Soup's On! (Homemade Veggie Miso-Ramen Soup, that is)

This weekend the Pope came to Philly, and I went to Syracuse. I thought about staying in the area and maybe even trying to join the throngs for a glimpse of Pope Francis waving from his Fiat, but I decided that, on the whole, it wasn't worth it. So instead I had myself a Popecation and went to visit my friend Dan. It was a tiny bit chilly, fall creeping in just enough to make hot soup sound like a plan. So we made ramen. 

When I think of the ideal ramen I think of a hole-in-the-wall in the east village where my dad and sisters and I had the best dinner ever on a frigid night in February a couple years ago. Granted, I think most warm things would have tasted fantastic that night, but there was something particularly marvelous about the steamy, salty, choc-full-of-flavor bowls. Nothing I make could live up to that. Nonetheless, I enjoy cooking up my own soup. It's easy and healthy (except for the sodium of the miso) and, of course, it's delicious. We used ingredients we had around-- feel free to vary up the veggies with whatever you like/don't! We ended up with too much broth and veggies for the amount of noodles we made, but it's easy enough to cook more noodles for leftovers. The broth gets stronger overnight, so leftovers are super delicious!

Also, as a little disclaimer, I have no clue how real ramen and real miso soup are made. I don't know if my cooking methods are as off base from what's authentic as General Tso's Chicken is from what you'd find in Beijing. But I know that what I make tastes good, so I'll take it. Maybe you will too. 

Ingredients 

• 4 oz ramen noodles-- not the instant kind (although perhaps those would work in a pinch?). You may have to go to an asian grocery store for these, although we found them at Wegmans. Soba or udon could also work well for this dish. 
• 1 TBS sesame oil (or regular canola oil, if you don't have sesame)
• 3-5 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly but not diced
• 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and sliced thinly
• 2 scallions, chopped (whites and greens)
• 1 hot pepper, chopped small (optional)
• 1/3 container of firm tofu, pressed and cubed
• 1/4 cup onion, diced
• 1 cup broccoli, stems and florets, chopped
• 1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced
• 1 bell pepper (ours was yellow), diced
• 1 cup kale, thick stems removed, chopped
• 1/2 cup carrots, julienned
• 1/4 cup miso-- We used red. Each color has its own flavor. Experiment and see what you like!
• 6 cups water
• soy sauce to taste
• 2 eggs 

Procedure

• There are 3 pieces to this: eggs, noodles, soup. 
• Eggs and noodles can be done before you start the broth or while the broth is simmering, whichever is easier
• Soft boil the eggs. If you have a preferred method, lovely. We put them in cold water and cut the heat after 3 minutes of boiling, then rinsed in cold water to stop the cooking process.
• Cook the ramen according to package directions. Rinse in cold water to stop the cooking process. 
• 
• For the broth, begin by heating the sesame oil in a medium pot.
• Add the garlic, ginger, hot pepper, and scallions and cook over medium heat until fragrant.
• 
• Stir in the tofu, onion, broccoli, and mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes. Add a little more oil if they start sticking. 
• Gradually add in the water and the miso paste and stir. Turn heat to high and bring to a boil, then lower to simmer. 
• Stir in the pepper and kale. Allow the broth to continue to simmer for at least 15 minutes, until the flavors begin to meld. Add the carrots almost at the end so they stay nice and crisp. Taste and add soy sauce or a little more miso if the flavor isn't strong enough. You can also add hot chile oil if you want a spicier soup.
• When the veggies are cooked and the broth is as flavorful as you want it to be, peel the eggs and slice them in half. Place some noodles into a bowl with half an egg and ladle the veggies and broth overtop. Mix, slurp, and try not to burn your tongue.

