Cures What Ails You

It's quite important to have a few things filed under the 'cures what ails you' tab. A running list:
- Hot toddies (my moms recipe to come)
- Late night bike rides
- Night swims
- Candy and a good book in bed (starting at 7 p.m.)
- Thai food delivered
- Soup

Here's a soup that exactly fits the bill:
Start with a good strong beef stock:
 - beef bones, gristle, trimmings, anything that you trim off the other stuff, in a big pot of cold water.  Add onions,peeled and halved, leeks, whole cloves of garlic, including the stems (peels ok, )a golf-ball sized piece of ginger cut into slices, black pepper corns....
- Bring to a boil, skim off scum as it boils for just a few minutes, then turn it down.  A good stock should boil just below the surface, the bubbles never breaking, the steam just visibly rising.  After it boils and you turn it down, it will be very responsive (on a gas stove).  Play with it, you'll find the right temperature.
- Let it simmer for hours, at least three, up to seven.
- Strain through a colander lined with cheesecloth.  Put in the fridge once it's cooled.

To make the soup from here takes just a few minutes.  You can add what ever you'd like, really, but here's what I did most recently.
I had eye-of-round steaks, and sliced one as thinly as possible.

Heat the broth slowly, to just under a boil.  Add thinly sliced leeks and sliced fresh shiitakes.  The goal is for everything in the soup to be fresh as possible, not over cooked and mushy at all.  Add a splash of fish sauce and a splash of tamari to the broth.  

While the broth is heating, boil water for noodles.  I love the Chinese style wheat noodles for their silkiness.  Soba noodles work, as do others you might have around.  

When the noodles are cooked, drained and rinsed, put them in the bottom of the bowls, one for each serving of soup.  Add a pile of winter greens on top.  I used baby tat soi and torn leaves of komatsuna.  

Turn off the broth, add the finely sliced meat strips and let sit for just a minute, then ladle the broth over the noodles and greens.  Add a juice from a lime slice or two, a shot of sriracha and salt to taste.  

Eat with a spoon and chopsticks.  It'll do ya. 

Preserving Projects

The rush to preserve is on, and thankfully it's cool, damp and grey, so it's really the perfect thing to do.  My house is steamy and smells like grapes.  Among other projects this morning, we (my almost-three-year-old helper and I) are making Concord grape juice.  It's the easiest thing in the world and sooo yummy.  I got 7.5 lbs. of Concords this weekend, and am steaming the juice out using a Mehu Maija (look at the Lehmans catalog online to see one).  It looks like I'll get about a gallon and a half of juice.

It works like this: Water goes in the bottom, grapes, stems, leaves, seeds, busted grapes and all go in the colander part, and a little while later, ta-da, just like that, you open the hose clamp and out pours hot delicious grape juice, as healthy as ever a thing ever was.
I put it in clean half gallon mason jars.  It's so hot when it comes out, that if you put the lid on right away and leave it on the counter it'll seal itself.  Store it on a cool dark shelf for later.  Of course, we drink an insane amount of juice when we're making it.

   

I salted and packed in a crock 4 lbs. of six-inch tat soi.  It's the first time I've tried pickling them, so we'll see how it goes (my culinary luck often runs out just shy of a successful lacto-ferment).  I followed a recipe for Japanese salt-pickled cabbage from the Joy of Pickling (you must get this book, and quick).  I'll report back in a week or so.

I also set to pickle a gallon jar of small green Cortland apples, following a recipe from the Joy of Pickling again, for a Russian style pickled apple.  The recipe calls for them to be packed into a gallon jar layered with sour cherry leaves.  I used grape leaves from my back fence, because I had them, and figured it was tannins that were called for - I'm guessing to help keep the apples crisp.  The recipe suggests using some fresh tarragon as well, which I would have loved to use if I had it, but used a little dried lavender instead.  Hopefully it's either good, or too subtle to notice.

The brine is a mix of salt and honey, and they are left at room temp for 5 days, 'until fermentation slows', which means I'm going to get to watch them bubble, always a good time.  Then they are moved to a cool place for a few weeks.  They should be done by the end of the month, and I plan on using them in an appetizer with pate at 42north76west's first secret dinner if they turn out ok.

The recipe says they will be fizzy.  I am not sure I'll like that, but they sure do look pretty in the mean time.