Soup of the Evening

Friday night we had a ward activity (at church) with a soup dinner. Lots of different kinds of yummy soups. (I had two helpings of Sarah's borscht. I don't think I've ever had borscht before.) One person there had brought a muffin tin to eat out of, and put a different scoop into each space. I thought that was a clever idea and definitely easier than trying to juggle multiple bowls at the serving table. I'll have to remember that next time.

Our contribution was black bean chicken chili. Here's the recipe!



Black bean chicken chili

1 can (12 oz) black beans
1 can fire roasted tomatoes
1–2 chicken breasts (depending on size)
1 cup frozen corn (we use Trader Joe's fire roasted corn)
3(ish) cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin seeds (or to taste)
1 tsp coriander (ditto)
1/8 tsp cayenne
lemon pepper
salt
2 Tb olive oil

Cut chicken into bite size pieces (dice). Grate garlic.
Heat oil in soup/sauce pan on medium heat. Add dry spices (not salt or pepper), stir fry for 10 seconds or so, until they brown. Add garlic, stir fry for 30 seconds or so until it starts to brown.
Add chicken; cook until chicken is opaque.
Add beans, tomatoes, corn. Add about 2 cups of water (add more water if needed until desired consistency is reached). Stir, cook until water is reduced a little, spices are mixed, and chicken and corn are done.
Add salt and lemon pepper to taste.

The fire-roasted tomatoes and corn really add a lot of flavor. The tomatoes we use are from Hunt's. This time Doug used dried beans and cooked them in the crock pot with some mojito marinade. We usually just use canned beans with nothing added.

We like to stretch our soup with basmati rice. Yum!

It dawned on me that of the five recipes that I have posted thus far, three of them are soup. Yep, we like soup.

Pretzels

We haven't made pretzels for quite a while. It's a rather time-consuming production. But a couple of weeks ago we went to the mall (looking for maternity clothes--didn't get anything) and split a soft pretzel, and when we got home Doug decided that we needed more pretzels. And of course I decided that we needed pictures.

Here's the recipe:

(oven at 425 F)

Dough:
2 tsp dry yeast
1 cup warm water
2½ cups white flour (+ up to 1 cup more)  (King Arthur Bread flour is really good)
2 Tb vegetable oil (note: if you're doubling the recipe, 4 Tb is 1⁄4 cup.)
1 Tb sugar

(We almost always double the recipe, and use honey instead of sugar.  Probably less than a tablespoon.)

Baking soda bath:
6 cups water
6 Tb baking soda

Coarse salt for sprinkling

Bake at  425° F for 8-12 minutes

Dissolve yeast in water. Add flour, oil, sugar. Beat well to make a smooth batter. Gradually stir in enough additional flour to make a soft dough, only slightly sticky. Turn onto floured surface, knead until no longer sticky, dusting with flour as necessary. Turn dough into greased bowl; cover and let rise for 1 hour. (You can do this part in a bread maker on the dough cycle, too. It takes a bit of attention to get the extra flour added properly and get the texture right before the kneading cycle ends.)

Punch down dough, turn out onto floured surface. Divide into 12 balls (or whatever you want), roll into a long rope, and shape as desired. Thin pretzels will be crispier and thick pretzels will be bready and chewy. Place onto well-greased baking sheet (or parchment paper).



The rolling-out part was rather tricky for Kate, but she enjoyed playing with the dough.



My "over-achiever" pretzel.

When the pretzels are all shaped, let them sit to rise a little more. Put 6 cups of water in a (non-aluminum) pan, with 6 Tb of baking soda. Heat until simmering. Turn down to maintain a gentle simmer. Preheat oven to 425° . (Update: Lately I've been turning on the oven and putting the water on to boil before I start shaping the pretzels, since the rolling-out part usually goes fairly quickly and I've discovered I don't like the texture quite as well if I let them rise too long.)



Lower pretzels into baking soda bath, simmer 10 seconds per side, then remove carefully and drain briefly. You can try using two slotted spoons. (Doug says there ought to be some sort of handy kitchen gadget for this.) Place boiled pretzels back onto well-greased baking sheet (or use greased parchment paper, or non-stick foil with cooking spray--but you need something because they will stick). I usually dunk two at a time, will do four at a time if they're on the smaller side.



Sprinkle pretzels with coarse salt.

You can just bake them without doing the baking soda bath, but you'd be missing out.  I never skip this step.  In addition to a  nice chewy crust., it just gives them a little something extra in the flavor. 

Bake 8-12 minutes, till golden brown.  I often turn them over for the last couple of minutes. 



Kate brushes the finished pretzels with melted butter. This is not part of the recipe, but it sounded like a good idea.




Doug shows off his traditionally-shaped pretzel.



Eat warm. Yummy!

Eating your age

Kimberly in China recently posted on her blog about the Chinese age system. The year that you're born is your first year, and your age goes up at each new year. (They do celebrate their birthdays but they don't get older on their birthdays.) They do it the same way in Korea, and there's also a food tradition involved.

