Soups, Stocks + Sauces – Page 2 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Homemade Ramen Noodle Soup

I took a lot of liberties with this ramen broth recipe and took bits and pieces from both the Momofuku cookbook and the very detail-oriented Serious Eats blog entry. I combined both and made them work according to my schedule, so bear with me as you read through my narrative and the version of steps I took.

Ingredients:
For the broth:
2 pounds chicken necks and backs
1 rack of pork baby back ribs, separated
1 large leek, halved lengthwise
2 knobs fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, sliced
shoyu, or soy sauce
dried mushrooms
oil
1 pork shoulder butt, tied
salt
1 sheet of kombu, or dried kelp

For the ramen:
fresh chuka soba, or curly noodles
bok choy, rinsed and separated
4 eggs
shoyu, or soy sauce
mirin, or Japanese rice wine
2 scallions, chopped
2 sheets of nori, torn into smaller squares
togarashi, or Japanese red chile flakes

I made the chicken stock the day before because my Rottweiler, Atticus, is currently on a diet of plain boiled rice and chicken and I have a lot of broth handy at the moment. Doing the chicken stock ahead of time actually worked well because when I removed the pot of chicken broth from the fridge, it was so much easier to scoop out the fat that formed at the top and discard it.

1. Make the chicken stock. Boil a large pot of water with the chicken bones. Scoop out the impurities that float to the top and let simmer for an hour. Remove from heat and let cool before storing in the fridge.

The next day, which is the main cooking day, I made sure the chicken broth was out of the fridge and sat in room temperature, uncovered. Then I started to make the pork broth. I used my largest Dutch oven because the chicken broth was in my other pot.

2. Make the pork stock. Boil a large pot of water with the pork ribs. Scoop out the impurities that float to the top and let simmer for an hour.
3. While waiting for the water for the pork broth to boil, I browned the leek, ginger, and garlic in a large skillet over medium fire.
4. I also soaked the dried mushrooms in a bowl of water.
5. I then added the browned vegetables to the boiling pork broth with a cup of shoyu. I scooped out the impurities that rose to the top several times while doing the next steps.
6. Meanwhile, I tied up the pork butt, seasoned and rubbed it with salt, and browned it on all sides on the same large skillet over medium fire.
7. Then I added the browned pork butt and the drained mushrooms, plus the kombu, to the broth. I kept scooping out the impurities.
8. Whenever the broth looked like it was getting reduced, I added a batch of the chicken stock to mix the two kinds together.

The pork and the vegetables simmered for several hours, a total of about 6. I don’t know how comfortable you are about leaving the stove on, but I ran errands outside while I had the fire in its lowest setting and the pot uncovered.

9. An hour before I thought the broth was going to be done, I prepared the ramen toppings.
10. I boiled the eggs in boiling water: 5 minutes for a runny yolk. I let them cool before peeling them.
11. I soaked the eggs in equal parts shoyu-mirin mixture.
12. I steamed the bok choy in a separate pot for about 5 minutes.
13. I sliced scallions.

A note on the soaking of the eggs, by the way. The eggs will float to the top of the shoyu-mirin mixture and that’s why you see my eggs are unevenly colored. I didn’t realize that until it was ready to slice them in half, so take a small tea cup to keep them submerged when you do it.

This next step of separating the pork meat from the bones should be easy because the meat is well-cooked. Try to be gentle and don’t let the meat disintegrate. Your ramen presentation would look better with larger chunks of pork on top.

14. I removed the pork butt and the ribs from the broth onto a baking dish and let them rest. I then separated the meat from the pork butt bone and the rib bones.
15. I brushed the pork meat with shoyu and broiled them in the oven for 3 minutes to brown them.
16. I removed the vegetables from the broth using a slotted spoon and discarded them. I kept the fire at the very lowest setting to keep the broth warm. Every time a film of fat would form at the top, I scooped it out to try and keep the broth clean as much as possible.

My guests started coming in and that’s when I started to cook the ramen noodles. They were served beers and gin and tonics while they waited.

17. Cook the noodles in another pot of boiling water, about 10 minutes tops so that they’re al dente. When they are done, remove to a strainer. Do not rinse the noodles.
18. I assembled each ramen dish by dividing the cooked noodles among serving bowls and ladling a cup or two of broth into each one. I topped it with some bok choy. I drained the soaking eggs and cut them in half and put one half of it in each bowl. I added 2 pieces of pork meat, too. A small sheet of nori was tucked in and a smattering of scallions was added. Togarashi was served at the table with a bowl of shoyu-mirin mixture so each guest can adjust their own ramen bowl according to their taste.