Broccoli and Tofu Stir-Fry

Before I was a rabbinical student, I was a college student. Back when I was starting college, I decided to study Mandarin. I knew I wanted to learn either Mandarin or Arabic, because at the time my life's ambition was to be a diplomat, and I figured that experience with a critical language would be helpful. As it turns out, Arabic definitely would have been. It would have helped me with Hebrew and potentially offered me opportunities to live and study in the Middle East prior to beginning rabbinical school. I wish I were proficient in Arabic and it's number two on my list of languages to study (Hebrew being, by necessity, at the top).

Yet, despite Arabic's obvious ties with rabbinical school, I'm so glad I made the choice I did. Studying Mandarin, and the deep engagement with Chinese cultures that accompanied that study, was an incredible part of my college years and early twenties. I got to spend a semester in Beijing and a year in a village in northwest Yunnan, places the rabbinic path may never have taken me. There's a lot more I could say about that, but, for now, I'm focused on food.

When I lived in China, I ate a whole lot of broccoli. It was delicious and nutritious and available most of the year, and stir-fried with a bunch of ginger and garlic there was really nothing better. I might not eat quite the amount of broccoli now that I consumed back then, but it remains my favorite vegetable, and I still love to stir-fry it now and again. Adding tofu to the mix and eating it over rice makes for an easy and relatively quick dinner.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup rice and 2 cups water
• 1 container of tofu, drained, pressed, and sliced into triangles
• 2 cups chopped broccoli florets and stems
• 3-6 cloves garlic (big range, I know, but I love garlic more than your average joe). Chop one clove roughly into larger pieces and mince the rest.
• 1-2 inches of ginger (see above-- if you like ginger, go for the larger amount). Chop a half inch roughly into larger pieces and mince the rest
• 3 large scallions, minced
• several glugs canola or peanut oil
• 1 tsp rice vinegar
• 1 TBL soy sauce, plus more for serving
• 1 TBL sesame oil
• 2 TBL sesame seeds
• Sriracha to taste (I usually put a small swig into the wok and then top off my bowl)

Procedure:

• Set up your rice to cook. I imagine you know how to cook rice already. I like to put mine in a rice cooker and press the "white rice" button or "brown rice" button and go about my culinary business. ;) 
• Prep your veggies, separating out the roughly chopped garlic and ginger, along with a few pieces of scallion, to flavor the oil.
• Get out a large pan (preferably a wok, if you've got one), heat it over medium high, and coat the bottom in oil. You'll probably need a tablespoon or two, depending on the size. Add the larger pieces of garlic, ginger, and scallion, and a pinch of salt, and swirl them around. This will make the oil, and your food, delicious.
  
• When the pieces start to brown, remove them (you can toss them or put them back in later, or munch them while you cook), and add your tofu triangles. You want the bottom of the pan to have enough free space for flipping, so you may need to do this in batches. Fry the tofu until golden on the bottom, then flip (carefully! you don't want to leave the crust on the bottom of the pan!) and repeat til it's golden on the other side. Remove to a plate and repeat if necessary. 
  
• Add another tsp or so of oil, just enough to swirl around (the pan should be plenty hot still), and add the broccoli and minced garlic and ginger. Toss around, keeping the heat medium high, until it starts to crisp up a little bit (with the wok this hot, that shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes), then add 2 TBL of water, quickly cover the pan, and let it steam for a couple of minutes more. The broccoli will turn a beautiful vibrant green and still keep its nice crunch. Uncover and add the scallions. Toss around for another minute. Taste the veggies and make sure they're cooked enough. 
  
• Return the tofu to the wok, add the sesame seeds, and toss around for about a minute. Then turn the heat to low. 
• Stir in the rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and sriracha (if using). Give it all a good stir and taste, adding more of any condiments you'd like. 
  
• Serve over rice (or rice noodles would be good too), with extra soy sauce and sriracha. 

Veggie (and peanut free, in this case) Pad Thai

So last week, two of my friends had a baby. Their first! He's the cutest peanut there ever was and I'm so in awe of the fact that my peers (and not, y'know, people a decade older than me) have produced this incredible little life! And he's a lucky dude to have his incredible parents.

