Vietnamese Tomato-Noodle Soup

Vietnamese Tomato-Noodle Soup

Here's a warming noodle soup. So good yet I've never seen it available in any restaurant. Then The Wonder Woman introduced it to me and now it's one of my all-time favourite dishes. It's called soup but there's not much liquid in it, as you can see from the photo. Very satisfying.

The Wonder Woman says this is a modified version. The original recipe uses meat from small crabs. Just another way to use every bit of the crab.

Like a lot of Asian dishes, this needs lots of prep up front then the cooking time is fairly short.

This recipe is enough for 3 - 4 large bowls. And these bowls really are larger than your typical soup bowl.

Some ingredients

Soup ingredients

• peanut oil for frying
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
• 250 g ground pork (1/2 lb) (optional)
• 2 x 160 g cans of chopped shrimp or crab with spices (we use one of each). Use only one can if you want a taste that's not as strong, but we like two.
• 1.5 l water (6 cups)
• 3 tomatoes, chopped
• 1 egg, broken into a bowl and gently mixed (optional)
• 125 ml coriander leaves, washed and chopped (1/2 cup)
• 125 ml bean sprouts (1/2 cup)
• 5 ml fish sauce (1 tsp) or to taste

More ingredients

Toppings for the bowl

• 200 g rice vermicelli, soaked in warm water for several hours
• 1 lime, sliced into wedges
• 1 head of leaf lettuce
• 100 g bean sprouts (1/4 lb)
• tofu puffs, 4 - 5 puffs per bowl, prepared as below (optional)
• shrimp, 4 - 5 per bowl, depending on size, prepared as below (optional)

Cans of spiced prawns

Shrimp just about finished frying

Shrimp

Here's how to prepare the best fried shrimp you'll ever have. We purchase frozen shrimp that are of size 31 - 40 per pound, uncooked with the shell on. Those are the most flavourful. Defrost the shrimp in a bowl of cold water on the countertop. After defrosting, shell them. Put the meat back into the bowl and season lightly with salt and pepper. Let them sit in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Start the frying pan on medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add a bit of oil and add the shrimp. Saute for a short time. Turn the shrimp once. Remove the shrimp to a plate once it's just turned pink. It's important to not overcook the shrimp. Otherwise they'll be tough and rubbery.

Take the shrimp out of the pan, place them on a plate then set them aside until assembling the soup.

Bow-Tie Calico inspects the tofu puffs before they're put under the broiler

Tofu puffs

Rinse the tofu puffs in warm water to get rid of the oil. Drain. Slice the puffs in half, season them with some garlic powder and salt and arrange in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Toast lightly under a broiler until crisp and barely turning brown. Remove from the broiler and set them aside until you put the soup together.


Make the soup broth

Heat a wok or deep frying pan over medium high heat. Add some peanut oil when the pan is hot. Add the garlic to the wok and saute for a short time.

Add the ground pork if using. Break it up and fry until it's no longer pink.

Garlic and a can of spiced prawns

Add a can of spiced shrimp and stir and fry for a couple of minutes.

Add the water and the second can of spiced shrimp or crab. Cover and bring to a boil.

Just after adding the tomatos

Add the tomatoes. Return the soup to a boil and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Adding the coriander

Add the bean sprouts, the coriander and the egg. Stir gently to mix the egg into the broth. Bring everything back to a boil and it's ready to serve.

Ready for the bowl

Assembly

1. Place the rice noodles in the bowls.
2. Pour the soup broth on top.
3. Arrange lettuce leaves, shrimp, tofu puffs, sprouts and lime wedges on top.

Serve

Serve with a spoon and chopsticks (or fork). Squeeze the lime wedges into the soup and dig in. Have your favourite hot sauce available for those who like it spicy!

Pork Dumplings

Dumplings and dipping sauce

Pork dumplings, or pot stickers as they're sometimes called, are one of the main staples of some Chinese restaurants. For good reason, as well-made and well-cooked dumplings are such a treat.

The Wonder Woman introduced me to her homemade dumplings early in our relationship and I've learned to wrap them from her. There's definitely a knack to it. It took me several sessions to get good at it, and at first the initial few dumplings were kind of ugly and sometimes came apart during cooking. Each time, though, I slipped into the groove faster and faster.

We've since tried two vegetarian variations on the fillings. We'll cover those in later postings. Pork is the most popular so we'll start there.

We sometimes make our own dumpling wrappers but not this time. That will be a topic for a future post. They taste better but require much more work. But today, here's how to work with store-bought wrappers.

