cripple soup

Adapted from care2’s Grandma’s Healing Soup recipe.

1/2 small bag baby carrots, sliced
white part of leek, halved and sliced
1 medium potato, peeled and diced
1 medium onion, diced
5 chicken thighs, skin removed
olive oil
seasoned salt
curly leaf parsley, roughly chopped

-Saute vegetables in olive oil for about 5 minutes, add about 8 cups of water, bring to boil then simmer
-Season chicken thighs, pan fry in olive oil until slightly browned, separate meat from bones, add both to soup, bring to boil, simmer
-Add chopped parsley to soup, season to taste with salt and pepper
-Serve to cripple/invalid/convalescent in your acquaintance

year of the ox

Happy Chinese New Year! Kung Hsi Fa Tsai! According to the CCC of SF

People born in the Year of the Ox are patient, speak little, and inspire confidence in others. They tend, however, to be eccentric, and bigoted, and they anger easily. They have fierce tempers and although they speak little, when they do they are quite eloquent. Ox people are mentally and physically alert. Generally easy-going, they can be remarkably stubborn, and they hate to fail or be opposed.

Is this you?

In celebration of Chinese New Year I made potstickers, wore a red shirt, and didn’t wash my hair (yuck, what a weird tradition).

My head hurts. Not from Chinese New Year but from being awakened by a text message from a coworker at 7:30 am about the weather and the condition of the roads. I now have bragging rights for being the first one on this office on this icy winter day.

death of marat

La Mort de Marat, Jacques-Louis David

One of my favorite asides in Robin McKinley’s Sunshine is the description of a fluffy little Gothic dessert dish called Death of Marat.

A Gothic sensibility in the bakery is not necessarily a good thing. I’d made this light fluffy looking number in a white oval dish with white high sides and presented the first one with a flourish to a group of regulars who had volunteered to be experimented on. Aimil was the one with the knife, and she stuck it in and the raspberry-and-black-currant filling had exploded down the side and over the edge of the dish onto the counter. It was, I admit, a trifle dramatic. “Gods, Sunshine, what is this, the Death of Marat?” she said. Aimil reads too much. Everybody at Charlie’s that night wanted a taste, and the Death of Marat, the first of Sunshine’s soon-to-be-notorious, implausibly-named epic creations, was born, although I think most of our clientele thought Marat was some kind of master vampire. (pp. 173)

God, I love the name. It would be fantastic if someone with baking experience came up with a working recipe for this, or for that matter all the other sweets from Sunshine’s bakery.

By the way, Jean-Paul Marat was a leader in the French Revolution. He was assasinated in his bathtub by one Charlotte Corday. Marat had skin disease and had to take cold baths to relieve the itching. The painter, Jacques-Louis David, was close friends with Marat.

highlights from trip home

So about two and half weeks ago I got back from my trip to home in Taiwan. It took about a week for me to adjust back to EST and I’m still working on the English thing. Yes, even though English is my first language, I got so used to hearing and speaking Mandarin that I now speak English rather haltingly. I take twice as long to respond to questions. Writing is a beast. Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to buy a new camera while I was in Taiwan, so I don’t have pictures to illustrate my trip. I did take a picture or two of my mom’s kitten Jumpy with my cell phone.

Jumpy- 4 month old American Shorthair. I have such a crush on this kitten. He’s a gorgeous dark grey and cream striped cat. He looks like a miniature tiger the way he’s so sturdily built. I miss him. I’m already predisposed to love cats because I grew up listening to my mom’s stories about her smart calico cat she kept while she was growing up. Also, a lot of my friends tend to be cat people. Anyway, they named him Jumpy because he loves to jump. He’s really very playful and loves to play cat and mouse (you, the human, are always the mouse). He’d run up behind me on the stairs and catch my leg with his front paws and bite you. Or sometimes he’d get all agressive and put his ears back, his tail down, and arch his back, and come and attack you. All in good fun though. He only grazes you with his teeth, never bites down. He’s a little hunter. Early morning’s he’ll meow and look for someone to play with him. He’d jump onto my bed, I’d pet him, and he’d purr. He even cuddled up against me twice and laid his head on my shoulder. I’m soo in love with this cat! Oh yes, and he loves to eat fruit. Yes, fruit! He loves peaches, apples, honeydew, and ba-la.

Green Market in Taoyuan- I forget the actual name of the green market. This one was pretty cool. I came here the day after I got off the plane. I managed to find some cute tops and skirts for only about $3.50 each, so of course I was elated. Also bought 3 sparkly rings (costume jewelry) for the same price. My mom bought some clams and seaweed for soup. The soup was delicious.

Wasabi, Taipei 101- OMG this Japanese buffet is possibly the best buffet I’ve ever been to. Everything was delicious. They had sushi, sashimi, hand rolls, cold noodles, tempura, yakisoba, barbecued pork, grilled chicken (even grilled chicken hearts), miso soup, azuki and green tea ice cream, mochi and lot of other things I can’t remember right now. I ate too much.

Place where my mom was born- Err, I forgot the name of this town. My mom only lived there the first 10 days of her life, so of course she has no memory. It was one of those tiny, sleepy villages with narrow streets tucked in the mountains. Very beautiful and old townish. My mom and aunt stopped at this candy shop that sold the kind of candy they’d eat when they were kids. There was an old, tiny movie theater that had been coverted to a tourist shop. For a snack we bought rice dumplings wrapped in ginger leaves, which was very yummy and infused with a very fresh and light ginger flavor. For lunch we ate at this hole in the wall that specialized in Hakka food. Everything here was delicious too! We had tiny prawns deep fried with sweet basil leaves, stir fried chinese greens, deep fried tiny fish with sweet basil leaves, bitter melon, two bowls of pork soup with garlic chives and rice balls, and some other soup with preserved vegetables. I really loved the little rice balls, they were so perfectly cooked, just the right texture. Yumm. Of course what made the food extra delicious was the pork fat they use to cook everything, hehe.