The rabbinical school that Jake (Dad) and I attend can be amazing when it comes to community, so it's no real surprise that another friend had the smarts to organize folks to bring the new family dinner a few times a week.

I just got back from meeting the baby and seeing my buddies as no-longer-expectant parents. And all I had to do was make Pad Thai.

Good. Trade.

This recipe is a little unorthodox, because it needed to be peanut-free. If you want to, you can definitely sub peanuts for the cashews. Also, because I'm a vegetarian, I don't use oyster sauce. The recipe that I was working from calls for about a TBS added towards the end. It thickens the sauce slightly. If you use oyster sauce, cut back on the soy sauce a tad.

Ingredients

• 2 TBS canola oil 
• 1 block tofu, pressed and cut into thin triangles
• pinch salt
• 1/2 tsp tumeric (optional, but nice)
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced 
• 1 cup broccoli, chopped into florets
• 1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1 medium green pepper, cut into strips
• 1 inch piece of ginger, sliced thinly
• 1 lb rice noodes
• 1/3 c. water + 2 TBS rice vinegar
• 3 eggs
• 1 TBS maple syrup
• 3 TBS soy sauce
• 1/3 cup cashews, smashed up into bits (it's ok to be violent with your food)
• 2 TBS lime juice
• 2 small carrots, peeled (if you like) and julienned
• 4 scallions, white and green parts, chopped
• sriracha to taste
• salt to taste
• lime and cashews to garnish

Procedure

• Fry your tofu!

• heat the oil in a large wok over medium heat. 
• sprinkle the tumeric over the oil, turning the pan so it's evenly distributed
• place the tofu triangles in the wok in a single layer (you will likely need to do two batches), let them sizzle and get crispy for a couple of minutes, then flip. Sprinkle in some salt and let them crisp on the other side. Remove to a paper towel so the grease can drain and repeat with the second batch if necessary. Try to scrape most of the bits out of the wok so they don't burn later.

• Cook your noodles according to package directions. Err on the side of them being just sliiiiightly underdone (maybe a minute less than recommended). Drain and rinse the noodles with cold water, then mix with 1 TBS of soy sauce
• While cooking the noodles, cook the broccoli and mushrooms

• heat 1 TBS oil over medium-high heat and add the broccoli and 1/3 of the garlic. Stir-fry for about 2 minutes, until the edges are looking a little crispy, then add 2 TBS water and cover the wok so it steams. 
• When the water has evaporated, add the mushrooms and stir-fry for about two minutes. If the noodles are done at this point, just keep going. Otherwise, remove the wok from the heat until the noodles have caught up. 
• Put the whole shebang together!


• Turn the heat back on if you had to cut it.
• Add a little more oil and the garlic, ginger, and pepper. Stir-fry for about a minute over medium-high, then turn down slightly and add the vinegar-water mixture and noodles, and tofu. Let everything cook, stir-frying away, for about 3 minutes
  
• Turn heat to medium low. Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk them together. Push everything to the side to create a space for the eggs in the wok and pour in. Scramble them until they're basically solid and then fold in with everything else

• Add the maple syrup and soy sauce and stir together

• Add the carrots, scallions, cashews, lime juice, a dash of sriracha, and a bit of salt. Taste and add more lime juice or soy sauce if needed. Serve immediately with additional soy sauce, sriracha, lime juice, and cashews to garnish. 

Broccoli-Tofu Udon with Peanut Sauce

When I lived in rural China, I was shocked to discover that peanut butter didn't exist. Peanuts themselves were plentiful, along with peanut oil, but only in big cities was peanut butter a reasonable grocery list addition. I love peanut butter. My favorite is the kind made from straight up ground, roasted peanuts and salt, but in a pinch I'll take skippy or jiff or the like. In China, I missed not only peanut butter itself but American peanut noodles--the peanut butter and soy sauce-slathered spaghetti dish my parents often threw together on busy school nights. I missed American-Chinese food, and from time to time I tried to recreate it with skippy purchased in the wal-mart three hours away and wheat ramen noodles from my city of Heqing.