Dduk (sounds a lot like "duck," with what's called a "tense" d at the beginning) is rice cake made with glutinous rice flour. It comes in a lot of different forms. One form is little white oval-shaped pieces, that are cooked in soup called dduk guk. This is the traditional dish for the lunar new year in Korea. They say that when you eat dduk guk on the lunar new year, you get a year older. They call it eating age. (This of course leads to the expected jokes, like "So if I don't eat it I won't get any older?" and "What happens if I have two bowls?")

So yesterday I made dduk guk, and I thought I'd share the recipe here.



You probably won't be able to find dduk outside of a Korean grocery store, but if you're lucky enough to have one in the area, this is what it looks like. (Packaging varies.) The stores around here keep it near the produce section.

Other ingredients are:

beef (thinly sliced, if you can get it)
beef broth
garlic
green onion
soup soy sauce (called 국간장, or regular soy sauce in a pinch)
sesame oil
black pepper
eggs

I have this cookbook called A Korean Mother's Cooking Notes that explains how to boil some beef brisket with garlic and green onion for two hours. I didn't do that. I just used a carton of beef broth from the store and added a little more water.

Put the broth on to boil with little of the garlic and some of the green onion, and a couple tablespoons of the soup soy sauce.

Cut up your beef into thin strips, mix with garlic, a little sesame oil, a little soy sauce (this is actually supposed to be regular soy sauce, not soup soy sauce), some of the green onion (probably mostly the white bits), and black pepper, and stir fry it. (This all a "to taste" kind of thing. I put in lots of garlic. And lots of black pepper.)

Beat up the egg and add the rest of the green onion (mostly green bits). The book just calls for one egg, but I used three. My sister Betsey likes to use a lot of egg, too.

Rinse the dduk. This is supposed to keep the slices from dissolving in the soup. I'm not sure how it does that, but I guess it works.

Drop dduk slices into boiling beef broth. When the slices float to the top (which doesn't take long), turn the heat off, then add the egg mixture and stir it so the egg cooks in stringy bits.

Put in the stir-fried meat. (This can be added earlier, if you want.) Add a little more sesame oil to the soup, if you like it.



My dduk guk is thicker than what you'll generally see in Korean restaurants. It turned out really well. This batch was particularly tasty. I think it was the beef broth and all the garlic, and the dduk was a really good consistency, too. (It's easy to overcook, and then it gets slimy.) Kate was not impressed, though. I got her to taste the broth a little, and she said it was good, but she wasn't interested in actually eating it. Apparently I have been remiss in my food-acclimatization duties.

Bacon Lentil Soup

By request, here's the recipe, with comments from Doug.

(modified from The Soup Bible, edited by Deborah Mayhew, New York: Hermes House, 1999)

Bacon Lentil Soup

Ingredients:
Bacon (1 pound), sliced into 1 inch lengths. (Pepper Bacon is good for this)
1 medium or large onion, roughly chopped
2 carrots, thinly sliced into rounds (I usually use more like six, and just chunk them)
1 large potato, roughly chopped (or more as desired)
(other vegetables: fresh string beans, parsnip cut as carrot or Trader Joe's Fire Roasted Sweet Corn)
1 cup lentils, sorted and washed (we usually use red lentils--they cook faster)

(Edit: We've discovered that we really like this soup with a leek in it, in which case we leave out the onion.)

Heat a soup pot, add the bacon. Cook, stirring occasionally, until fat is rendered and bacon is crisp.
Add onions, stir thoroughly. Cook until onions begin browning.
Add hard vegetables (corn, carrot, parsnip), stir thoroughly. Cook for 5 minutes.
Add softer vegetables (potato), cook for 5 minutes.
Add lentils. Add enough water to cover all ingredients (about 5-6 cups) and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are tender and lentils are mushy.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with bread!

We like to remove the bacon from the pot after it's cooked, then add it back to the soup at the very end. That keeps it from getting too mushy. The vegetables still pick up a nice flavor from being cooked in the bacon fat.

I've also made it with black beans instead of lentils.  Also yummy!

Poor Man's Cake

I made a Poor Man's Cake this afternoon. It's kind of a family staple (from my family, when I was growing up) but it's been a long time since I've made one. In fact I don't think Kate had ever had it before. It's called Poor Man's Cake because it doesn't use eggs or milk. Actually it does use eggs, but they're optional. We always put them in. So I guess it's only half-poor. The real point of this cake is that it's made with whole wheat flour, and honey instead of sugar. This was almost always what we had for birthdays and such.

Somebody at church once asked me for the recipe and I never gave it to her, so I thought I'd post it here.



Poor Man's Cake

In a large bowl, mix together:

4 cups whole wheat flour
½-1 tsp salt
1½ tsp baking powder
1½ tsp baking soda
½-1 tsp cinnamon

In a blender put:

¾ cup vegetable oil
¾ cup honey (I have reduced this to slightly less than ½ cup and it's still plenty sweet for me)
1½-2 cups water
2 carrots (optional)
2 eggs (optional)
(I like to add a little nutmeg too)

Blend ingredients in blender. Beat both mixtures together. Add ½-1 cup raisins if desired.

Bake in a greased and floured 13"x9" pan at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until done.