Southeast Asian chicken noodle soup

Sometimes I worry about categorizing something as a particular kind of ethnic cuisine when I don't actually know how people of that culture prepare the food. Sometimes I know that my preparation is not authentic in the least, and I think: do I need to qualify this with "Cheater's"? But then, I spent a couple months in Vietnam and Thailand joyously devouring every dish of food that came my way (ok, maybe not the fetal quail eggs), and I know that the flavors in this soup do accurately represent the flavors used in southeast Asian cooking. And with my tiny kitchen, Stateside location, and aversion to boiling carcasses for stock, this is about the closest I'm going to get.

Another reason for this soup is that I recently started a new medication that makes me chronically, constantly nauseous. It's at a pretty low level, but the loss of appetite is the biggest problem. This was when I realized how weird my body is. During my endless days of nausea, here are the foods that sounded good to me: caramel. pho. cheese. biscuits. dosa. beef. pho. caramel. did I mention pho? Ok, how about some brothy soup? Brothy SE Asian-inspired soup?(We'll get to the caramel obsession eventually)

So, here we are. This soup is fragrant from the lemongrass and ginger, slightly spicy from the chili and garlic, savory from the chicken broth. Fabulous. It's not very filling, due to the lack of protein or complex carbs, but it's a nice snack.

Southeast Asian chicken noodle soup

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/2 inch segment fresh ginger, finely chopped

1 inch segment of lemongrass, finely chopped

Oil for sauteeing (I used coconut oil)

2 cups chicken broth

A few drops of fish sauce

1 1/2 - 2 cups cooked rice noodles

Chopped fresh cilantro and scallions

Lime juice

Heat the oil in a medium-sized pan over medium heat. Add the garlic, lemongrass, and ginger and saute until fragrant. Add chicken broth. Reduce heat to simmer. Add fish sauce. Cover and simmer for 15 or so minutes.

Put a big handful of rice noodles in your bowl, and pour broth over top, through a sieve if you want to avoid the awkward little pieces of lemongrass and ginger. Garnish with cilantro and scallions and add a squeeze of lime juice.

Chilled cucumber soup with mint, dill, and yogurt

The farmers markets are full of cucumbers these days - big bins of knobbly dark green tubes, only surpassed by the enormous, baseball-bat-sized (seriously. like omg) zucchini. It's August. Late summer. My summer research project is due in about 2 weeks, but more importantly, cukes and zukes and tomatoes and stone fruit and berries will soon be gone, gone forever except for in mediocre incarnations in the produce section of Gin'Iggle. And by "forever" I mean next summer. But who knows where I will be next summer? Probably not here in Pittsburgh, with my beloved East Liberty farmers market.
Appropriately, the air is also full of a strange grey humidity -a stickiness that stops short of being truly hot. I expected this first week of August to be the most fierce in terms of heat, so I am grateful for the reprieve (no A/C in my third-floor walk-up). But the air is damp and heavy, and this is no time for stoves or ovens. Hence this soup - no heat is involved. You peel and chop some cukes, whirl them in the food processor with tangy yogurt and cool mint, refrigerate and eat. Refreshing and easy.
I mostly left this recipe as-is, since I can eat every ingredient and Shauna is a genius and her recipes rarely need tweaking. I adjusted the ratio of yogurt:cukes somewhat, upped the herbs because I always up the herbs, and played with a few other ingredients.
Chilled Cucumber Soup (barely adapted from Gluten-Free Girl)

3 cucumbers, peeled

2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

1 1/2 teaspoons rice vinegar

16 ounces plain yogurt, preferably full-fat

1 tablespoon grapeseed oil

1/4 cup soda water/seltzer

salt and pepper to taste

Chop up your cucumbers into pieces of a size that your food processor can handle. Toss these pieces in the food processor with everything else except the soda water/seltzer and the salt and pepper. Whiz until smooth. Add the soda water/seltzer and stir, then add salt and pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour before eating (depends a lot on how cold your ingredients were to start with).

