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CONTENTS:
Hello, and welcome back to the Hi Arbor. Let's
sit beneath the arbor and
have a cup of tea or a cup of soup in the waning days of winter.
I've had a lot
going on lately so today's newsletter is short, but there is a
wonderful new
soup recipe from my mother, and the information about cardamom
is
interesting. I'll get to the permission to use items I've told
some of you about
as soon as I can. If you have recipes, information or
suggestions, please
send them to HiarborNews@aol.com. The next issue of this
newsletter will
go out on April 15, 2004.
Take care.
Roxanne
This is the third
anniversary issue of the Hi Arbor newsletter. Below is the very
first recipe to appear in the newsletter. It was given to me by
my mother, is simple and delicious.
MUSHROOM-BARLEY SOUP
4 cups water
1 tablespoon oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup frozen mixed vegetables
3 or 4 white button mushrooms, sliced
1/3 cup 10-minute barley
salt and pepper to taste
Sauté onion and garlic in oil 2-3 minutes. Add water and
bring to a boil. Add mixed vegetables and barley. Lower
heat and simmer 20-25 minutes stirring occasionally.
Here is the wonderful new recipe from my mother.
I have not tasted it, but my stepfather thinks it's great. It
sure looks good. If you don't yet know how, it is a chance to
learn how to make egg drop soup, and it's a chance to learn
about mung bean thread noodles, something I want to do.
MUNG BEAN THREAD NOODLE SOUP
Serves 2 as a meal; 4-6 as an appetizer.
In the broth for this soup which I'll let you name, I use a
little "oyster sauce", a common ingredient in many Oriental
dishes. First of all, o.s. doesn't have any oysters in it...it
consists of: Water, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, modified food
starch, salt, vinegar, yeast, spices, seasoning, imitation fish
flavor, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (added as
preservatives). It is brown in color and has a thick,
smooth gravy consistency. It doesn't necessarily taste like
oysters, it has a slightly smoky flavor, but maybe it got it's
name from Orientals using it as an oyster dipping sauce. I don't
know, but it does lend a very unique flavor to Oriental dishes.
It is fairly expensive, but a little goes a long way and you
must refrigerate it after opening. It is sorta like an Oriental
condiment. It is available in most large supermarkets like
Kroger, in the Oriental Foods section. My favorite dish using
this sauce is abalone in oyster sauce... expensive, but
delicious.
About the bean threads, the ingredients are simple: Mung bean
flour, starch and water. Mung beans are also the tiny,
green-pea-like beans from which the common bean sprout comes.
The angel-hair-like threads are resilient and do not snap
readily like pasta. They take on a "glass-like" transparency
when cooked and are chewy. They usually come in packages of 4
"pillows" of threads, sort of like shredded wheat. When cooked,
one pillow is usually enough to feed two people for one meal.
As most Oriental cookbooks demonstrate, many dishes are prepared
in segments, then combined before serving. Much of this is to
prevent overcooking. The vegetables in Oriental cooking are
usually "crisp", not mushy from overcooking. The same applies to
noodles, rice, bean thread or other "starch".
RECIPE
For the broth:
2 14.5 oz cans of vegetable broth (or equivalent from vegetable
bouillon)
1/2 t oyster sauce
l/8 t sesame oil
1/8 t 5-spices seasoning (available in Oriental or spice section
of most
major super-markets)
1/4 t garlic powder (optional)
1 T corn starch
In medium saucepan, bring 1 can of vegetable broth just to a
boil. Add next 4 ingredients, stirring well to blend, reduce
heat to medium. Simmer 5 minutes. Meanwhile, mix remaining can
of vegetable broth with corn starch, stirring well to remove all
lumps. Slowly add cooler mixture to hot seasoned broth, stirring
to blend well without "gobbing" up. Continue cooking and
stirring until broth has reached consistency of very thin gravy.
