“I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, & that, not as an aliment so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet.”–Thomas Jefferson
Veg and Fruit
Month: July 2019
Edible Plants
“Homegrown is the Way it Should Be.”–Neil Young
Hand Cranked Tools
Screw electricity. Get some exercise and cook at the same time. Crank it up!
Soup
Soup for the soul, whether chicken, or not.
Egg Drop Soup with German Egg Pasta and Oyster Mushrooms
Let’s time travel a bit, and go to Mr. Ho’s Chinese Restaurant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, during the 1980’s. My girlfriend Melanie Jane (now wife) and I had only one extravagance–eating at Mr. Ho’s every week. We went so often that the waiters began to recognize us. Here’s one exchange.
Waiter: You two brother sister?
For the record, I had black hair and green eyes, and Melanie Jane is a classic German-American, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Not much resemblance.
Me: I hope not.
Side note: I once wrote for a magazine who had an editor who was something of an expletive. He had a little 3×5 card with one sentence on it, that he would carry around, and he would ask people what was wrong with it. The sentence, that is.
Me: Why do you carry a file card around with you, that has one sentence on it?
Editor: To see if people can tell that it’s missing an antecedent.
Me: In Alabama, we’ve been known to marry our antecedents.
True enough.
Any who, back to Mr. Ho’s. After my “I hope not” answer, the waiter said the following:
Waiter: Hahahahahahaha. All you people look alike to me, anyway.
That joker did not get a tip that day.
Mr. Ho’s is long gone, but I can still make some Chinese-German-Southern light soup for a hot Summer’s night.
Ingredients
Poultry Stock (Chicken, Turkey, or Duck)
Oyster Mushrooms, Rehydrated and Chopped
Oyster Mushroom Water
Fine German Egg Pasta (the brand we use is Riesa)
1/2 Vidalia Onion, chopped and sauteed
One Egg, beaten
Soy Sauce (a few drops)
Salt and Pepper
The stock is the main ingredient. I actually strained the mushroom water through a paper towel this time, a la Marcella Hazan, and all of Italy. The Oyster mushrooms were a freebie from our dried mushroom vendor, after MJ ordered a cartload of Morels for me last Christmas. They are excellent in the soup.
Let the mushrooms simmer while the onion is cooked in olive oil. After those two join each other in holy matrimony, drizzle in the egg while whipping the soup with a fork: hence the name, Egg Drop. Serve with egg rolls if you got them, toast or crackers if you don’t. And try to not marry one of your antecedents.
Pie
Sweet and savory, but mostly savory recipes here.
Brick Oven
Grab some wood, cook some food, learn how to use a brick oven. You can get one pre-fabricated, hire someone to build one, or DIY. I took the last route, so I know whereof I speak.
Chicken
Our favorite chicken recipes, cooked with a Southern accent.
Breakfast
For your cooking pleasure, a smattering of breakfast recipes.
Soft Scrambled Eggs
Seriously, a post about how to scramble eggs? I would have thought the same thing a few years ago, before the great English food writer Elizabeth David caught my eye. Jane Grigson, an equally talented writer, gave me my first account of David, in what has become one of my all time favorite books, published under various titles, but now sold as Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery. There, Grigson discusses several of David’s recipes from her book French Country Cooking. I immediately bought a three books in one collection of her work, published by the appropriately named Biscuit Books. I now own four of her books, each better than the last.
David hated overly complex and pretentious food, and instead focused on the real thing, such as perfectly scrambled eggs. Her method is superb, taken from a French country cook. The secret is to cook the eggs at the lowest temperature possible, which is something of an antithesis to the more common get your stove as hot as a flamethrower approach. Here’s my paraphrase. This is a two person version.
Ingredients
2 Eggs, Beaten
Salt and Pepper
Heat up a skillet coated with olive oil–I like these Lodge carbon steel ones. Turn the stove down to minimum temp, and let the skillet cool off for a bit. Then pour in the seasoned eggs, and do nothing. Wait until the egg begins to set, and s-l-o-w-l-y stir the eggs with a fork. I always prefer wood utensils, so I made my own.
The eggs should cook slowly, so it is much simpler to serve it at the soft, creamy stage that is the goal of using this method. After a couple of tries, cooking this way will become second nature. It doesn’t hurt any to begin with quality pasture raised eggs, either.
Southern Fusion Cooking 