Spring pea dumplings in lemon-sage broth: gluten-free and vegan

It is a source of great sadness to me that I never feasted on the wide variety of dumplings in the world before I went gluten-free. Sure, I ate some fantastic rice-flour packages of deliciousness in Vietnam, but it seems that most dumplings on restaurants and recipes rely on those gluten-ful wrappers (that may also contain egg). Ditto for ravioli. I used to LOVE ravioli, and I still miss its gluten-egg-cow cheese-laden goodness. One of my goals for this summer was to make gluten-free dumplings/ravioli. I have been really embracing the early summer produce lately - I have thousands of plans for strawberries once I can get to the farmer's market again - and so I fixated on a fresh, green pea dumpling. I think the picture accompanying this recipe is what really inspired me - that image of translucent dumplings with bright green innards, floating gently in a clear broth - so summery! I sat on my porch in the evening light to shell the peas.

I then blanched the shelled peas, and whipped them up in a food processor with shallots, sage, chives, olive oil, and lemon zest.

I was very, very pleased with the recipe for dumpling wrappers I found. The dough was easy to work with, and didn't taste too.. well, doughy after being steamed. I was surprised at how elastic the dough was. Rather than torture myself with rolling out dough on a surface and cutting out wrappers, I rolled and assembled each wrapper in my hands, pinching off a glob of dough and flattening it out before sealing it shut around some filling.

I got better at the wrappers as I went. You can see how thin I got one here.

I steamed the dumplings in a jury-rigged steamer - a colander balanced over a big pot of simmering water.

I was very pleased with the results - the fresh, green taste of the dumplings together with the tangy, herby broth. It made for a great dinner - even at 11 pm.

Spring pea dumplings in lemon-sage broth: gluten-free and vegan (loosely adapted from 101 Cookbooks and Epicurious)

1 cup shelled green peas

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh sage, plus a few stems, cut in half

1/4 cup finely chopped chives

1/2 cup minced shallots

zest and juice of one lemon

3 cups low-salt vegetable broth (chicken works too)

olive oil

dumpling wrapper dough (recipe follows)

Boil a medium-sized saucepan of water. Dump the shelled peas in the water, and cook very briefly, until the peas turn bright green and rise to the surface of the water. It will take less than a minute. Drain the peas immediately and pour cold water over them continuously until they are cool. This stops the peas from cooking further.

In the bowl of a food processor, or in a blender, combine the peas and 2 tablespoons of chives,2 tablespoons sage, and 1/4 cup shallots. Add half of the lemon zest, and a tablespoon of the olive oil. Process the mixture until desired texture, then season sparingly with pepper and salt. Set aside.

For each dumpling, pinch about a tablespoon of dough from the ball. Roll the small piece of dough briefly in your hands, until it has a uniform, smooth, elastic texture. Flatten out the dough in your hands, using the knuckles and heel of one hand to press the dough against the other hand. When the dough is as thin as you can get it without breaking it, or is about 4 inches in diameter, place a small amount of the filling (a little less than a tablespoon) in the center of the wrapper. Fold the wrapper over the filling and pinch the edges shut. Cover the freshly-assembled dumplings with a damp paper towel as you work, so they don't dry out.

In a medium-sized saucepan, saute the remaining shallots in the olive oil until soft. Add the broth, and the stems from the sage. Simmer.

While the broth is simmering, steam the dumplings. If you have a bamboo steamer you can use that. If not, place a small amount of water in the bottom of a large pot, so that it does not reach the bottom of a colander balanced in the pot. Oil the inside of the colander to prevent the dumplings from sticking, and arrange the dumplings inside. Cover the top of the colander. Bring the water to a simmer, and steam the dumplings until the wrappers are soft and translucent. (Took about 20 minutes for me).

Add the remaining chives, sage, and lemon zest, as well as the lemon juice, to the broth. Continue to simmer for about one more minute, then remove from heat, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove the sage stems.

Place a few dumplings in the bowl of each bowl and ladle the broth over them.

Dumpling wrapper dough (adapted from Hey, that tastes good!)

