Brief updatey.

[merlinofchaos]

1) The party this weekend went tremendously well. There was a lot of meat. Thanks very much to mallen for inspiration and recipes for the pork and the tri-tip. Though the BBQ sauce was entirely my own.

2) Yesterday I made soup for dinner. I expected it to be so-so but somehow this lazy experiment turned out fab.

It started with a refrigerated chicken stock paste -- Minor's to be exact. I buy it at Costco but i've seen it other places.
The fact that it's a paste makes it a step above boullion and honestly, I think it's a step above most canned stocks,
though it doesn't compare to real, homemade stock. Of course, real homemade stock takes hours and hours to
make and this takes about 5 seconds to grab some amount of and throw it in water.

Next went some powdered Hon-Dashi that I think was originally picked up at Nijiya market, but may have come from Ranch 99. By themselves, neither stock was really the flavor I wanted. Together they worked very well. I added a little powdered garlic cause, well, garlic. You know?

Into the boiling water went: Bay scallops, shrimp, chopped baby bok-choy and some frozen dumplings (all from ranch 99) as well as some regular mushrooms, cut into bite-sized pieces (mostly quarters, some were big mushrooms tho). The shrimp and the scallops cook in no time in boiling water. I had the boil too high--the stove at this house is horrible for fine adjustments, and it took me 6 or 7 tries to find a setting that was between hard boil and no boil.

I thought it was going to be so-so, but the broth turned out fantastic, and the combintion of shrimps, scallops, bok-choy and wonton-like (but not really wontons) dumplings was mighty fine.

I find myself looking forward to more soup.

Comments

[esmerel.livejournal.com]

SO YUMMY SOUPS

[rosminah.livejournal.com]

hey, wow, my boyfriend's nickname is Mallen because he's an M. Allen too. He grumbled when he first signed up on LJ and found that Mallen was taken, and thus he is Supermallen.
If I'd been able to attend your housewarming, it would have been while visiting (my) Mallen and I'd have probably brought him along!
Small world, ain't it.

[merlinofchaos]

Sadly the mallen I refer to moved to Minneapolis recently, so while I've experienced his BBQ I couldn't return the favor to him.

[mallen.livejournal.com]

Tell your mallen that I feel his pain.

We share what seems like the the most common first initial and surname in the English speaking world. Inevitably, if I want to sign up for something on the web, mallen is already gone... except in a few lucky cases. Like here.

Anyway, cheers!

Mark

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

Homemade stock freezes very well. Use cleaned take-out quarts for large quantities and ice cube trays for adding-to-sauce quantities.

What's Hon-Dashi?

[merlinofchaos]

I did, in fact, do that.

Freezer space, even with the extra freezer, is kind of at a premium though. And, well. This stuff is *almost* as good as the stock I made, and contains no MSG, so I'm ok with using it for most things.

Hon-Dashi is Bonito Fish Stock. It's a key ingredient in Miso Soup .

[mallen.livejournal.com]

Glad everything worked out so beautifully! Sorry I missed it, tho. :-)