And that’s that. It’s true that after all that time I spent making the broth that I felt more connected to the dish. I was proud to serve it and was very grateful when my guests appreciated the time and effort I put in.

Pork Pozole

To the people of Mesoamerica, corn was a very sacred plant and this pre-Columbian Mexican soup was only consumed during special occasions. Ancient Mexicans believed that the combination of corn and meat was a religious communion of their sacred plant and humans: prisoners were killed in religious sacrifices and served as meat for the whole community. Today, we thankfully settle for pork.

To become hominy, corn kernels are dried and soaked in an alkaline solution and goes through several chemical changes that turns them into nixtamal. (The ground version is made into dough for tortillas, tamales and arepas.) The word hominy is just a Powhatan word for maize.

I love this soup for its heartiness, and yet its lime-cilantro-flavored broth is thin enough to be considered light. Feel free to skip the potatoes here if you want the hominy to be the star of the show.

Ingredients:
2 pounds pork butt, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
1 head of garlic, halved
1 onion, quartered
a few pieces of small potatoes, rinsed thoroughly
1 28-ounce cans hominy, drained and rinsed
2 tbsps dried oregano
cayenne pepper
salt, pepper
a few handfuls of cilantro, chopped
lime wedges

1. In a large soup pot, bring the pork, garlic, onion and about 8 cups of water to a boil. Skim off the impurities that float to the top. Lower the fire down to a simmer. Cover and cook until the pork is very tender, about 2 hours.
2. Discard the garlic and onion. Stir in the potatoes, hominy, oregano and cayenne and season the broth with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook until potatoes are tender.
3. Turn off the heat and stir in some of the cilantro. Serve and ladle the pozole into bowls with the remaining cilantro and lime wedges at the table.

Ajiaco Bogotano, Colombian Chicken and Potato Soup

When I traveled to Colombia a few years ago, I learned that it was soup country. Everywhere we ate, there was always ajiaco or sancocho on the menu, the two soups that easily became my favorites. When I first made my own version of ajiaco, I mistakenly added plantains because I remembered liking them from the sancocho. My version was so comforting then that I used some again when I made it this weekend post-Hurricane Sandy.

I added arborio rice here as well because I wanted an everything-in-it kind of soup. Feel free to skip it if you don’t want your soup too thick. When I heated up leftovers, I simply scooped a glob of it in a bowl, poured some packaged chicken broth with it and nuked it for about 3 minutes. They key is the capers–they make your second, or third, batch fresh.

Ingredients:
chicken carcass to make chicken broth
salt
1 bunch scallions, roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 bunch cilantro, tied in kitchen twine
3 potatoes, peeled, chopped
1 large plantain, peeled, chopped
2 pieces boneless chicken breasts, chopped
1/2 cup of arborio rice
capers

1. In a large pot, place the chicken carcass with about 12 cups of salted water to make broth. Let boil until the impurities float to the top. Skim them off and let the broth simmer for up to an hour to reduce. Strain the broth to another large container to separate and remove the disintegrated chicken carcass.
2. Return the filtered broth to the pot. Add scallions, garlic, twined cilantro, and potatoes and simmer for another 30 minutes, or until potatoes are tender. Discard the cilantro. Add the plantains, chicken, and rice until cooked through.
3. Ladle soup and distribute the meaty stuff in bowls to serve. Top with a teaspoon of capers.

Beef Shank Noodle Soup

When was the last time you put food in your mouth and thought, Wow, that’s exactly what I wanted to eat tonight? I felt that way with this soup. New York City has been having really humid summers that remind me of the intense sun I experienced in Laos last August. While there, I couldn’t help but eat a bowl of Laotian pho from the lady who had a stand in the street market. I sweated over my hot bowl of soup, but cooled down as soon as I got into it. No wonder people in Asia eat hot or spicy meals no matter how hot the weather is outside–sweating cools them down.

If you can’t make the beef stock here ahead of time, you’ll learn to multitask and use three of your stove’s burners at once. You’ll also just have to do some extra work removing the fat from the stock since you can’t just break the solidified fat as easily if you stored it in the fridge overnight. Note that I didn’t use any salt at all. The miso paste with the soy sauce should be enough sodium for your body in one serving. You may adjust the flavor by experimenting with the beef marrow stock and beef shank ratio when assembling the soup for your guests.