1/2 cup tapioca starch

1/2 cup sweet rice flour

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon Ener-G egg replacer

1 tablespoon oil

5-6 tablespoons water

Combine the tapioca starch, sweet rice flour, and xanthan gum in a medium bowl, and stir to combine. In a separate small bowl, combine 5 tablespoons of water and the Ener-G egg replacer. Add the oil to the dry ingredients, then add the water mixture. Stir to combine. Add another tablespoon of water as needed. Mix the dough with clean hands to help incorporate the last of the flour, and knead briefly in your hands until the dough has a smooth and elastic texture.

Winter Squash Soup

Yes, I know. It's April! This is no time for winter squash soup! I know, I know. But, the school year is almost over (just a week of class and then finals to go) and I am trying to simultaneously clean out my fridge and avoid buying anymore food. I had a butternut squash and an acorn squash tucked up in my pantry, bought in January, and when I split them open for this soup, they were weirdly perfect. They did not suffer at all from their long confinement.

We are also having a chilly, rainy weekend and so I thought some thick warm soup would hit the spot. It did.

Winter Squash Soup (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

The original recipe calls for gruyere croutons made from slices of bread. I used what I had on hand, and it turned out great: I had these crispbreads and a little tub of crumbled soft goat cheese. It turned out yum, but you can totally substitute whatever you enjoy/have/can eat.

4 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 large garlic cloves, chopped
3 14 1/2-ounce cans low-salt chicken broth
1 medium-sized butternut squash
1 medium-sized acorn squash
1 1/4 teaspoons minced fresh thyme
1 1/4 teaspoons minced fresh sage
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 cup whole goats' milk (optional)

For each toast:

1 cracker or thin slice of bread

2 tablespoons crumbled soft goat cheese

1 pinch dried thyme

1 pinch dried sage

Salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat the oven to 425. With a large, sturdy knife, halve the squashes and seed them. Place them on a baking sheet and roast until soft. Remove from oven and set aside. When it is cool enough so you don't burn yourself, scoop the flesh of the squashes out of the skins and set aside in a bowl.

Plop the butter in a large pot and melt over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and saute until soft, which takes about 10 minutes. Be very careful not to burn the garlic! If it starts to get a little too brown, turn down the heat. Add the squash, the broth, and the herbs and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover, and let cook until the squash is very soft, which should take about 15 minutes.

Puree the soup in a blender (you will probably have to work in batches) or using an immersion blender. Return the soup to the pot, bring back up to a simmer, and add the goats' milk, if you're using it. Season with salt and pepper. At this point you can chill the soup, covered, in the refrigerator if you want to serve it later.

Take the crackers or bread slices and spread with the goat cheese, then sprinkle with the thyme, sage, and salt and pepper. Toast in a toaster oven or under the broiler in your oven until the cheese melts. Don't let it burn! Serve each bowl of soup with a toast.

How to Make Dinner

Come home from class at 5:30 on a dark October evening. Lock up your bike and climb the stairs to your third-floor apartment. Change into sweatpants because your jeans are soaked from from the heavy drizzle. Make a cup of tea.

Cut two strips of bacon into lardons, and cook in the bottom of a medium-size saucepan until you have a nice slick of fat in the pan and the bacon has started to brown. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon.



Cut up half of a yellow onion and a clove of garlic. Saute in the bacon grease until soft and starting to brown.



Deglaze the pan with about 1/3 cup of red wine. Deglaze yourself with a nice big sip. The wine and onions and bacon fat are sputtering together. Stir briskly to combine, making sure you don't let anything burn. Add about 1.5 cups of beef stock and stir together. Add a bay leaf or two. Add the bacon lardons back in. Turn down the heat to a gentle simmer, put the ill-fitting lid on the pot, and go sort laundry for about 20 minutes.

Come back to the kitchen. Taste the broth. Is it pleasing to you? Add salt, pepper, more red wine, whatever, as you see fit. Add two big handfuls of egg-noodle-like quinoa-corn pasta. Make sure there is enough liquid to cover the noddles. Add some more beef broth if you need to. Turn up the heat to a low boil, cover the pot, and cook until the noddles are at your preferred consistency. Turn off the heat. Wash a bowl. Feel warm for the first time all day.