of the Swanson. All chicken broth would be fine, too. I tossed in a slice of ginger, a couple cloves of garlic and a teaspoon or so of crushed Szechuan peppercorns at the start too so they could infuse their flavors.

The rest of the ingredients begin with soaking dried cloud ear fungus (a.k.a. tree ear or wood ear) and lilly buds in boiling water. While you're slicing the soaked mushrooms into strips you've got to watch out for little knotty bits on the fungus that you'll want to cut out. And you'll need to check through the lilly buds for those still on the stem. These are both mainstays of the otherwise flexible hot and sour soup recipe, but all but the best Chinese restaurants leave the lilly buds out. (I think you can pretty fairly rate a Chinese restaurant by its hot and sour soup. The main issues are that most are neither hot nor sour, but you have to look at issues like fresh vs. canned mushrooms and the presence of lilly buds once those basic requirements are met.)

Meanwhile I defrosted a quarter pound or so of pork and sliced it into strips. In retrospect I probably should have marinated it in a bit of soy sauce, rice wine and corn starch which gives it a nice soft texture in soups and stir frys but my reference recipes didn't mention it and I forgot.

Up next are bamboo shoots and water chestnuts, mei quing choy separated into stems and leaves, tofu and scallions. The water chestnuts and scallions I chopped, the rest I sliced into strips.

Once the soup was on the boil I added the cloud ear fungus, lilly buds, pork, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and mei quing choy stems and simmered for ten minutes.

Then I added the mei quing choy leaves, tofu and fresh mushrooms and simmered for three minutes more.

Next I added the seasonings: 1 Tablespoon rice wine, 2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar (probably too much), 1 Tablespoon dark soy sauce, 1 teaspoon salt, and red and white pepper to taste. Once that was stirred in the next addition is 2 Tablespoons corn starch in a quarter cup of water. I brought it all back to a boil to thicken, drizzled in a beaten egg and served garnished with the scallions and a few drops of sesame oil.

As I said up top, not exactly what I was hoping for but certainly not bad. It shouldn't be hard to tweak the leftovers into a better balance.

Balsamic strawberry ice cream with black pepper

I wanted to make a strawberry ice cream while strawberries were still in season (They are still in season, right? I picked them up at the farmer's market, but that particular stall had a suspiciously broad range of produce and no farm name on a placard. I found the corn especially suspicious. Does anyone grow corn in south Florida? Can you grow corn in south Florida?), and, as usual, I had to do something to ruin the simple pleasure of a classic ice cream flavor.

Going into this I expected balsamic strawberry ice cream to be an overdone cliché on the foodie blogosphere (there are lots of folks who do stretches of slightly exotic ice cream recipes during the Summer), but I couldn't find more than one or two versions out there so there's still some point to adding my recipe.

After tossing the few groddy strawberries and eating a few of the others, my pint was down to 12 oz. Most strawberry ice cream recipes go with a full pound for three cups of dairy so I cut down to one cup of milk and a cup and a half of heavy cream.

As these were good quality fresh strawberries, I didn't want to cook them. Instead, I sliced them up and tossed them with a few splashes (1 1/2 Tablespoons?) of ten year old balsamic vinegar and a quarter cup of Splenda blend. Even if it wasn't the only bottle I have in the house at the moment, I think ten year aged balsamic would be the right choice for this recipe. It has some depth and richness of flavor but it isn't something fabulous that will get lost in the mix. As for the Splenda blend, I think I've mentioned before that I'm accommodating a diabetic coworker and I've found that the off-taste is undetectable in ice cream (although it does come out in simpler sorbets). A quarter cup is as sweet as a half cup of real sugar. Some strawberry ice cream recipes call for as much as three-quarters of a cup, but the strawberries and the vinegar are sweet too so I didn't want to overdo it. After tossing those ingredients together I let them macerate for a half hour or so.