When buying dumpling wrappers, try to get as fresh as possible. We always select ones that are manufactured in our city, as they've had shorter travel from factory to store shelf. We are lucky in that respect. You may not be as lucky, so just get the freshest you can.


The Filling

Chopping the napa cabbage

• 250 g ground pork (1/2 lb)
• 6 cloves garlic, minced finely or crushed
• 1 ginger, size of ping pong ball or to taste, finely grated
• 6 napa cabbage leaves, chopped into small strips, about 2 cm long by 1/2 cm wide. this adds some crunch to the dumplings
• 5 ml light soya sauce (1 tsp)
• 2 ml sugar (1/2 tsp)
• 1 ml salt (1/3 tsp)
• fresh-ground black pepper

Ground pork

Mix everything together in a bowl.

Ready to wrap

Prepare to assemble

Get the bowl of filling, a small bowl of cold water, a package of wrappers and a large tray like a cookie sheet lined with wax paper for the finished dumplings. Keep the wrapper package closed until the last minute, and don't take out more than a few wrappers at a time. Get a damp, clean kitchen towel or paper towels to cover the wrapped dumplings to prevent them from drying out.


Assembly

Take a wrapper. There is usually one side of the wrapper that has more flour than the other. Try to wrap it so the flour side is facing out. That way, it forms a bit of a crust when fried to makes the dumpling crunchier.

Place a spoonful of filling on to the center of the wrapper. Do not overfill or the wrapper will come open when cooking. Dip a finger in the water and rub it around the outside of the wrapper to moisten. Fold the wrapper in half to seal into a half-moon shape. To be extra fancy, pleat one edge as demonstrated in the video. It's important to seal the wrapper to prevent it from falling apart when cooking.

Place the wrapper on the tray. They can be frozen at this point or are ready for cooking.

Ready to cook or freeze

For freezing, put them on a tray lined with wax paper and pop them in the freezer. After a day, remove the dumplings from the tray and put them into an airtight plastic freezer bag.  When cooking, no need to defrost, just go straight into the frying pan. Increase the steaming phase by a few minutes.


Dipping sauce 1

• ginger, finely julienned
• red vinegar

Place some julienned ginger in a small bowl and cover with red vinegar.

Ginger and red vinegar

Dipping sauce 2

• light soya sauce
• sesame seed oil

Simply pour a small amount of light soya sauce into a small bowl and serve with the dumplings.


Fry the dumplings

Heat a fry pan over medium heat. Add about a 15 ml (1 tbsp) of peanut oil. Place the dumplings into the pan. With your fingers, move the dumplings a bit to make sure they don't stick to the pan. Periodically check the bottom to make sure it browns nicely.

Placing the dumplings in the pan

Once the dumplings are brown on the bottom, pour about 75 ml (1/4 c) of water into the pan. Cover the pan, reduce the heat to medium low and let steam for about 10 minutes.

Steaming

After 10 minutes, remove the cover from the frypan and cook an additional 5 minutes until the dumplings are dry once again. Move the dumplings from time to time to keep them from sticking too badly. (There's a reason they're called pot stickers!)

Nicely browned

Serve

Arrange on a plate and serve with dipping sauce. Provide your favourite hot sauce for those who like them spicy!

Pumpkin Chiffon Pie

Pumpkin Chiffon Pie

Another month, another pie. And another seasonal one as well. Pumpkin, that fall classic, is as much as home at Thanksgiving as it is at Halloween. Or, for that matter, at any other time when pumpkin is available. No need to wait for a special occasion. We didn't.

Pie pumpkins, as they're called, show up everywhere these days, at least here in North America, and are very easy to turn into the smooth-textured, orange and tasty ingredient that makes you feel so much more confident in your pie than the canned version. According to most sources I've heard from, you can't even count on the canned pumpkin containing real pumpkin. That's not to say that they're no good for pies; of course they are. But saying "pumpkin pie" sounds so much better that "squash pie."

You could use the jack-o-lantern pumpkins for pie, but they're not as sweet, and are stringier in texture. So make it easy on yourself and get a pie pumpkin.

A little bit of a twist on traditional pumpkin pie, we opted for chiffon. That's a fancy way of saying it's fluffy from incorporating beaten egg whites. Sort of like an angel cake is fluffy.

What follows is a multi-stage preparation to produce the pie. None of it is difficult, but it does take a bit of time. Luckily, you can do everything ahead of serving time, and when it's time to serve, you simply take it out of the refrigerator, top with whipped cream and serve! That makes it the ideal finale for any meal where you want to impress.





