chili ramen sauce

by on May 17, 2013

untitled (1 of 1) I love to eat what’s in season. Beside other reasons, it just feels and tastes best. Using the example of soup: a steaming bowl of squash soup on an autumn night transforms me from cold to cozy. And a zucchini soup with a generous splash of buttermilk can be the best possible thing that happen to me while starving on a hot summer day.

One exception is ramen soup, it has no season or it is rather at home in every season because it adapts without much ado. I don’t want to offend any Chinese and Japanese cooks, I am afraid they are very serious about their noodle soup, but I have to admit I kind of might break every rule in this matter. The reason for that is not me being ignorant, it is how I approach this broth soup. For me it is fast food, easy to make with what I have on my hands and I can make it as healthy as I want. By the way if you haven’t got it until now… I am not talking about the instant version of ramen soup where you pour hot water over MSG.

For me it is fast food because I can enjoy a nice meal in about 10 minutes. And I don’t really care about dashi or not dashi, red or white miso, should be used. I buy noodles by the kilo, the rest is mainly leftovers or already in my refrigerator. And I am not afraid to use (organic) granulated soup, less waste and less weight to carry. The other thing that makes this so easy for me is the chili ramen sauce I discovered in the Wagamama cookbook. I tweaked this to my liking and love my ramen soup even more. chili ramen sauce-328-2

chili ramen sauce

ingredients chili ramen sauce-346

  • 1 tsp. sugar
  • 2 ½ Tbsp. cider vinegar
  • 3 Tbsp. sweet chili sauce (store brought)
  • 5 Tbsp. fish sauce

instructions

  1. Heat vinegar in a small saucepan or microwave oven. Dissolve sugar in vinegar.
  2. Add sweet chili sauce and fish sauce and stir well.
  3. Store airtight in refrigerator for several weeks.

some notes

caution: this sauce is very concentrated, it tastes awful on it’s own, don’t even try it… I use about 1.5 Tbsp for 2 cups of broth, depending on the other ingredients and flavor of the broth, this would be one generous serving. Just add it at the end to your licking, ergo season to taste. I also like it with stir fries and it tastes especially good with noodle dishes.

chili ramen sauce-356

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spinachy mac and cheese soup

by on February 12, 2013

spinach soup-052aa

Some people are super heroes and save the world on a daily basis. You can find their stories in comics, books and movies, no big deal. Some people impress us with their skills like steering a greyhound bus with their nose while juggling with fire torches, underwhelming! Here is the thing: my mum makes a killer spinach soup which impressed a crowed of hungry kids repeatable. How appealing does spinach soup sound to children on a playground? Would you run home as if dinner would be promising like French fries with bottomless ice cream? I bet not at all!  But my mum had been cooking this soup and you could be sure we had guests for dinner. There had been copycats without success. Other mothers put their versions of this soup on the table and it was obvious, no one nailed this soup like my mum. She made us eat spinach without even hiding it, we would ignore it. The secret lies in the creamy soup but of cause the big hit is the cheese.  The trick is to add the cheese and stir as less as possible to keep a net of melted cheese. Every time we dug in long strings of cheese connected our spoon with the bowl, sometimes they were rope bridges, sometimes we tried to challenge each other whose cheese string was the longest and sometimes it was an astronaut’s connection with his space ship and under no circumstances it was allowed to cut it off.

Well a couple of years later, I stopped playing with my food and don’t fight the spider and his cheese net anymore but still love a hot bowl of spinach soup. I added a truck load of elbow macaroni for this year contribution for 30 Days, 30 Ways with macaroni and cheese, brought to you by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.