Next I scalded the milk and cream and let it cool down to around 140 degrees F. Then I whipped two egg yolks with a third cup of the strawberry-balsamic liquid holding back any solids. I tempered the egg mixture, mixed it together with the dairy and brought it all back up to 170 degrees to create a custard. I was worried about the vinegar causing the milk to curdle, but in such small quantities it only helped in the thickening process. Many strawberry ice cream recipes call for lemon juice which has a similar effect. After cooling the mix in the refrigerator overnight I did notice some clumps at the bottom, but not a lot and they mixed back in easily in the churn. (This is in contrast to the black sapote sherbet I made a while back that had significant amounts of milk and orange juice. There were definitely gummy little bits in that. Not enough to ruin it, but it wasn't an ideal texture.) To avoid any problems along those lines I kept the rest of the strawberry mixture separate from the dairy until they went into the churn.

Before it went into the refrigerator for the night, I gave the strawberry mixture a quick turn in the blender. Not long enough to get it smooth, but enough to release more liquid. I only added about half of it to the dairy mixture for the final churning and reserved the rest for a topping. I also coarsely ground pepper into the churn as it was starting out. It's hard to say how much went in total; no more than a couple teaspoons at the outside I'd guess. It's supposed to be subtle.

The mix thickened up quite quickly and is one of the few mixes that actually succeeded in stopping the churn's motor. The motor was making some really unpleasant noises, though, so it may not have been working at full strength. I think it also helped that I turned down the thermostat in the refrigerator so both the mix and the bucket were extra cold to start out.

The texture and flavors were very nice right out of the churn. A strong strawberry flavor with unmistakable notes of balsamic and a slow burn from the pepper. That may mean that it will be too mild when fully ripened, though. I just tried a bit out of the freezer and discovered that it's frozen very solidly. I'll have to let a bowl sit out for a few minutes for a fair test after dinner.

OK, it's later now and I tried a bowl. The flavor wakes up after only a minute or two out of the freezer, but the texture isn't great. It goes straight from a crunchy solid to liquid without a creamy intermediate. I recall having this problem with homemade strawberry ice cream when I was a kid, too. Maybe it's because of the pectin in the fruit giving extra firmness to the mix? Or possibly the Splenda as sugar does have structural properties in ice cream. Microwaving the bowlful for ten seconds might defrost it more evenly and give a better result. I'll have to try that later. On the other hand, texturally, I like how you bite into a strawberry seed or two in each spoonful and then occasionally into a peppercorn. So, on the whole a success with reservations. It needs some tweaking for the ripened version but it was just fine as soft serve.

CSA farm subscription - week fourteen

A bit of a change of pace this week with no lettuce and no greens (cabbage isn't quite the same thing).

First up are the potatoes. These red potatoes are best for roasting and boiling and I think I've got enough to both accompany a roast chicken and be part of a stew. I don't have enough collards left to do a caldo verde. I'm thinking I might try a conch chowder; I've never worked with conch before.

As for the tomatoes, I've fallen a bit behind as I've just started using last week's grape tomatoes today. Luckily they do store fairly well.

The green pepper would be nice roasted with the chicken and potatoes I think.

A half pound of green beans isn't really enough to be a main ingredient in a main dish so they'll be part of a side dish. Last time I mentioned Cajun-style which fries them up in a roux. I figure if I do that and use appropriate spices with the roast chicken then a leftovers casserole will fall together easily.

The obvious choice other with the mei quing choy and shiitakes is a stir fry, but they also make up the main components of hot and sour soup. I'll have to check to see if I still have cloud ears and lilly buds. If I do, I think that's the way to go.

That leaves the mizuna and the cilantro. I have to admit that the last batches of both of these started to go bad before I got around to using them and I have no great inspiration to use them this time around either. I'd like to hear what you guys have been doing with these two while they've been rotting in my refrigerator. In fact, since the other CSA member blogs have posted anything about what they've been cooking for quite some time, I'd be interested in hearing about anything interesting you guys have made.

CSA week 13 - collard-wrapped pork, shrimp and daikon dumplings

These are not dissimilar to the last collard-wrapped dumplings I made. I started with Chinese flavors because I wanted to use the daikon and as I had a little bit of leftover shiitake mushrooms and scallions left in the fridge it seemed like the way to go. Since joining the CSA, this is the first time I can remember that I've had proper leftovers and haven't had to deliberately buy ingredients for this sort of recipe.

