Wednesday, December 7, 2016

December 6, 2016 Lunch – Vietnamese Pho Miso Noodle Soup. Dinner – Shrimp Scampi on German Egg Noodles

December 6, 2016  Lunch – Vietnamese Pho Miso Noodle Soup. Dinner – Shrimp Scampi on German Egg Noodles

Yesterday Willy and I split four small plates of Dim Sum at Amerasia ($4.00 each); 3 chicken with peanuts dumplings, 2 bag su, fried tofu stuffed with shitake mushroom and wood ear threads, and. Bowl of rice with BBQ pork.

For dinner we ate a PPI turkey dinner and it upset Suzette’s stomach and she threw it up. Yuck.

Today I ate yogurt, granola, milk, and vitamin powder for breakfast.

At noon I made my favorite soup with ¼ cup of PPI rib steak, 2 sliced beef meatballs, 1 T. of wakame seaweed threads, 1 sliced shallot, 1 heaping T. of red miso, 3 or 4 oz. of soft tofu, I sliced stalk of celery, three diced asparagus, a Pho seasoning cube, a handful each of mung bean thread noodles and broad rice noodles, four egg whites, and garnished with two thinly sliced green onions. The coolest discovery of this meal was I poured in the egg whites and let them cook without stirring the soup for several minutes while I attended to some business and when I returned the egg whites had blossomed into mounds of meringue.  This was a new discovery.

I loved the soft meringue and hope to replicate the effect again in the future.

After lunch I thawed out a lb. of 16 to 20 count shrimp for dinner and chilled the newly purchased bottle of Gavi Princessa ($12.14 Total Wine after a 10% discount).  At 6:00 I walked to the garden and picked a handful of oregano and chard.

Suzette was on an over one hour long telephone call with Verizon in which she found out that her new I phone was previously owned and the previous owner had put in a password that blocked her ability to open the phone.  So much for the thrill of receiving a new phone.  Her occupation with the phone call left me free to cook dinner.

Shrimp Scampi

 I diced 1/3 of a yellow onion, five cloves of garlic and put it in a bowl.

Then I diced two tomatoes and put the tomato in a separate no else.

I sliced four large mushrooms and put the slices in a separate bowl.

Finally I de-stemmed the chard and oregano leaves and about ¼ cup of parsley and put that in a separate bowl.

After everything was sliced and in separate bowls, I fetched the bottle of dry white vermouth and heated 1 1/2T. of butter and 1 T. Of Spanish olive oil in a large skillet.

I then sautéed the onion and garlic for a minute or two over medium heat until it began to soften.

I then added the mushrooms and sautéed them for about five minutes until they were coated with oil and began to soften.

Then I added the tomatoes and about 2 tsp. of capers and cooked the mixture for a few more minutes.

Finally, I added the bowl with the chard, parsley, and oregano leaves and a bit more dry vermouth and covered the skillet with my wok cover and steamed the mixture for a few minutes.  Suzette finally finished her call and came to the kitchen and I added the shrimp and the juice of ¼ lemon and cooked the dish covered for about another five minutes, turning the large shrimp once to cook throughout.

Finally, Suzette heated the PPI egg noodles and we spooned  a small pile of noodles into a pasta bowl and mounded the shrimp mixture on top of it and garnished the dish with fresh grated Pecorino Romano cheese.

We filled our wine glasses with Gavi Princessa.  Gavi Princessa is my favorite white Italian wine with fresh seafood.  It has good tannins and fruitiness without a lot of character to interfere with the food’s flavors.

This was a very successful dinner, simple ingredients combined into a pleasant dish that allowed the ingredients to mix and yet keep a lot of their individual characteristics.  How could these huge shrimp not retain their individual characteristic.  I cut some of them into thirds and each 1/3 was still a lot of shrimp.

I ate chocolates with cognac after dinner.

Bon Appetit

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