With tofu in a duck broth. What follows is a photographic tribute to the glories of leftover ingredients, that and a reliably stocked pantry. You will recognize the ingredients from previous recent posts, if you've been following, and if you haven't been following then what's taken you so long to catch on?
The texture of the spaghetti is a little bit rough because it was extruded through old-fashion bronze dies in contrast to newfangled silicon dies which are faster, useful for high-volume production, much cheaper than bronze, and produce an unfortunate smoother noodle. The rough texture made by the old dies assists sauces to adhere, an attribute that is not important to us when used in soup.
As always, the aim is al dente, not noodle-mush. The pasta is removed while still excessively al dente because the noodles will cook further and finish once it is added to the soup.
Mise en place of the early ingredients, but not all the ingredients.
I concluded a broad pan is more useful for soup than a tall pot because everything introduced in stages can be seared at once.
Black-eye peas and brown rice from New Year day.
Chicken roasted previously and frozen in Food Saver bags.
Tofu and duck stock gelatin prepared previously. There is no more duck meat, there wasn't much of that to begin with, but there is chicken meat so chicken was substituted. There is still some more duck broth and chicken meat left.
Not shown; the usual Asian ingredients that I've become quite fond, sake, shoyu, fish sauce, mirin. Without those I could have used wine, salt, anchovy, and honey.
I must add, this soup is much easier and faster to make than it is to describe. I take the trouble to do this for the benefit and betterment of mankind and because I am trying desperately to avoid cleaning the fifty gallon aquarium, but mostly because I am avoiding cleaning the aquarium.
| This soup is differentiated with nori, the seaweed processed into paper-like sheets that is used for sushi. Wakame is another seaweed, kombu a kelp, that also could have been used, among others. And if I had them on hand I would consider the full range of attractive typically Asian ingredients; bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, bean sprouts, green vegetables, daikon radish, shitaki mushrooms among several others. Tamari in place of shoyu, miso, and many other ingredients including scallion, cilantro, and not least something with kick, chile flakes, Sriracha, Tabasco, habanero, even any of a full range of prepared curries. |
a lot of people. Along the way he intended to tempura some kind of candy bar the way the Scots deep-fry Mars Bars. To be honest I wasn't paying close attention, but I did notice Robert pull out a box of tempura mix. My jaw dropped upon seeing a famous chef rely on a prepared mix which we all know to be nothing more than what any reasonably provided kitchen would already have. See, this is what I am talking about here. It bears on the raisin de tree, I mean the raison ďêtre of this humble blog. Robert pulled out the kind of box with which I was well familiar. Our family had them all, basically the same thing for all types of different purposes, tempura, fish and chips, various pastas with their sauces, hamburger helpers, potato flakes, reconstituted rice, instant oatmeals, chicken coatings, prepared bread crumbs, prepared stuffings, biscuit mixes, cake mixes, everything you could imagine from the convenience aisles. They are slipping from my memory now because I do not even bother going through those aisles anymore. But I did grow up assuming that pancakes started with a box of prepared mix. Best to make your own. I urge you to try it. Com'on, be a sport, you'll thank me for it. 