For the meat, I used a typical Chinese dumpling mixture of pork and shrimp. I ground both up in the food processor, and mixed them with the shredded daikon. The shrimp made a good binder so I didn't need to add an egg. I hand chopped the mushrooms, scallions, and some peppers, garlic and ginger to leave a bit of texture. I mixed those in along with some dark soy sauce, a dash of rice wine and a bit of sesame oil. Then I let it all sit for a little while for the flavors to meld and the mushrooms, which were a little dried out, to soak up some of the excess moisture.

I had a little trouble working with the kale this time as it was a bit smaller and a bit crisper than last time and didn't really want to roll up nicely. The presentation ending up a bit sloppy but everything stayed inside. Ten minutes steaming and there you go. Despite all the seasoning the dumpling itself is still rather mild so the kale is able to add a significant greens flavor to the mix. Hints of the daikon show up in the aftertaste, but it mainly they just give the dumplings some texture.

On the whole, it's not something I'll be serving to guests, but not bad for a half-hour's work.

CSA week 13 - baked collard chips

You may recall my post back in CSA week eight about baked kale chips. It's somehow made its way to the first page of Google results on the term and become one of the main drivers of the meager amount of traffic that makes its way to my blog. So today I bow to public pressure and churn out a low-rent sequel; I hope you're all happy.

Right, so collard greens--at least the ones in my share--are substantially thicker and tougher than kale so would the same spray-with-olive-oil-sprinkle-with-seasoning-bake-at-350-for-15-minutes-tossing-occasionally recipe work? As it turns out, yes.

You can see in the top photo that three whole collard leaves over-crowded my pan a little so the leaves spent the first five minutes steaming more than baking. But after they had shrunk a little I was able to redistribute them. The only tricky bit was making sure nothing was folded over because the overlapping bits don't dry out right.

Because of the slightly heartier nature of collards I used a steak seasoning sprinkle. It worked fine.

On a related note: if you're going to put radish greens on pizza bury them under the cheese or they'll get all dried out and crispy which doesn't really work.

CSA week 13 - Caesar salad soup

There are some fake recipes for Caesar salad soup out there using things like fennel and celery that have no business in a Caesar salad. I wanted to make a proper version: a lettuce soup with a classic Caesar dressing, croutons and Parmesan.

This is a recipe in three parts. Let's start with the garnishes.

Garlic Croutons

2 large cloves garlic
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 slices of white, French or Italian bread

1. Crush garlic and add, with a large pinch of salt, to olive oil. Let rest at room temperature for at least five minutes.
2. Cut bread into large chunks and lightly toast
3. Strain oil into frying pan. Heat over medium high heat until sizzling. Put the garlic back in the bowl. You're going to add it to the soup later.
4. Add bread to pan and fry, tossing frequently, until the oil is all soaked up and the bread is crispy, golden brown and delicious. Sprinkle with a bit more salt.

Parmesan Crisps

1 1/2 Tablespoon of Parmesan per crisp (Use a young cheese as an aged Parmesan doesn't have enough moisture to melt. It will just toast and after twice as long in the oven as the recipe says you'll get frustrated, mix it into the leftover grated Ementhal you have in the fridge, and finish it off in a frying pan. You'll get a nice texture, but the end result won't have the right flavor to go with the Caesar salad soup.)

1. Finely grate cheese into little piles onto a cookie, preferably lined with parchment paper or a silpat.
2. Bake at 325 degrees F for ten to twelve minutes. Alternatively, you can fry the grated cheese in a non-stick pan over medium low heat for several minutes, flipping when the bottom is browned. The crisps in the oven don't need to be flipped, but it wouldn't hurt to turn the pan around halfway through.
3. The crisps will harden up quickly, but just out of the oven you can roll them around a rolling pin or drape them over the bottom of a glass or, if you're really good, make an origami swan.