Note: If recipe is completed for immediate serving, cover
broth and keep warm. Otherwise, the broth may be covered and
refrigerated for later rewarming and recipe completion and
serving.
For the bean thread:
Bring 1 qt water (preferably unsalted, the broth contains ample
salt) to a boil. Stir in 1 "pillow" of bean thread as described
above, breaking loose the threads with a fork as they begin to
cook. Cook until desired tenderness, 5-10 minutes. Rinse in cold
water to prevent overcooking then strain. Note: If the soup is
to be served immediately, the bean thread may be cooked in the
broth, taking care not to overcook.
For the vegetables:
Stir fry over high heat in 1 T olive oil and 1/2 t sesame oil, 2
C of desired vegetables, i.e. Oriental mixtures found in the
produce department of most major markets (or frozen/thawed),
yellow onion slivered, bamboo shoots, Chinese cabbage thinly
shredded, mushrooms, celery sliced, carrots thinly sliced, cut
spinach, water chestnuts sliced, peanuts, 3-5 minutes, to
desired tenderness.
For egg drop (optional):
1 egg
3/4 t olive oil
1/4 t sesame oil
Beat egg and oils together until well blended. Set aside.
For garnish (optional):
2 green onions slivered lengthwise, then cut in 1-2 inch
lengths.
To serve:
To just-at-boiling-point broth in saucepan (with or without bean
thread), fine-drizzle all the egg mixture over surface of broth
without stopping (optional). Egg will cook as it hits broth. Add
bean thread if not already done. Add stir-fried and still warm
vegetables. Heat just until all is hot through.
Ladle up in large dinner bowls and sprinkle top with green
onion. Have soy
sauce available for individual taste.
This is one of my recipes.
It can be eaten as as side dish or more water
or broth added to make a soup.
CURRIED POTATOES
1 TB oil
6 small new potatoes
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 ts curry powder
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup water
1 ts lemon juice
pinch of basil
Wash potatoes and cut into quarters. In a skillet sauté in oil
until potatoes start to brown. Remove potatoes from skillet and
set aside. Add onion to skillet and sauté, then add water, curry
powder, salt and pepper. Stir to combine then return potatoes to
pan and stir to coat potatoes with curry and water. Heat water
until it bubbles then reduce heat to low, cover pan and let
potatoes steam for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Just
before serving, stir in lemon juice and sprinkle potatoes with
basil. Cover and turn off heat. Let flavors mingle a few minutes
before serving.
CARDAMOM:
While grocery shopping with a friend, I wanted to get some
cardamom. We were both shocked at how expensive it was. I didn't
buy it might try it later. However, the price made me curious
about the spice, which I don't think I have ever used.
According to "Funk & Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary" cardamom
is "The aromaticseeds of either of two Asian plants of the
ginger family."
"All About Cardamom' below comes from the following web address.
As an interesting aside, as i understand it, Slainte" is Gaelic
for "health".
http://www.avalon.net/~slainte/cardamom.html
ALL ABOUT CARDAMOM
Cardamom, sometimes called Grains of Paradise, is a pungent,
aromatic herb first used around the eighth century, and is a
native of India. It was probably imported into Europe around
A.D. 1214.
Today, cardamom is cultivated in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka,
Guatemala, Mexico, Thailand and Central America. The spice known
as cardamom is the fruit of several plants of the genera
Elettaria belonging to the family Zingiberaceae, whose principal
member is Elletaria Cardamomum. The plant it self is a perennial
herb with a thick, fleshy rootstock which sends up flowering
stems from 6 to 12 feet high.
Cardamom is usually purchased either
in seed pods: In its "decorticated" form, that is, taken
out of the seed pods: or, the seeds are ground into a powder.
This last is the most common form in which cardamom is sold.
Cardamom is used in a variety of
cuisines today, primarily in and around the Indian subcontinent
and in Scandinavia. And last, but not least, some cardamom
trivia!
...in Icelandic, it's called
Kardamomma!
The End
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