Last week I made a big batch of spaghetti sauce and ate spaghetti pretty much all week. I’ll post a recipe for the sauce when I have time to write it up. Until then, summaries of what I’ve been making:
Wonton Soup
I used homemade chicken/pork stock I made a while back and froze as the base. I usually make chicken stock from chicken backs and necks ($1/lb at Whole Foods) and don’t season it until I make the soup. This time I threw in some pork soup bones. I badly need a bigger stockpot. Homemade stock freezes beautifully for several months.
To that I added crushed lemongrass and garlic and slices of ginger, some mirin (I don’t have any Shaoxing wine, which would be more appropriate), and salt. I used prefrozen shrimp/pork wontons (they were kind of bland and salty; next time I will make my own or look harder for the good frozen kind) and shreds of pork (which should have been barbequed first, but oh well.
It was decent and enjoyable–it didn’t really taste like restaurant wonton soup, and I overdid it a bit on the ginger (this is probably the only time you will ever hear me say that)–but not worth posting a proper recipe for.
Rosewater-Cardamom Kulfi
Kulfi is a kind of Indian ice cream based on reduced milk rather than an egg custard. Traditionally, one would simmer down the milk to thicken it over a period of several hours. I used condensed milk because (a) I had it for some inexplicable reason, and (b) I would never ever use it for anything else because condensed milk tastes nasty. I mixed it with heavy cream, rosewater, cardamom, and sugar and froze it in disposable muffin tins. It’s pretty nice, although I suspect it would be better with simmered rather than condensed milk. I may post the recipe later once I decide how much I like it.
Lamb Stirfry with Asparagus and Sugar Snap Peas
The Asian market in Broomfield sells super-thinly pre-sliced lamb shoulder for $4 US/lb. I can’t cut it that thin myself and it’s hard to beat the price, so I had Kevin pick some up on his way down last weekend.
I made a slightly modified version of Meena’s Stir Fried Asparagus and Lamb at Tigers and Strawberries, as follows:
(1) I substituted 3 cloves minced garlic for the green garlic, because no one sells green garlic around here.
(2) I used 1/2 tsp coriander and a 1/4 tsp cardamom and left out the fennel (in my 60-ish collection of spices, I have no fennel. Yet). I also left out the mint (didn’t have any and don’t really like it).
(3) I fried half a stick of Ceylon cinnamon in the cooking oil first, although I don’t know that I should have bothered.
(4) I added two teaspoons of rice vinegar, split as the other liquid ingredients. I like the zing vinegar gives stirfry–my sweet & sour is always far more sour than sweet.
(5) I added a sprinkle of sesame oil.
(6) I used less asparagus (it was an experiment) and added a couple handfuls of sugar snap peas (the store was out of my beloved snowpeas).
(7) I didn’t follow the cooking order and instructions exactly because having paper-thin lamb changes things a bit.
I’m not sure whether the asparagus was too old (it probably was) or if I just don’t like asparagus, but neither I the veggie-hater nor Erin the veggie-lover liked it. I found it bitter and she thought it tasted like fish (!?). I don’t like the taste of sugar snaps quite as much as snowpeas, but they make far better leftovers–unlike snowpeas, which get soggy quickly, sugar snaps are still crunchy and good the next day.
The sauce was delicate and interesting–I couldn’t pick out any one spice, but it was delicious. The vinegar was a nice addition.
And the lamb was the tenderest I’ve ever made because of the strange stirfry paradox that the thinner the meat, the juicier it ends up. I have got to figure out how to cut meat that thin myself.
The New Rice Cooker!
Tangentially related, I tried out my new 3-cup Zojirushi rice cooker ($35 US), and I must say their reputation is well-deserved. 3 cups is about the most we ever make (leftover rice isn’t as good), so the only reason we’d want a larger size would be to use it to steam vegetables, and those of us who eat them mostly stirfry or eat them raw. The small size means it fits in our cabinets, and at the rate we collect kitchen gadgets, cabinet space is at a premium. I put in two cups of rice, added the requisite amount of water, pushed the button, and voila–something like 15 minutes later, absolutely perfect, fluffy, unburned rice. And unlike every other rice cooker I’ve used, it didn’t boil over, so cleanup took all of 30 seconds. Best $35 I’ve spent in a long time, and it’ll cut down a lot on the dishwasher loads we do, not to mention all the time spent scrubbing burned rice out of saucepans.
Spice Organizing
I ordered a bunch of empty jars from Penzey’s to organize the spice cabinet, which was a mishmash of refilled spice jars, random big jars, baby food jars, canning jars, cardboard boxes, plastic baggies, and little plastic tubs. Now it doesn’t hard the last three anymore, which is progress, although it is not as uniform as I would like (this won’t happen for a while). I do not recommend Penzey’s for spices–I think Savory and World Merchants are far better and have greater selection if you’re in the US–but their jars are affordable and good quality and come in several sizes and types. I bought mostly 1/2 cup scoopers, since I rarely sprinkle spices.
So the spice cabinet is semi-organized, if crowded (we have about 60 spices and blends, most of them mine). Now I need to get more big jars and organize the dried goods cabinets–things get crazy when everything’s still in plastic bulk bags and you have five kinds of rice!
Recipes to Come
Aka Miso Soup with Ginger, Mel’s Super-Awesome Spaghetti Sauce, and possibly the kulfi recipe.
