As some of you may or may not know (doesn't that phrasing technically cover everyone in existence? Talk about empty phrases.), I made soup last week. And, like most people addicted to social media, I posted pictures of each soup I made to the Bookface. And, like with most things I post to the Bookface, I have since fielded several requests for recipes.
Here's the problem, though. I don't really do recipes. It's not that I think they're beneath me or anything, it's just that I've been cooking for long enough that I identify techniques, maybe gather a couple of ideas from the internet, and just throw things together with a fairly decent success rate. Plus I'm lazy when it comes to writing things down. And while this is totally awesome in that I can MacGuyver dinner out of pretty much anything I can dig out of the fridge or the sale rack, it also leads to frustration when people ask me to replicate something and all they get back is a shrug and an ''I dunno."
So while this last weekend is still fresh in my mind, let me share with you how I made the three soups I ate.
Soup 1: Congee
1) Order ramen off of GrubHub for myself and my Nemesis, being sure to include soft-boiled eggs, because ramen without soft-boiled eggs is like a baby seal sitting quietly by itself. It's sad, but you're not entirely sure why. When finished, combine leftovers into one container for space conservation reasons.
2) The next day, warm up the leftovers a little (because the gelatin in the ramen broth is thick enough to set up solid in the fridge), and strain into a small pot. Scrape out the leftover rice from four days ago into the same pot, and add enough cartoned chicken broth to cover. Add a nub of ginger that's been sitting in your freezer for probably a year now, and set to boil while you eat the leftover noodly bits and stray vegetables in the strainer with a spoon.
3) Drop to a simmer and let it hang out for an hour or something - I don't know, I took a nap and wasn't watching the clock. Stir every once in a while, and maybe add more broth if it starts to stick at the bottom.
4) Remove ginger nubbin and eat.
Soup 2: Turkey, Butter Bean, and Baby Bok Choy
1) Dig out the 'Turkey London Broil' (basically a wide, flat turkey breast marinated in garlic, parsley, and lemon) I picked up from the coop because it was on sale, a can of butter beans from the pantry to be rinsed, and a head of baby bok choy Nemesis left a couple of days ago.
2) Pour the rest of the carton of broth into your soup pot and add an equalish amount of frozen homemade stock. Realize that's way too much liquid and pour a bunch of it out for later use.
3) Sear both sides of the turkey and cut down into cubes. Wash the bok choy leaves and cut into a chiffonade. Dump everything into the pot, bring to a simmer for however long it takes for you to toast some bread.
4) Ladle into bowl, add a healthy gloomp of extra virgin olive oil, and consume alongside large slabs of bread toasted in chicken fat.
Soup 3: Poulet Roti with Roasted Potatoes
1) Order a poulet roti from that French place I've been eyeing up. Eat the dark meat and the wings with a couple of potatoes that came on the side, skipping most of the severely over-roasted vegetables that came with the platter.
2) Pull the breast meat off the carcass (eat the skin), and with my hands, pull apart the breast and back bones. Stuff all the bones from the chicken into a pot along with an onion, the beets and cabbage that came with the poulet, the extra liquid you poured off the day before, a square of fat back from the freezer that I think came from culinary school four years ago, and enough water to barely cover the whole mass. Bring to a boil and simmer in a 200 degree oven for the rest of the day.
3) The next day, strain out the stock, gently pressing on the solids to get every drop of liquid chicken you can out of it. Skim the fat off the top, but do a sloppy job of it.
4) Slice a big fat clove of garlic into razor-thin slices. Fry them in some of the fat skimmed off the stock until dark brown. Cut down the chicken breast, the rest of the potatoes, and what apparently used to be zucchini and carrots into bite-size pieces.
5) Add the stock, some dried thyme, and all the chopped-up stuff from last night's dinner. Simmer and eat, again with slabs of bread toasted in chicken fat.
So there you go, guys. Making good food isn't always about getting the right combination of ingredients. It's about understanding how to put things together and using what you have on hand. Now if you'll pardon me, I have to go make another pot of soup. Roasted a chicken yesterday. Can't let that go undevoured.
2) Pull the breast meat off the carcass (eat the skin), and with my hands, pull apart the breast and back bones. Stuff all the bones from the chicken into a pot along with an onion, the beets and cabbage that came with the poulet, the extra liquid you poured off the day before, a square of fat back from the freezer that I think came from culinary school four years ago, and enough water to barely cover the whole mass. Bring to a boil and simmer in a 200 degree oven for the rest of the day.
3) The next day, strain out the stock, gently pressing on the solids to get every drop of liquid chicken you can out of it. Skim the fat off the top, but do a sloppy job of it.
4) Slice a big fat clove of garlic into razor-thin slices. Fry them in some of the fat skimmed off the stock until dark brown. Cut down the chicken breast, the rest of the potatoes, and what apparently used to be zucchini and carrots into bite-size pieces.
5) Add the stock, some dried thyme, and all the chopped-up stuff from last night's dinner. Simmer and eat, again with slabs of bread toasted in chicken fat.
So there you go, guys. Making good food isn't always about getting the right combination of ingredients. It's about understanding how to put things together and using what you have on hand. Now if you'll pardon me, I have to go make another pot of soup. Roasted a chicken yesterday. Can't let that go undevoured.
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