To be continued..

free turkey

I got a free frozen turkey from work! Its been sitting in the freezer since Thanksgiving. I’ve never cooked a whole turkey before. This will be interesting.

ETA: When I brought it back from work it was smelling a bit off, so I’m not going to risk poisoning myself. Out it goes. Sigh. I was looking forward to cooking it too.

ceviche house

on Muncaster Mill Rd, Rockville, MD

Went to Ceviche House today as part of work’s holiday party. The buffet was very good: seafood ceviche of course, salad, sweet potato, rice, some sort of beefed up corn, rice, sauteed beef, potato, and red onion, fried seafood, chimichurri rice with chicken, yucca fries and two kinds of chili sauces. Everything was very good. The ceviche was a bit too salty though. I’d love to try and make ceviche at home. I really loved the fried seafood.

curry

Ever since I made a chicken curry in 2005 based on a recipe for shrimp curry in Gourmet, I’ve been obsessed with making curries. I’ve made chicken, pork, beef, and fish curries (but never shrimp) with all sorts of combinations of vegetables and potatoes. I even added pineapple once. I love making curry because there are infinite combinations of ingredients, although the sauce is always the same: onions, curry powder, coconut milk. Its terrific comfort food. There’s something very soothing about curry served over fresh steamed rice. Curry is very forgiving.

I used to hate curry as a kid. Wouldn’t touch it. Loathed it. Now I can’t get enough of it. The first curry that I enjoyed was a Japanese curry. You know, the kind that comes in blocks. Since then I’ve enjoyed Indian curries, Thai curries, Chinese curries, and Vietnamese curries. Japanese curries, especially “Vermont Curry,” are the ultimate comfort food, packed with fat and sodium, but oh-so-good.

Anyway, my favorite recipe for curry is based on that recipe I found in Gourmet.

Ingredients: chicken/pork/beef/fish/xyz, potatoes cut to bite size pieces, 1 small onion, 1 chili pepper, chicken broth, carrots/peas/green beans/any vegetable you please cut to bite size pieces, curry powder, coconut milk

1. Marinate meat 2. Slice onion and chili pepper, dump in blender with chicken stock, blend 3. Boil potatoes 4. Saute meat in pan over medium heat, until just cooked through, scoop out meat to return to pan later 5. Add blended ingredients to pan, stir, add coconut milk and curry powder, simmer over low heat 6. Add boiled potatoes to pan, simmer, return sauteed meat to pan, simmer, add vegetables, simmer. 7. Eat! Good on its own or with steamed rice.

look ma! one hand only

I spent about an hour today watching Mark Bittman’s cooking videos on NYTimes.com. One particular segment on proscuitto wrapped fish really caught my attention. I might try to make this one day. Basically, you wrap a strip of mild fish (like cod) in two strips of proscuitto with a bit of minced basil, pine nut and olive oil, pan fry it then bake it, pan and all. Easy peasy! So easy, you can do it with one hand. The producer actually ties Bittman’s to his back at the beginning of the video. Rather amusing. Mark Bittman is funny in a dry way.

foodie weekend

Now that I have a break in studying, I’m really eager to catch up on hobbies that I haven’t been able to do very much. Today was my first foray into baking cookies. I’m afraid of baking because I HATE having to follow directions to a tee. The wrong proportion of baking soda to butter to salt to flour and you end up with something completely different with less than satisfactory results. I managed to transcend these fears today though when I made a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies following a Cook’s Illutstrated recipe. I’m still not very fond of baking. It just seems like very exact and complicated. As I said, I hate following directions. The recipe called for 2 cups of sugar (half light brown, half white). That just seems like waaaay too much sugar to me! My teeth would ache eating that! So I used marginally less sugar: 1 cup light brown, 1/2 cup white)/ It still came out a bit too sugary for my liking. They seem to be a success though. I left a large bowl of cookies on the counter when I left for dinner with friends and when I came back there were only 4 or 5 left.

I also braised a pork roast. This was a piece of cake compared to making those cookies and I only used one large aluminim skillet! First I rubbed the roast with kosher salt, then I blanched the pork first in some boiling water. I seared it a couple minutes on both sides, added water, poured light soy sauce over the pork, added two dried chilli peppers, and two star anise, a little dark brown sugar, and some more water, then simmered it about 1.5 hours, turning it over about 4 or 5 times. The result: tender savory pork! Yumm.

For dinner I went to China Bistro with Leaf and Angie for dumplings. I think these are the best dumplings I’ve had in a while.  And I really love dumplings. You can really taste the freshness of the ingredients. I practically gorged myself on them. I brought a few of my cookies to dinner and they had a good reception.

strange cravings

Is there something wrong with me when I think the electrasol tablet looks tasty? It looks like candy! Especially with that round orange ball in the middle that reminds me of bubble gum or something.

Other than dishwashing aids, I’ve really been craving hsiao chi. Last sunday I went to Kam Sam to buy some snacks. I ended up getting jiu tsai he zi, peach gummies, sessame sticks, dumplings, and zhi ma hei. Last night I went to H Mart and picked up kimchee and soy milk and you tiao. I looove hot soy milk and you tiao. It just seems like the perfect comfort foodish breakfast to have on a chilly autumn morning.