There’s a lot of ingredients involved but you only need a small amount for each. I came up with this combination because they’re what I have in the pantry. Throw in lime juice, fish sauce, and cilantro in there for a more Vietnamese flavor profile. As soon as you appreciate making a flavorful broth separate from the stock, you’ll begin to master different soup bases and will get used to trying combinations of herbs and spices you never thought possible. It’s what I like about cooking, really–the leeway you have to make adjustments and the freedom you have to change and make your favorite eater happy: you.

Ingredients:
marrow bones
udon noodles
sesame oil
bok choy
enoki mushrooms
hot chili oil
1 scallion, chopped

For the broth:
oil
beef shanks
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 small knob ginger, peeled, sliced
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1 scallion, chopped
2 Thai chiles
2 bay leaves
1 cinnamon stick, crushed
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp Sichuan peppercorns
1 star anise
1 tbsp miso paste
4 tbsps soy sauce

1. Make the beef stock ahead of time by boiling water in a very large pot and cooking the marrow bones. Remove impurities that rise to the top, and simmer covered, for about 2 to 3 hours. Let cool before storing in the fridge to let the fat coagulate at the top. When ready to make the soup, remove from the fridge and then discard the fat by scooping off the solidified fat. Set aside.
2. Cook the beef shanks and make the broth. In a large Dutch oven, heat some canola oil. Brown the shanks on both sides and remove to a plate.
3. Using the rendered fat in the same pot, sauté the garlic, onion, and ginger. Add the rest of the herbs and spices and keep sautéing to make them fragrant.
4. Add back the shanks and ladle in enough beef stock to submerge them to cook the meat. Simmer for at least 30 minutes or until the meat falls off the bones.
5. When ready to assemble the soup, boil some water in yet another pot to cook the noodles per package instructions and drain to your serving bowl.
6. In a small sauté pan (or use the pot where the noodles were cooked), heat a scant of sesame oil and flash-fry the enoki mushrooms and bok choy.
7. In your serving bowl of noodles, ladle in 2 heapings of beef stock and 1 broth. Top with the vegetables, sliced meat, and hot chili oil

Lengua, Beef Tongue Tacos with Tomatillo Sauce

Don’t let this offal turn you off. This lengua, or beef tongue, taco recipe will be one of the easiest things you’ll make at home providing that you have the 3 hours to simmer the tongue which you can totally do way ahead of time. The July 4th holiday is coming up, so really, you have no excuse not to do this for you and your omnivorous friends.

The tomatillo sauce was the easiest to make since you just put everything in a food processor and pulse. Sure you can buy the ones from the grocery store, but what are you doing while waiting for that tongue to simmer? You might as well have everything homemade, right?

When assembling your tacos, feel free to add avocados if you’re in your California mood, or thinly-sliced French breakfast radishes for some extra tartness. I simply used my hinona kabu, or Japanese turnips, harvest from my terrace. The roots didn’t quite make it because of the humidity, but I got some nice salad greens out of them.

Ingredients:
1 beef tongue, completely thawed if frozen, thoroughly washed
1 large onion, halved
1 head of garlic, peeled and crushed
4 bay leaves
1 tbsp of peppercorns
salt
oil
corn tortillas
radish tops, thoroughly washed
hot sauce

For the tomatillo sauce:
6 tomatillos, husks removed, halved
1 small bunch of cilantro, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalape¤o, chopped
juice from 1 lime
salt
sugar

1. In a large pot, boil the tongue with enough water to cover and add the onion, garlic, bay leaves, peppercorn and salt. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook up to 3 hours, or until the tongue is soft to the touch.
2. Remove the cooked tongue from the water to a chopping block until it’s cool to the touch. Using a paring knife and your hands, peel off the white-colored skin covering and discard. You may also discard the the rough patch where the tongue was attached to the cow’s mouth if that’s too much to look at–but it’s perfectly edible.
3. Slice the tongue in 1/4-inch slices. Heat some oil in a skillet and quickly sear tongue slices. Remove to a sieve to drain the oil.
4. Make your tomatillo sauce. Broil the tomatillos in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove to a food processor and pulse them with the rest of the sauce ingredients. Season to taste.
5. Assemble your tacos. On a skillet over medium fire, warm the corn tortillas to soften. Let your guests top their tortilla with the tongue pieces, radish tops and tomatillo sauce. Don’t be afraid to use more hot sauce!