Soup is my favorite culinary medium. It's flexible, adaptable, comforting, and usually low maintenance. It's also a great way to clear some space in your refrigerator or use up the several pounds of potatoes that have inexplicably invaded your kitchen. But when you're feeling more adventurous, soup is also a great way to get creative. Hence this past week's culinary adventure: bacon miso soup over soba noodles with roasted chicken, shiitake mushrooms, greens, a slow poached egg and quick-pickled cucumbers and radishes.
I adore soups that require assembly just before eating. I have this thing about eating things out of a bowl; I went through a phase in college where I would grab random things from all over the dining hall and heap them into a bowl rather than onto a plate. I love soups that have lots of toppings, like Mexican tortilla soups with avocado and lime and big chunks of chicken, or Thai-style soups with onion, cilantro and chilies. While all-in-one-pot soups can be wonderfully easy and delicious, there's something super satisfying to me about keeping components separate and then combining them at the end in one ultra-happy bowl of goodness.
This soup was inspired - in no small way - by a cookbook I am currently reading called Momofuku (which means "lucky peach" in Japanese), which chronicles the rise and recipes of NYC's wonder-boy David Chang and his 4 (soon to be 5) restaurants under the Momofuku umbrella. The cookbook is very entertaining and definitely up my alley in the way it presents recipes; they start with the bases for dishes (broth, noodles, meat, sauce) and then show you how you can combine those things over and over again in new ways. David Chang also uses seasonal ingredients in many of his dishes, and likes to break tradition by combining flavors and ingredients historically from different cuisines and/or regions. The most famous dish from his first restaurant, Momofuku Noodle Bar, is Momofuku Ramen, and it was the main inspiration for this post's soup. I made a similar version of it recently with my culinary-mentor, Robert, but my version is different in a few crucial ways and I am very, very happy with how it turned out.
Another wonderful thing about soup is that there are always leftovers. And when you make a soup like this, which requires some assembly, it is really easy to change things up and try different toppings the second or third night you eat it. Although I was very happy the first night we ate this soup, it seemed there was a little something missing... Heat - as in spicy heat - would have been one way to fix it, but chili peppers aren't in season and I didn't have any spicy condiments on hand. Instead, I fried up some of the same wonderful local slab bacon I had used to make the broth and served it on the soup as a topping. I also crisped up the leftover chicken by throwing it in a hot pan with some of the bacon grease for a minute or two. The result was a smokier, richer flavor that really brought everything together.
Here's how the soup differed from night to night:
Night #1: Bacon Miso Broth over soba noodles with a roasted chicken, a slow poached egg, shiitake mushrooms, quick cucumber and radish pickles, chopped endive and bok choy tossed in octo vin, green onions, and crunchy rice topping.
Night #2: Same except no poached egg, added bacon, no endive and cooked the bok choy in the broth while it heated.
Night #3: Same as night #2 except no quick pickles, substituted kale for bok choy, and more bacon.
And each night it just got better and better!
I've broken down the recipe into separate components to make it easier to follow:
Slow Poached Eggs:
I love poached eggs, but I have not mastered the art of making them. The first time I tried I achieved a pot full of swirling hot egg white surrounding a yolk. This trick, while more time-consuming, makes the process more fool-proof and also achieves a remarkably soft, luscious poached egg. The idea is simple: heat a large pot of water slowly, until it is between 140 and 145 degrees F, and keep it there by adjusting the heat (you will need some sort of thermometer for this; digital is best, but I used an old-fashioned baker's thermometer). Use something - a colander insert, tin foil pouch, anything - to suspend the eggs in the water so that they aren't touching the bottom. Then simply place the eggs - still in their shells! - into the water and poach for 45 min, keeping the water temp constant. You may need to turn the heat completely off, or even add a couple of ice cubes if necessary. The end result is a lovely poached egg that you can crack right into your bowl at the table. They can also sit for a while and then be reheated slightly in a bowl of warm water.