Part 1: Prepare the Pumpkin

Using the pie recipe below, we found that one average pie pumpkin, 25 to 30 cm, is enough for about 3 pies. So you may want to make more pies and freeze them, or simply freeze the extra pumpkin for later use. Pumpkin is also good for spice bread, muffins and lots of other treats. Here's how to prepare it. You'll need a steamer, or a large bowl for the microwave.

Cut open

1. Wash and gently scrub the pumpkin in cold or warm water. Don't use soap.
2. Using a sharp knife, cut the pumpkin in half. 
3. Remove the stringy insides with a spoon. Save the seeds, if desired, to roast them as described below. 
4. Remove the stem and cut the remaining pumpkin into pieces to fit into your steamer or bowl. 
5. Cooking with a Steamer method: Boil enough water and cook the pumpkin for 20 minutes. 
6. Cooking with a Microwave method: Put water in the bottom of the bowl, add the pumpkin and microwave it for about 20 minutes. You'll need to periodically stir or re-arrange the pieces for even cooking. Watch the water doesn't boil over. 
7. The pumpkin is cooked when it is soft for a fork. 
8. Remove the outer skin using a sharp knife. 
9. Place the remaining pumpkin in a food processor or bowl. Puree or mash it. At this point you may make your pie, or freeze the unused portion in an airtight container.

Scooping the inside

In the steamer

Removing the skin

Puree in a mixer

Part 2: Pumpkin Seeds

If you like pumpkin seeds, you can roast them. We think they taste good but are too small and much work so don't always make them. One pumpkin does not provide many seeds but they're tasty.

1. Remove the seeds from the stringy parts of the pumpkin 
2. Wash the seeds. The best way I found is to put them in a bowl of water and rub them with your hands. The seeds float and the pumpkin "strings" sink. 
3. Place the seeds on a cookie sheet or other oven pan. 
4. Optionally season the seeds with melted butter combined with garlic, lemon, green herbs like dried basil or just about anything else you like. 
5. Place the pan in a low oven 150 C (275 F) for about 20 minutes more or less, depending on how wet the seeds were. You should stir them every 5 minutes to make sure they are evenly cooked. Be sure to watch them closely as they can burn easily. They are done when they are dried and slightly brown. 
6. Cool 
7. Enjoy. Crack the shell and eat the insides.

Ready to bako

Ready to eat

Part 3: Pumpkin Chiffon Pie 

 Here are the ingredients for one pie. You'll need a baked pie shell, about 25 cm (9 in). Please look at our pastry recipe for Rhubarb-Strawberry pie, or make your own, or purchase one. But you'll only need a single crust.

For this recipe, you'll need a double boiler. Or do as we did and use two pots, one to fit inside the other.

 Ingredients:

• 1 envelope unflavoured gelatin (7 g or 1 Tbsp) 
• 125 ml cold water (1/2 cup) 
• 4 eggs, separated 250 ml evaporated milk (1 cup) 
• 250 ml pumpkin, either prepared as above or canned (1 cup)
• 180 ml brown sugar (or white sugar if you prefer) (3/4 cup) 
• 2 ml salt (1/2 tsp) 2 ml nutmeg (1/2 tsp) 
• 2 ml ground cinnamon (1/2 tsp) 
• 1 ml ground ginger (1/4 tsp) 
• 250 ml whipping cream, whipped (1 cup)

 Instructions:

1. Dissolve gelatin in cold water. Set aside to soften. 
2. In double boiler heat the egg yolks, milk, pumpkin, 1/2 cup brown sugar and spices. Cook, stirring for 10 minutes. 
3. Remove the mixture from heat, add gelatin, stirring until dissolved. Refrigerate until it's thick. It needs to be thick to combine with the egg whites in the next step. Otherwise the egg whites will float to the top. 
4. Beat egg whites until stiff. Fold into pumpkin mixture. 
5. Pour into the pie shell and refrigerate until ready to serve. 
6. Whip the cream and give everyone a spoonful on their slice (the size of the spoon is open to interpretation).

Whipping the egg whites

Our makeshift double boiler

Baked crust

And enjoy!

After refrigeration

We know Bow-Tie Calico did!

Approve!

Peach Pie

What it is about pies? We've made 3 in the past 3 months. And in the five years before that? None. Anyway, pies are best with fresh fruit and summer wins that category.