spinach soup-047-4

spinachy mac and cheese soup

ingredients

  • 250 g / 8 3/4 oz. elbow macaroni
  • 8 Tbsp. unsalted butter
  • 8 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
  • 6 cups vegetable or chicken broth
  • 560 g / 20 oz. frozen chopped spinach (2 packages frozen spinach or 2 bunches fresh spinach leaves)
  • 330 g / 11 2/3 oz. Gouda cheese, cut roughly or grate
  • sea salt and freshly ground nutmeg to taste

instructions

  1. Cook elbow macaroni according to package directions.
  2. Meanwhile heat broth in your microwave oven or in a saucepan on your stove.
  3. Heat butter in your soup pot until melted. Add flour and stir until combined. Add hot broth and whisk until smooth, bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium and let simmer for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly..
  4. Add spinach and cook 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
  5. Add elbow macaroni and stir. Season with salt and nutmeg to taste. Add cheese, stir just a little. The best thing about this soup are the gooey stings of melted cheese, so don’t over stir this soup, the cheese shouldn’t melt completely, just soften.

some notes

If you use fresh spinach: wash, pat dry and chop into fine shreds. Frozen spinach can be added still frozen, increase the cooking time until melted.

This soup is best eaten fresh, reheated not so much…

Number of servings (yield): 6

 

spinach soup-043

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yellow split pea and sweet potato soup

by on May 15, 2012

The summer in southwest USA can be brutal, hot and humid, I had been told. It’s going to be my first summer down here and I have to admit, saying I am not a fan of this kind of weather is high understated. That’s not me complaining, not at all, since my move in December it had been wonderful. But actually I am a fan of  cozy, rainy days with warming soup. I suspect the days I can feast upon hot soup without sitting in the refrigerator, are counted and I enjoyed this soup even more as last one of these season.

Consider this soup as a plain canvas, actually not so plain. It already comes with nice flavors but the fun part is, you cook a big pot of healthy soup and vary with the toppings and you have a nice soup for several days or feed a crowd once.

yellow split pea and sweet potato soup

You don’t have to soak yellow split peas but my belly considers this is better to digestive and it shortens the cooking time.

ingredients:

200 g / 1 cup yellow split peas, soaked overnight

700 g / 25 oz.  sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly sliced (about 4 3/4 cups)

1.5 liter / 6 cups (or more) water or broth

salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

instructions:

Rinse yellow split peas, add to a large pot with sweet potatoes and water. Bring to boil over medium high heat, reduce to medium heat and let simmer for 30 minutes or until soft. Puree with a hand blender, you might need more water. Add salt and pepper to taste.

toppings:

There are no limits, this is just one of many ideas. Any kind of vegetable with brown butter or olive oil and  your favorite spice mixture would be divine.

enough for 2-3 servings

1  bell pepper, color doesn’t matter

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp unsalted butter

1 tsp pul biber (Turkish dried red pepper flakes)

Cut pepper in half, remove seeds, membrane and stem end and slice pepper in bite-size pieces.

Heat your pan over medium high heat, add the oil and butter and bell pepper pieces (make sure they are dry or oil will splatter). Fry until you got some brown spots, stirring occasionally. Add pul biber and continue cooking for 1 minutes.

Fill soup into bowls and top with bell pepper pieces and drizzle with the spiced oil from the pan.

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borscht

by on January 19, 2012

My mum makes this soup several times in the cold and very cold time of the year and especially every Christmas eve. I planned to continue this tradition, but last Christmas I rather thought about pulling out my shorts, than heating me up from the inside. So I waited patiently for colder weather.

Don’t think of this kind of borscht soup in the regular way, it is not something you would scoop into your mouth, it doesn’t come in a soup plate and it’s not a meal. This soup comes in a cup, feel free to slurp if you are allowed to do so… It will warm your belly and it is a great company for your sandwich.

Snuggle in your blanket, put your feed up and sip on a cup of hot borscht, this is how I picture you enjoying this soup. Oh and some cheese straws or toasted bread or… Sounds great to me.

The weather forecast promised some cold days, so I asked my mum for the recipe and as always I got a rough list of ingredients and some suggestions and variations. We already played this game several times, if it comes to old family recipes non of my relatives seams to have something written or even notes.

This recipe is very close to what I remember it should taste. Lucky me paying so much attention while my mum had been cooking.

