Simple is wonderful.
For lunch I made a pot of bean thread noodles. They come in small packages and are translucent, that I buy at Ta Lin.
I start with about 1 1/2 to 2 quarts of water, to which I add a tsp. of instant dashi (from Ta Lin). Then I start adding ingredients. Today I put in a 3 or 4 ounce piece of PPI BBQ pork from the freezer and two packets of bean thread noodles. After the pork thawed out (about ten minutes), I cut the pork into slices and added the left over stir fried bok choy from last night, with its mushrooms and thick soy laden sauce and a dash of rice wine and sesame oil and ½ tsp of garlic chili sauce and fried dried shallots (Ta Lin).
When the noodles were cooked (about ten minutes) I ladled some into a bowl. The flavor was thin tasting, so I dissolved 1 ½ Tbs. of Brown Miso (Akamiso) into the soup and that definitely helped give the soup body and eliminated the thin watery taste. I ate several bowls of noodles and noticed that the longer they cooked up to about twenty minutes the softer and puffier they became, so simmering them longer seems better.
After about ½ hour of simmering my last bowl of noodles was a pile of soft noodles that was very delicious.
In the afternoon iI called Suzette to ask about dinner. we talked and decided upon a simple standard dinner that we like very much; Sausages with Braised Cabbage. So I thawed out three sausages (Mild Italian pork sausages from Sunflower Market) and chopped ½ head of red cabbage into strips and diced 1 apple, two cloves, of garlic and ½ cup of onion before Suzette arrived home at around
After a few minutes of rest, Suzette started braising the cabbage by putting butter and olive oil into a large iron skillet and throwing in the cabbage, onion, garlic, apple mixture into the skillet and heating the mixture to medium high. After a few minutes she added about 1 Tbs. of ground cumin (Comino) to the cabbage mixture and turned down the heat to medium. After the cabbage softened somewhat (about twenty minutes), Suzette added ¼ cup of apple cider vinegar, 1 Tbs. of sugar and a bit of salt. Then we cooked the cabbage mixture for an additional ten minutes to make sue it was soft and had absorbed the sweet and sour flavor.
While the cabbage was cooking, Suzette filled a skillet with water and we boiled the sausages and as they expanded, we pricked their skins to let out the air and fat. Then we poured off the water and sautéed them for a minute or two to evaporate some of the water in them and then added some of the garlic infused olive oil to the pan and sautéed them in it until they were slightly browned (about twenty minutes) turning them occasionally.
I broke the ends off 14 stalks of asparagus and filled the steamer and put the asparagus into the steamer. While the cabbage and sausage were cooking, we steamed the asparagus for about 8 minutes.
After fetching four beers from the basement fridge and putting three different mustards and a bottle of horseradish on the table, we were ready to serve. We each took 1 ½ sausages, seven stalks of asparagus and a pile of braised red cabbage and a beer. We dipped slices of sausage into mustard and bits of cabbage and washed them down with beer (Costco’s Kirtland German style beer mixed case $16.99). I found that a mixture of a honey mustard with a bit of mayonnaise we had made for Christmas with a dab of horseradish turned out to be the most flavorful mustard combination for me.
Another wonderful winter meal by the fire place; and wonderfully simple to prepare.
My ancestry is Polish/Russian and Suzette’s is German, so a Northern European dinner like this one is right in our comfort zone.
Bon Appètit
No comments:
Post a Comment