This time, it's peach pie. At a nearby farmers' market, a local peach grower had some great-looking organic peaches, so we bought a couple of boxes for eight dollars. I was surprised to learn a local peach grower existed as I didn't think the local climate was suitable.

In any case, the peaches were firm, ripe, a little lighter in colour and somewhat smaller than our typical supermarket peaches. We made sure to sample one before starting the pie to find out how sweet they were. Turns out they were about medium sweet and tasted good. Once we adjusted the sugar in the recipe, they would make a dee-lish pie. And we were right.

You'll need pastry for a two-crust pie. See the ingredients and instructions in our recipe for our rhubarb and strawberry pie.

The Wonder Woman made rolled out the crust for this one. She had seen it done a couple of times so knew the techniques involved.

Another pie-making tip we learned from the Admiral Catnap (retired) was to prepare the filling ahead of time and store it in an airtight bag in the fridge. This makes rolling the pastry and assembing the pie very fast, as time is of the essence when working with pastry -- gotta keep it cold. And all that is required is to dump the contents of the bag into the pie. The process showed us how juicy the peaches were because the three hours in the fridge turned the mixture from just moist into pretty much a soupy consistency.

Makes one 9 inch pie.

Filling ingredients

• 1 l (4 cups) of peeled, pitted and sliced peaches. See the tip below for how to peel peaches.
• 180 ml (1 1/4 cups) white sugar
• 60 g flour (1/2 cup) flour
• 5 ml (1 tsp) of nutmeg or cinnamon, or a combination of the two
• The juice of 1 lemon
• 60 ml butter, in chunks
• more white sugar, to sprinkle on the pie just after baking.

Put it together

Combine the peaches, sugar, flour, spice(s) and lemon juice.

After pouring the filling into the bottom crust, dot the chunks of butter on top.

Put the top crust in place and press the edges of the crust together with a fork. Slash holes in the top crust to allow steam to escape.

Bake in a 180 C (350 F) oven for 60 minutes. Be sure to place a cookie tray underneath to catch any drips. This can be very juicy and potentially very messy pie.

Place the pie on a rack to cool, and sprinkle white sugar on top while still hot for a sparkly look.

Once cooled enough to eat, tuck in.  Ice cream or whipped cream are good accompaniments. Yum!

Bow-Tie Calico gave a less predictable response.  She approved of the peaches but not, it seems, of the pie.

Tip: to peel the peaches

Prepare two large bowls of water, one boiling, the other ice water

On one end of the peach, cut an X in the skin

Put the peach into the boiling water for about 30 seconds

Move the peach to the ice water for at least 30 seconds. This stops any cooking that may have started.

Use a table knife or small sharp knife to peel the skin. It almost slides off by itself.

Ginger Sparkle Cookies

This is an old family favourite of mine, passed down from the Admiral Catnap (retired), same as the Strawberry-Rhubarb pie.  Well, not exactly the same recipe because I altered it a bit.  But don't worry, I will tell you both versions so you can make up your own mind whch to make.  Either way, you'll end up with a great tasting cookie that will disappear faster than you can say "thank you Admiral Catnap (retired)."

One of the main alterations to the Admiral's recipe is the addition of candied ginger.  Not just any will do, though.  We looked many places for ginger strong enough for the ginger taste to outweigh the sugar.  Turns out the bulk bins at a local supermarket had the best.  Here in the Calico Kitchen, we all love the taste of ginger.  And you don't need to worry about this overpowering the taste of the cookie because even the strongest candied ginger we found was subdued after combining with the rest of the ingredients.

Another change was omitting some sugar.  There was just too much in my opinion and even the revised recipe tastes very sweet.  But, take your choice.  It'll be fabulous either way.

Here are the ingredients for the modified recipe.

The dry ingredients:

• 250g (2 cups) whole wheat flour
• 2 ml (1/2 tsp) ground cloves
• 5 ml (1 tsp) ground cinnamon
• 5 ml (1 tsp) ground ginger
• 10 ml (2 tsp) baking soda
• 2 ml (1/2 tsp) salt

The wet ingredients:

• 180 ml (3/4 cup) butter
• 60 ml (1/4 cup) molasses
• 1 egg

• 375 ml (1 1/2 cups) candied ginger, chopped finely
•  white granulated sugar in a bowl for rolling

The original recipe has the following changes:

• Add 250 ml (1 cup) brown sugar, packed, to the wet ingredients
• Use white flour instead of whole wheat
• Omit the candied ginger

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180 C (375 F).

Mix the dry ingredients in a small bowl.