Quick Pickled Cucumbers and Radishes:
These are my new favorite thing. Slice some cucumbers or radishes or both, toss them in a bowl with a 3:1 ratio of sugar to salt, and let stand for 10 minutes, and "voila!" You now have scrumptious, bright, tangy pickled veggies that are great eaten by themselves but also add a sweet and salty punch as a topping to other dishes (like this soup). Kirby cucumbers are best because they're firmer, but I think other cukes will work just fine. I used one medium Kirby cucumber and a handful of small radishes and added about a TB of sugar and a tsp of salt. Stir together and let stand 10 minutes. I also added a splash of rice vinegar at the end, just for fun (and flavor). These are incredibly yummy, and they were still incredibly yummy the following night.
Octo Vin:
This sauce is adapted from the Momofuku cookbook; it is good on pretty much anything! I didn't have chilis or any kind of chili/spicy product, but you can definitely add some to give this a 'kick'.
2 TB finely chopped garlic
2 TB chopped fresh ginger
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 TB grapeseed or olive oil
1/4 tsp Asian sesame oil
1 1/2 TB sugar
black pepper
Mix ingredients together; toss a few TB's with some bitter greens and serve over soup or on the side...or simply spoon some onto the soup itself!
Bacon Miso Broth:
In Momofuku cookbook, the base for their ramen broth is a "Bacon Dashi," dashi being a traditional Japanese soup base normally made with katsuo-bushi (dried fish flakes), and the bacon being Chang's ingenious way of mimicking the smokiness of katsuo-bushi. I didn't have the time or resources to follow Chang's entire recipe for Ramen Broth, but I did borrow the bacon idea. I made my usual homemade chicken broth, but with Asian ingredients like ginger and green onions, and, of course, bacon. The bacon really went a long way, in a good way. But I had also bought some fresh red miso, so I went out on a limb and made bacon miso broth. The sweetness of the miso balanced the smokiness of the bacon.
3-4 quarts homemade or store-bought chicken broth
1 quart water
1 bunch green onions
2 TB ginger, roughly chopped
1/4 lb slab bacon
1/4 cup dried or fresh shiitake mushrooms
about 1 cup fresh miso, red or white (I used red)
Bring all ingredients to boil, reduce heat, simmer for 45 minutes, skimming fat/foam off the top every now and then. Remove bacon and large vegetables, strain broth through cheese cloth/fine mesh strainer. Place clarified broth back in pot, reheat; once hot, add miso, little by little, to taste. At this point you can add any mushrooms or greens that you want to be slightly cooked, for 10-20 minutes.
Momofuku-style Bowl of Goodness Miso Soup:
bacon broth (recipe above)
1 box soba or other Asian noodles, fresh or dried
1 chicken, whole or broken down
2 cups shiitake mushrooms
2 cups baby bok choy, Belgian endive, or other bitter green, chopped
smoked slab bacon
quick pickled cucumbers and radishes (recipe below)
octo vin sauce(recipe below)
2 slow poached eggs (1 per bowl)
green onion, white and green parts thinly sliced
puffed crunchy rice topping (for fun)
Start the water for slow-poached eggs. You will need a large pot, and you need to heat the water slowly. Once the water reaches 140 degrees F, follow the instructions above and poach for 45 minutes.
Brush chicken with sesame oil or olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and roast at 450 degrees (30-40 minutes for a broken down chicken, longer for a whole one). Carve into nice large chunks, with skin still on (skin should be crisp from high heat).
Make the octo vin sauce (recipe above). Refrigerate until needed.
You can either chop the mushrooms and greens and cook/heat in the finished broth for about 20 minutes or leave the greens raw and toss with octo vin sauce.
Fry the bacon in a skillet or in the oven until crisp, place in paper towel to drain grease, slice into 2 inch pieces.
Cook the soba or other noodles as directed on the package (if poached eggs are finished, bring the eggs' water to a boil and use to cook the noodles) It's fine if they sit and get cool because you will be pouring piping hot broth over them!
Slice the cucumber into 1/4 inch rounds, thinly slice the radishes, and toss with 1 TB sugar and 1 tsp salt. Let sit 10 minutes, then adjust seasoning as desired. Add a splash of rice vinegar if you like.
When everything is ready and broth is hot, arrange noodles, chicken and bacon in bowl, top with broth, crack in egg, top with any veggies, green onions, crunchy rice topping, etc., and drizzle with octo vin sauce. Then enjoy!
Happy Eating!
No comments:
Post a Comment