Spicy Rice Cake Soup, Others

An initial attempt at cooking Friday led to rotisserie chicken from the grocer and a Pixar movie. The next night, after a long day of climbing, scrambling, and exploring up the coast, nothing seemed like a better idea than cooking what we didn't the previous night. A recipe from Momofuku was picked, entailing blanching and peeling a pint of cherry tomatoes. Mayhaps a poor idea given the exhaustion from a long day, but the idea we went with. The salad was a take on caprese, with silken tofu providing a base. Served with rye soda bread, miso butter, and soft boiled eggs it made an interesting snack. You can find a photo lower in the post; below this, however, is the title of the post.

I decided, somewhat accidentally, on a new take of a previous dish. This time, the soup would be more of a soup and the cauliflower on the side. The idea was to take a tomato-basil soup, provide the creaminess with silken tofu instead of dairy, and throw in grilled rice cakes for the hell of it. I ate it with two quick side dishes - blanched snow pea with rice vinegar and quick sweet pickles - and the mentioned cauliflower. The sides were, frankly, somewhat conflicting with the soup and I wouldn't recommend them. But the soup itself - yes. To further confuse the reader is a photo of the previous night's dinner of salad and toast.

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Spicy Rice Cake Soup

Serves 2-ish

2/3 cup uncooked sushi rice + water

12 oz silken tofu

1 large heirloom tomato (or maybe 6-12 oz canned tomato)

1/2 cup water

2 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp sesame oil

spiciness to taste (sriracha, dried cayenne, fresh jalapeno, anything really)

several leaves basil

Cook the sushi rice per instructions - rinse thoroughly, heat to boil, cook covered until the water is gone, fluff the rice and let sit covered for 10 minutes. After the rest, put the rice in a bowl to cool. Do some prep-work on sides if you want. When the rice is cooled, use a wet spoon or your fist to mash it into a pulp. With a spoon, use the back to smear sections along the side of the bowl, doing this until you get something like a paste or get tired. With wet hands, form it into a log and set aside.

Prepare the soup. In a saucepan, add the water, mirin, and sesame oil. Heat to a boil and let reduce for a minute - consider adding onions or garlic before, but I didn't. Add the tomato, mushed, to the soup - try and avoid adding skin as it will add texture, but a little bit is fine. Simmer for another minute or so, then add tofu and spiciness. Reduce heat to low. Prepare a cast iron over medium heat with a bit of oil. Slice the rice cake into patties and grill until browned on both sides, about 5 minutes total. Split soup between bowls, add the rice cakes to each, and top with torn basil (or basil chiffonade if you want to be fancy).

Lemon and Basil Salmon, "Slow" Roasted

Having wanted to cook salmon for a long time, and finding ourselves with a weekend free of plans, we looked for a recipe. On second though, "looked" may not be the appropriate word - I was hungry, so I picked up the first cookbook, found a salmon recipe, and went to buy ingredients. The recipe came from a book I've used once before but have owned for many years. This recipe was another delicious and easy feast, so I may find myself returning to the pages more often.

As is my (approximate) policy for recipes direct from a book, I won't post the recipe, but I will share some salient bits. For one, this salmon came out beautifully. I would like to, at least partially, thank my wallet for that. I don't know the normal prices of these things, and I wasn't really in the mood to comparison shop, but $28 a pound seems like a lot of money. I mean, I guess the salmon was labeled as "wild" and "Alaskan king," two things one is instructed to look for. Maybe the salmon was also given an hour long massage after being caught, and treated to a mud-wrap facial. The other thing would be the cooking method -- I'm used to salmon cooked in a hot oven for a decent amount of time, and seasoned for yet longer beforehand. This recipe had the salmon soak for 30 minutes in olive oil and salt, and cook for only 15-20 minutes in a 225 degree (F) oven. I wouldn't think that long enough for either stage, yet it seemed to be more than ample.

The other one was the amazing sauce. It was very simple, consisting of mostly white wine, butter, and (as this is from an herb-based cookbook) basil. It may not have thickened much, and I may have forgotten to add shallots (let alone buy them), but it was divine. I may have taken a sip of it, direct from the plate, after we had cleaned it completely of salmon and veggies.

Herby Cooking (Chicken and Cauliflower, not Brownies)

Ridiculous snowfall this weekend led to calling off the drive to Tahoe, but our backup plan wasn't bad. Fancy cooking, from a cookbook no less. I've had The Herbal Kitchen for years and never once cooked from it; I've definitely browsed and salivated, and picked ideas from it, but never followed a recipe through. E and I changed that with not one, but two recipes from its pages. A pesto-stuffed chicken with cherry tomato topping and a cauliflower and apple bake with dill.

Having cooked these two recipes, I can't really fathom how I went so long without cooking from the book. Had we a food processor, it would have been an easy 40 minutes for a delicious dinner. Lacking one, but having a mortar and pestle, it was instead an enjoyable 40 minutes. I really like mashing things to a pulp. Also, this is probably one of the better dinners I've cooked and the ingredients were few and cheap. The recipes below are a little dicey on exact measurements, partly because I've left the book behind in E's kitchen and partly because you may not even need them - a description of approximate amounts should suffice. Especially for the chicken dish; it was fantastic.

I've never cooked chicken like this before - a quick 5-minute fry, followed by a lower heat cooking in the same pan, with lid, until the chicken is just finished. Allowing for thickness, this is between 5 and 10 minutes. You end up with one deliciously browned side and a very juicy cut, without worrying about overcooking; the chicken is already sliced in half so you can simply peek to see if it is done. The recipe recommended skin-on breast which may have catapulted the chicken from "well cooked with delicious accompaniment" to "delicious star of the plate."