Since getting back to the States, I've cooked many American-Chinese kinds of dishes, reconciling my Western palate with the techniques and flavor tendencies I learned in Yunnan. This particular dish is the result of my visit to the Temescal Farmer's Market this morning. I'd been meaning to bike over for awhile, as it's only 10 minutes from my house and runs every Sunday year-round, so I'm glad I finally made it! It's a cute little market with a pleasant, folksy kinda feel. I wandered for a bit and stumbled upon gorgeous broccoli, so I had to pick some up. And when you give an Emily a crown of broccoli... well, it was bound to result in dinner.

As a side note, while the peanut sauce is lovely with this, I think if going for a slightly lighter dish, one could omit it and just dress the tofu/broccoli/noodles with a bit of soy sauce and sesame oil. Also, don't be intimidated by the number of steps! It's all very, very simple, I promise. And stir-fries are incredibly forgiving.

Ingredients (for tofu)
-1/2 package tofu, drained and pressed and cut into 1 inch cubes
-1 TB peanut or vegetable oil
-1 TB sesame oil
-1 clove garlic, minced
-2 TBL flour
-1/4 cup roasted peanuts, crushed
-1 TB sesame seeds
-1 tsp. salt
-dash ground ginger
-dash cayenne


Ingredients (for broccoli)
-about 2 cups chopped broccoli florets and stems
-1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced
-1 clove garlic, minced
-1/4 cup hot water
-1 medium stalk green garlic, chopped (optional-- if you don't have it use more minced garlic)


Ingredients (for noodles/sauce)
-12 oz udon noodles (or rice noodles, or soba, or, frankly, spaghetti-- whatever you have on hand)
-1/3 cup peanut butter (natural and crunchy is best but anything will work)
-1/3 cup hot water
-1 clove garlic, mined
-1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced
-1 TB rice vinegar
-2 TB soy sauce
-1 TB sesame oil
-1 tsp salt
-cayenne or chili oil to taste


Procedure
1. Start to cook whatever pasta you're using and leave it alone while you do everything else. 

Tofu just as it's being added-sorry the camera has a yellow tint!

2. Tofu- Just after you've put up the water for pasta, crush the peanuts--I stick them in a plastic bag and whack them with a rolling pin. Mix them on a plate with the flour, sesame seeds, salt, ginger, and cayenne, and then roll the tofu squares around gently so they're at least somewhat coated on all sides. 

Tofu already browned on a couple sides--see the crispiness?

3. Heat a wok or, even better, a wide-bottomed, deep skillet, over medium-high heat. Add the two oils and wait for them to get hot. Cook the garlic for about 30 seconds. Then gently add the tofu, making sure that each chunk makes contact with the bottom of the pan. If you have leftover peanuts from the coating process, you can sprinkle some in or save them for another cooking project. 
4.  Let the tofu sit for a minute or two until the bottom sides begin to crisp, then flip each piece. I use chopsticks for this, but if you have tongs or something that you like better, by all means go for it. Continue to turn the tofu as it browns. When it's nice and crispy, remove it to a plate. Don't clean the wok/pan.
5. Sauce-Make the peanut sauce by combining the sauce ingredients (everything under "noodles/sauce" except for the noodles) in a medium bowl. Amounts here are approximate and made to suit milder tastes than my own, so feel free to add more of anything. I often keep extra chili oil or hot pepper flakes at the table.

4. Broccoli- Add a dash more oil to the wok, if it's dry, let it heat, and then put in the broccoli, ginger, and garlic. Toss around for a minute or two, then add about 1/4 cup of hot water (again, I borrow from the pasta pot) and cover to steam. Give it a stir every minute or so. After about 3 minutes, throw in the green garlic, if using, and give it another couple minutes to cook. I like my broccoli on the crunchy side, but keep it going until it's as soft as you like. 



 5. Turn the heat down to medium low and throw in the tofu, cooked noodles and sauce. Toss around, doing what you can to mix everything together. 

6. Eat up!