Recipes: descriptive, not prescriptive

January 13, 2003

Serves 2

1 cup cooked white rice (the more sticky and mushy the better)
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
3 teaspoons white sugar
3 teaspoons candied orange peel
1 teaspoon corn or potato starch
1 tablespoon vanilla

Put 1 cup cooked rice and 3/4 cup milk in a heavy bottomed pan. Bring to a boil, and then turn down to a simmer, cover, and let cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until the mixture gets a bit mushy.

Beat 1 egg. Heat 1/4 cup milk to boiling. Add the milk to the beaten egg. It is very important to add the hot milk to the egg, and not the other way around. If you add the egg to the milk, the egg will clump.

Add the egg and milk to the pot of rice and milk, stirring. Add 3 teaspoons of sugar and 3 teaspoons of candied orange peel. Mix the teaspoon of cornstarch with 2 teaspoons of water in a cup, and stir into the pot. Bring the pot to a boil, stirring constantly. Then take it off the heat and let it cool for 5 or 10 minutes, until it's no longer steaming. Then mix in 1 tablespoon of vanilla.

Serve hot or let cool in the fridge.

orange peels
sugar
tall clean jar

It is best to have a tall and thin jar for making candied orange peel. Mandarin oranges and clementines sometimes work better than oranges because it's easier to remove all the pith.

Choose oranges that have a nice bright color, and no blemishes. Wash the orange, and peel. Use a very sharp knife to remove all the white pith from the peel. Cut the peel into thin strips. Put about a tablespoon of orange peel into the jar, and then cover it with a tablespoon of sugar. Repeat this process for as much orange peel as you have.

It is best to put the orange peel into the jar as soon as you have cleaned and sliced it, so it doesn't dry out. The pith is bitter, so the better you clean the peels, the less bitter the candied peel will be.

You should make it at least a day in advance of when you'll need it, so the sugar will penetrate through the peel completely. Candied orange peel is something you can make over the course of several days, adding more orange peel and sugar as you eat the oranges. Keep it refrigerated. It stays good for about a year.

It can be added to cakes, pastries, pudding, cookies, meat sauces, or even eaten on bread. Experiment.

January 08, 2003

Serves 1

1 chicken drumstick
3 cups water (and as needed)
1 tablespoon notched ginger
3 medium cloves of garlic, notched
1 dried shitake mushroom (any wild dried mushroom will work)
1/2 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon parsley flakes
3 tablespoons of pearl barley
1/2 cup diced onion, or half a medium onion
1 teaspoon of marjoram

In a pot, cover the chicken with water, and bring to a boil, about 10 minutes.
Skim the fuzz that appears on the surface of the water, and then lower the heat to simmer, and cover while you go off to cut the rest of the ingredients.

Notch about 1 tablespoon ginger without cutting all the way through. This way it will be easy to retrieve at the end. Do the same thing with 3 medium cloves of garlic.

Add these things and 1 dried shitake mushroom, salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper , and 1 tablespoon parsley flakes . I estimate here.
I measure most spices in the palm of my hand.

After half an hour, the soup had boiled down some and was too salty, so I added 1/2 cup more water. I poked at the chicken with cooking chopsticks and a fork, and got some of it to come off the bone.

After 40 minutes add 3 tablespoons of pearl barley, cover and let simmer.

Add 1/2 cup diced onion, or half a medium onion.
After 50 minutes the soup needed more water, because the barley had expended, so I added another 1/2 cup of water.

It still didn't taste right so I added about 1 teaspoon of marjoram, and let the soup simmer for another 10 minutes. Remove the ginger and garlic. Eat!

Notes

I think that the ginger and the parsley flakes didn't add very much to the flavor of this soup, and you can skip them. I also think that if I had used fresh parsley instead, it would have improved the flavor of the soup vastly.

If I make this soup again I would change the following things: I would use half as much onion as I did, and I would saute it first, and I would add it at a much earlier stage of the cooking. I would not use the ginger. I would use less barley. I would add a small carrot. I would cook the soup at a higher setting because I think it should be possible to make it in half an hour instead of an hour.

The flavor of this soup reminds me of Polish tripe soup (flaki), and I think it would be a good recipe to use with tripe or some other pork. I think that it brown rice or wild could be substituted for the barley, but not white rice. Brown rice is kind of crunchy and chewy at once, like barley. I think this soup would go very well with sourdough bread, either wheat or rye.

December 25, 2002

Serves 1

3 tablespoons oatmeal
3 tablespoons applesauce
5 shelled chopped hazelnuts
2 teaspoons maple syrup

Cover the oatmeal with boiling water and let sit for two or three minutes until soft. Then add the applesauce, hazelnuts, and maple syrup, stir, and serve immediately. You can add more maples syrup if you like it sweeter.

Serves 2

3/4 cup tomato sauce
2 small onions, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
10 Brussels sprouts, halved
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 teaspoons chopped parsley

In a heavy bottom pan, simmer the onions in the olive oil. When the onions began to turn clear, add the Brussels sprouts. When the Brussels sprouts get dark green and start getting soft, add the tomato halves and the minced garlic. When the onions have turned completely clear, add the tomato sauce and 2 teaspoons of parsley, reserving the last teaspoon for garnish. Pour the sauce over your favorite pasta and garnish with the reserved parsley.