Food 03 Nov 2007 07:34 pm
LoMoCoMo: what I’ve been living on
This is what I’ve been having every day for lunch lately. Goes down easily on a sore throat and contains various things that are supposed to be good for a person. The key has been getting really tasty chicken stock — even if I ate CAFO meat products, that mass-market commercial crud isn’t worth mentioning. (In a pinch, I’d rather use Imagine’s “No-Chicken” broth and season the living daylights out of it.) Making my own can be tedious and it tends to take up a lot of freezer space, but I’ve found that I can get something almost as good in quarts from Vashon’s Sea Breeze Farm at the U District Farmers’ Market.
Really Too Easy To Mention Soup Noodles For One
Sweat several sliced garlic cloves in a generous splash of sesame oil. While the garlic cloves are softening, cut up a half-dozen shiitake mushrooms into slices between 1/8″ and 1/4″. Add chicken stock — as much as you’ll absolutely need to cook as many noodles as you’re planning on, but not much more. Add salt to taste and simmer for about fifteen minutes or until the shiitakes are rehydrated, perhaps adding a little thyme; meanwhile, chop up some Chinese cabbage or other moderately firm greens into 1/2″ strips. Bring the stock up to the boil and add a handful of somen noodles and your greens. Cook a couple of minutes, just until the somen noodles are done. Then dish it up and dress it with a little toasted sesame oil, hot oil, and cilantro.
I haven’t tried this yet, but I think it’d be good with a little star anise.
on 03 Nov 2007 at 8:16 pm 1.cissa said …
I’ve just decanted some concentrated chicken stock- made by boiling down a roasting chicken from which I’d stripped most of the meat- into an ice cube tray. Each cube equals about 2 cups of a strong but salt-free chicken stock.
One of the things I plan to do with this is to make spicy noodles when I have sinus problems.
on 03 Nov 2007 at 9:16 pm 2.Cam Sculpin said …
That’s some serious reducing! How long does it take you to reduce a batch like that?
I reduce mine, too, but after a while I always think: the aromatic compounds I’m smelling now are compounds I won’t be ingesting. Nooooooo!
on 04 Nov 2007 at 4:57 pm 3.cissa said …
How long? Um- I dunno. I basically simmer the bones (plus maybe some seasonings) etc, for a couple of days (probably 6 hours/day). Then I strain it, and if there’s meat separable from the bones easily, the dog gets that. She adores it.
Then I boil the rest down until it fits in maybe a 2-cup measuring cup. I refrigerate it and skim off the fat, melt the rest, and freeze it in ice cubes.
The time really depends on how much you have. I reduce it until it’s a pretty thick syrup, but usually before the syrup itself starts to caramelize much.