Sorry for the imprecise amount of ingredients for the seasoning but its on you to season this soup how you like it or how much pepper you can handle. This soup should taste tart and peppery but shouldn’t be overwhelming that you still got a taste of the good broth and the beetroots. I got some kinds of vinegar listed below, the kind you choose will also influence the taste.
If you like to make a vegetarian borscht, use vegetable stock and add a few dried mushroom while cooking.
I didn’t felt well to discard the grated beetroots but after I cooked the heck out of them, they didn’t even looked appealing. Any suggestions besides compost pile?

borscht

4 beetroots
2 liter/ quarts good quality beef broth
3-4 cloves of garlic
1 bay leaf (optional)

to taste:
2 tablespoons vinegar, many kinds will do or a mix of them: white vinegar, cider vinegar, white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, you get the idea

sugar (1 teaspoon at least)
lots of freshly ground black pepper
salt
soy sauce or maggi seasoning (my mum’s suggestion)
some dill or parsley
a gulp of olive oil
Peel the garlic gloves and smash them with the blade of your knife.
Peel the beetroots and grate them with a box grater or food processor. Put the grated beetroots, garlic cloves, bay leaf (if using) and the broth into a cooking pot and cover. Bring to a broil over medium heat and then lower the temperature and let simmer for at least 30 minutes.

Pour everything through a colander. Discard the grated beetroots and the garlic. Pour the soup back into the pot and season to taste. Approach the seasoning until it tastes to your liking.
Wrap your cold fingers around your mug and let the soup warm you from the inside.

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tomato red pepper soup

by on November 3, 2011

This is my highest blog post so far, I am writing from above the clouds. The screen in front of me shows 11.887 km / 7.386 miles and we are somewhere over the Atlantic ocean, the Island of Newfoundland just behind us. Assuming that I will survive the just served pasta (why am I punished by this airline?), I will publish after I arrived at my parents house, who still got no clue I am on my way to Germany right now. I am excited like a little kid in front of a fully loaded christmas tree.

There are only two emotions in a plane:  boredom and terror.  ~Orson Welles
I couldn’t have said this better by myself. Although I love to travel but this flight seams to take like forever. A little girl next to me is sleeping and her head is lying on my shoulder, later she will complain about not haven’t been able to sleep.at.all! While her dad will look over and smile at me. The next thing she mentioned was her grandma’s soup. She must have been very much looking forward to this and repeatedly talked about this soup: “Hope Oma didn’t forget about my soup.” “Mama do you think Oma already made the soup?” “Yes I think she got her big pot already on her stove.”
Soup, soup, soup…! Her Oma’s soup let me think about my soup, the one I made the day before I left. It was more one of these ‘what I found in my fridge soup’ but it came out very delicious. Luckily I took some photos just to practice. I immediately changed my blog topic and twisted my mind to remember the recipe.

This is a medium hot soup, I used one chipotle pepper in adobo sauce and later added one or two teaspoons of the sauce for some seasoning. If you don’t have them on hand, a chili pepper will be great too. Chipotle powder or smoked paprika powder as a seasoning would be great too, you got the idea… You can add beans, chicken or rice for a more filling soup.

tomato red pepper soup

with ricotta topping
serves 2

1 big (or 2 small) red bell pepper
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 can (400 g / 14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (canned)
1 teaspoon honey or sugar
salt and some adobo sauce to taste

Wash and dry the bell pepper, remove the seeds and cut into chunks.
Preheat your pan over medium-high heat, add the olive oil and the bell pepper and sear until you get some black spots but don’t burn them completely.

Let cool for a moment and put them into your blender with the diced tomatoes and chipotle pepper (food processor or hand blender) and puree until very smooth. Pour everything into a medium pot and cook for about 10 minutes. Add salt and honey to taste.

 

for the ricotta topping:

6 tablespoon ricotta cheese
4 green onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
salt to taste
olive oil for the pan

In a small pan with a little olive oil slightly brown the green onions and the garlic (optional). Put everything in a beaker and blend the ingredients together using a hand blender.

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