In a larger bowl, cream the wet ingredients together.

The wet ingredients after some mixing

Add the dry ingredients and the candied ginger to the wet ingredients and mix well. 

The dry ingredients added to the wet ingredients

This will get very thick.  This is OK.

After mixing.  Nice and thick with ginger chunks

Using your hands, shape the dough into 2 cm balls.  Then roll the balls in a bowl of granulated sugar -- this adds the sparkle!.  Place the balls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Alternatively, you can grease a cookie sheet instead of using the parchment.  The cookies should be at least 5 cm apart.

Roll the balls in sugar

Use a fork to flatten the cookies.

Flattening the cookies on the baking sheet

Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes.  After they're done, remove to a rack and cool slightly.

Makes about two dozen cookies.

If your house is anything like ours, these will disappear soon.  I had intended to take some to the office but there were none left the next day!

Next time, I'll double the recipe and see if that helps with having enough leftovers to share in the office.  But that's probably wishful thinking.

And what does Bow-Tie Calico think?  Well, see for yourself.

Approve!

Fried Clams and Poutine râpée

I recently posted about the lobster and steamed clams and pie from our recent vacation while visiting the Admiral Catnap (retired) and the Admiral Catnap (retired), i.e., my parents. I also want to show other dishes we eat while there. The food is unique to the area and worthwhile seeking out.

Fried Clams

Fried Clams

This is one of the few deep-fried dishes I never fail to get. But since it's usually only once per year, my conscience is clean.

Fried clams are a speciality of the area. I know of half a dozen restaurants which serve them, including a fast-food chain. There are some in south-eastern New Brunswick and in Maine. They are nowhere else in the world, as far as I know. Please let me know in the comments below if you know of any outside this area. I'd love to visit others.

Fred's

The best of all the restaurants my family and I tried is Fred's Restaurant in Cap Pele. It is consistently tops in my own experience, and in the one or two reviews I heard about. The original Fred sold the business many years ago and I don't know if the recipe was his invention or was perfected by one of his successors.

How do they prepare the fried clams?

Fried Clams

They start with fresh clams. They are usually not local to the restaurant's area but are within a couple of hundred kilometres. Nova Scotia is a popular source. The clams are made ready for eating, meaning cleaned of any sand or grit, and shucked. I very rarely get a shell fragment in the clams and never any sand.

They then coat the clams in pancake batter, which may or may not be an insider secret. That's right, their excellent batter is nothing more than commercial pancake mix. Coating the clams is a messy process and involves mixing the clams into the batter using their hands.

From the batter, the clams go into the deep fryer, where they're cooked to perfection every time. The servers wouldn't tell us any secrets to this, similar to how double-frying is best for french fries.

Then from the deep-fryer to the table, a short a trip as possible. When eating deep-fried it's always best to be hot and fresh from the fryer.

Homemade Onion Rings

We get the homemade onion rings for a side. They are just what you expect, rings of onion with batter and deep fried. Mmmmmm, a deep-fried dish to accompany a deep-fried dish. The batter for the rings is different and probably contains some bread crumbs.

We are always a group of four or more and we all love clams, so we end up getting 3 or more platters of clams plus a side of rings. The technique we've hit on is to ask them to bring out the platters one at a time, 10 minutes apart. This way, we share each platter and it ensures a supply of fresh, hot clams for everyone.



Poutine râpée

This dish is more subtle than the fried clams.

Forget everything you know about the Canadian fast food speciality of poutine, the french fries and cheese curds and gravy that's popular in most of the larger cities. The chip wagons serve nice poutine but that's not what I'm talking about.

Poutine râpée

Poutine râpée, despite the similar name, is quite different than poutine. It's an Acadian dish and goes something like this.

They start with cooked pork. Sometimes salted, but the ones we get are not salted pork.  The pork is wrapped in a mixture of potatoes. Part mashed potatoes and part raw grated potatoes. They are about 10 cm in diameter. The balls are boiled for a long time, perhaps an hour or more.

The balls are then served with a little of the cooking water, which now resembles a thin potato gravy. We put them in bowls, and top with fresh-ground black pepper and occasionally hot sauce.

They are a little bland but good. They're a delicious treat worth every bite. The pork looks a bit pink but it is cooked and safe to eat.

We get ours from a small store near Grand-Digue, and it's in the middle of nowhere. We take our own plastic container as we buy enough for everyone.


Next time you're in south-east New Brunswick be sure to seek out these regional dishes. You'll thank yourself.