Caesar Salad Soup

1 pound (about 8 cups) romaine lettuce
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup water
1 egg
2 1/2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
3 drops Worcestershire sauce
2 anchovy fillets, minced
coarse ground black pepper to taste

1. Tear up, wash and dry lettuce.
2. Boil the broth and the one cup water, add lettuce and a sprinkle of salt, turn down heat, cover and simmer 10 minutes.
3. Heat a small pot of water to a boil, turn down to a simmer and cook egg for one minute. (I overcooked the egg a little, but it's all getting blended so no big deal.)
4. Mix the garlic from the croutons with olive oil, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, anchovy and pepper.
5. I let everything sit for a half hour to cool so I didn't have to worry about the egg getting cooked. If you intend to serve the soup hot you'll need to temper the dressing before adding it to the soup by mixing in spoonfuls of the hot soup.
6. Mix egg into dressing.
7. Blend soup until smooth. Drizzle in dressing while blending.
8. Serve with garlic croutons and grated Parmesan optionally in crisp form.


The soup was light, smooth and velvety. Possibly a bit too light; I think the egg white was holding on to a bit of incorporated air. I liked the somewhat less smooth texture of the plain lettuce soup a bit better, but I blended that less, too. As I didn't have to worry about adding any extras. I think next time I might blend the soup to the texture I want and then mix in the dressing by hand.

The primary flavors were the lettuce and lemon with accents of anchovies and olive oil. Nicely complex and balanced, but it was mild and a bit overpowered by the intensity of the croutons and the cheese crisp. Grating Parmesan on top instead will help with the balance. The croutons really were the best bit so I can't in good conscience tell you not to use them, but maybe smaller croutons would work better. I'll have to experiment with the leftovers.

CSA week 13 - Gizzards and turnips (with tops) in red wine sauce

I was a bit disappointed in this dish, but I don't think the preparation or the turnips were to blame. The fault lies squarely with the bland and dull chicken gizzards. I shouldn't really be surprised; they came from the bland and dull battery chickens they sell at Publix. It's a shame I couldn't get better. I need to find a real butcher around here.

As I mentioned back on Saturday, I wanted to pair the turnips with sweetbreads. I thought I had seen them around but I couldn't find them at my usual groceries. The lady behind the meat counter at Green Market had never even heard of sweetbreads. (I wonder if she was more confused by someone apparently asking for pastries at the meat counter or by my explanation that I actually wanted thymus glands.) I'll have to keep looking. Green Market had no organ meats at all, but Publix did have beef tripe and liver and chicken gizzards, livers and hearts. I figured chicken gizzards would work too.

The preparation itself was quite simple. I started by cutting up the gizzards and turnips into similar-sized pieces, patting the gizzards dry, seasoning them with salt and pepper and dredging them in flour. I probably should have shaken off a bit more of the flour as I had some trouble with the sauce over-thickening, but otherwise so far so good.

I heated olive oil over high heat and added the turnips and gizzards all at once. Three minutes without stirring started some nice browning despite a slightly over-crowed pan. The pieces were too small to turn individually to get the other side so I had to stir, cook for two minutes, stir again and give it two minutes more.

Then I turned down the heat to a high simmer, added a half cup of red wine (For the wine, I wanted something that could stand up to the gamey flavors I expected from organ meat but not just be a rough table wine. I took a chance on a Spanish 2001 Marques del Puerto Rioja. It was fine enough in the glass with light balsamic and vanilla flavors which contrasted nicely with the dish, but it didn't work so well as an ingredient.), a couple teaspoons of thyme and a bit more salt and pepper, covered and simmered for a couple minutes. I noticed the sauce was getting too thick so I stirred in a couple splashes more wine before adding the turnip leaves and returning the lid for another minute, gave it a stir and cooked uncovered for one minute more. And that was it.

The turnips were tender and tasty, the sauce (after I thinned it out with a bit of water) aromatic but the gizzards, while about as tender as they were likely to get, were dull dull dull. A real disappointment.

Well, tomorrow I'm going to make the caesar salad soup and I have high expectations for some pizazz out of that. Stay tuned.