Recipe 2: Vegetarian Wonton Soup

This is a recipe best made in several parts. I made the entire soup this afternoon, but it was exhausting and time-consuming. For all maternal chefs, I will begin breaking down my recipes into "napable" portions. For others who do not have to concern themselves with sous-chefs who need constant hugs and bottles, consider each portion to be around one hour.

Therefore, I would create this recipe over the course of a few days. One day, I would make a batch of stock. I would then freeze it in small portions. On another day, I would make the wontons and freeze them on a silpat (more on this idea to follow). Which would mean that on the day you want to eat the soup, you would need to leave yourself about twenty minutes of prep time from start to eating. This is a two-nap prep recipe.

VEGETARIAN WONTON SOUP

Broth:

1 chopped onion OR 1 sliced leek
9 cloves of garlic, chopped
7 scallions (including greens)
4 carrots, chopped
4 slices of ginger
1 pieces of kombu (optional)
1 ½ tbsp soy sauce
1 ½ tbsp mirin
2 tsp salt (more to taste)
1 ½ tsp sesame oil
½ cup of cilantro leaves and stems
7 dried shiitake mushrooms
12 cups water

Saute the onions and garlic over medium heat until beginning to brown. Add the scallions, carrots, and ginger and sauté for a few minutes until soft. Add water as well as the kombu, soy sauce, mirin, salt, sesame oil, cilantro, and shiitakes. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer (partially covered) for an hour. Strain, pressing the liquid out of the vegetables. Discard the solids and allow the broth to cool. Freeze this broth or use within two days if you refrigerate it.

Wontons:

1 head of napa cabbage, shredded

2 carrots, peeled and minced

3 scallions, finely chopped

A drizzle of soy sauce

A sprinkle of ground ginger

1 tbsp garlic oil

Wonton wrappers

Combine the cabbage, carrots, and scallions. Heat a wok over high heat and coat with Pam (or oil) as well as the tablespoon on garlic oil. Once the wok is heated, add the cabbage mixture and saute for a moment to coat with oil. Drizzle soy sauce over the cabbage as one would salad dressing--the idea is to coat the cabbage rather than drown it. Sprinkle ground ginger over the mixture and saute until the cabbage is wilted. It will reduce in size by about half. Drain the mixture from the wok discarding the sauce.

It is impossible to describe how to fold wontons without pictures. Ming Tsai has a great cookbook called Blue Ginger that has step-by-steps photos for folding wontons, eggrolls, and sushi. Place a small mound of the filling in the middle of each wrapper and fold accordingly. Place finished wontons on a silpat placed atop a cookie sheet. Alton Brown advocates for using the silpat as a non-stick workspace. Because the silpat can be placed in the freezer, I use it to freeze any food that would stick and tear on a regular sheet of tinfoil. After the wontons have frozen, you can remove them from the silpat and store them in a ziplock bag.

Putting It All Together:

Cover the bottom of a saute pan with a coating of canola oil. Fry the wontons on each side until they are brown. Set aside on paper towels to drain.

Boil and drain a serving of udon noodles (these noodles can be purchased fresh or frozen at a Japanese market). Chop two or three servings of broccoli, snow peas, sprouts, cabbage, carrots, tofu and julienned red pepper. Thaw the frozen stock (I usually take it out of the freezer in the morning if I want to use it at night and leave it in the refrigerator for a slow thaw) and bring to a boil. Add the vegetables and cook for 7 minutes on a slow boil, covered.

Serve by layering noodles and wontons at the bottom of the bowl. Cover with the vegetables and broth. Eat immediately.

Do not cook too many servings of vegetables because the vegetables will continue to cook and soften even after you remove the soup from the heat. Therefore, do not cook the soup before you are ready to eat and do not leave the vegetables sitting in the broth.

The Long Break

Not-for-Profit Dad has finally emerged from deep dark hole that sucks us all in for the beginning of December. He has a ten-day program that he prepares for throughout the entire year. And during those ten days, he lives, eat, sleeps, and breathes his job. It's a trade-off. On one hand, as September rolls around, his schedule becomes less and less flexible. On the other hand, come mid-December, he can stay home to participate in the twins' physical therapy session. Because it is currently AFTER the program, I am very positive about this arrangement. Of course, if I had written this entry on December 1st, it would have been a very different, darker entry. Full of curse words.

The return of the daddy has also brought on a host of parties, and therefore, a host of new recipes. Since I last wrote, I have been inventing, inventing, inventing. Tonight's dinner was a vegetarian wonton soup (recipe above). Last time I was in Israel, I ate this fantastic vegetarian wonton soup at a restaurant called Apropos (which is no longer standing due to a bomber). That is the best part about kosher dairy restaurants. Vegetarians can get all of the dishes that are typically made with meat. Israel is the best place to get French onion soup. For vegetarians...I mean. Meat eaters may want to try somewhere like...I don't know...Paris.

The first night he returned home, we had nori-less maki that I had glazed with a soy-ginger sauce. It was pretty disappointing. Ming Tsai had taught me (yes, me personally, since I believe each and every one of these celebrity chefs write their cookbooks directly to me) how to glaze rice and it sounded like such a neat idea. Unfortunately, the glaze I made was too sweet. I drizzled wasabi oil as a garnish on the plate, so it cut through some of the sweetness. I had tried out this idea of nori-less maki because I wanted to make it for the twins and I couldn't see them gnawing through seaweed with their gummy mouths.

My other grand recipe was recreating the avocado eggrolls served at the Cheesecake Factory complete with the cashew-tamarind dipping sauce. I had found tamarind concentrate at Fresh Fields, and I was dying to use it. I'm going to make a vegetarian Pad Thai later this week. Need to think up other recipes that use tamarind since I now have a large container of concentrate...

So the Kosher Vegetarian Mum is back--back with her books, back in "cooking school", and back with her children insisting, "bup!" whenever they want to be lifted so they can watch the Kitchenaid spin. Check back on Friday when we bake our first family challah.

They Should Rename It a Good Sexist Name Like Mamallote

Currently, I am swimming through several poaching (to cook in a simmering liquid) lessons, the best of which has been learning how to cook "en papillote" which translate to "in parchment." When cooking en papillote, one fills a parchment or foil pouch with meat or vegetables, herbs, a bit of fat, and some water or broth. The food simmers inside the pouch, steaming and becoming infused with flavour from the herbs and broth. I am in love.

The best part of cooking en papillote is that--as far as I know--you can prepare the pouch hours ahead of time, throw it in the oven, and pull out dinner a few minutes later. My first foray into cooking en papillote (can you tell that I like writing that word. It makes me feel all smart and Frenchy and fancy) was making a garlic and potato side dish that was infused with fresh rosemary. Had I been smarter, I would have thrown together the pouch while the kids ate goldfish crackers after dinner (instead, we made fresh pasta which is very exciting for them since they have yet to view television. It's like the Iron Chef right in their own home). Put it in the oven while the kids bathed and then had a delicious plate of potatoes and garlic when I came back to the kitchen. Instead, I made the pouch, made the rest of my dinner, looked at the cooking time (damn that whole read-all-the-directions-before-you-begin thing!), ate the rest of my dinner while it cooked, and then enjoyed a few potato slices while I typed this. I'll have the leftovers tomorrow for lunch.

We're eating well in D.C.

Actually, we are cooking well in D.C. I have yet to find the time to actually eat what I cook since my children don't seem to want me to bring food to my mouth. Attempts at feeding myself are interrupted by tears from stolen toys and screams as Ladybird tries to get back the aforementioned stolen toy. Regardless, we have a refrigerator filled with very attractive leftovers.