Science Experiment Soup

Oftentimes I'll be in the midst of making dinner and discover something new. Like for example: If you walk away from caramelizing onions for even one second, they'll turn to charcoal. Or: rinsing leeks in a bowl of water after you chop them is way easier. Or even: caterpillars can survive for a week in a bag of greens in the fridge, and they don't always appreciate being banished to the back yard when you find them. More often than not my discoveries are either very tasty or somewhat explodey (see: adventures in Soda Stream ownership) or liable to set off the smoke detector. Rarely are they this pretty.

 A few weeks ago I had N. over for dinner. A few days earlier at the farmers' market I'd been dazzled by a purple cauliflower, so we decided that that plus a celery root getting near the end of its lifespan in my crisper would make a lovely pairing for my Random Root Soup, with a little quinoa for texture. (1 part rinsed quinoa to 1 part broth or water, bring to a boil, turn down heat & simmer 10 min, cover, turn off heat and let sit 5 min, fluff with a fork and eat.) So we chop and roast and stir and boil and whizz in the blender (and there goes my nice cloth bag for steeping herbs and cheese rinds), and 45 minutes later, pretty light-purple soup. Shower with some chopped parsley, drizzle with olive oil and lemon, and -- what now?!? Where the drops of lemon juice hit the soup there were now hot pink polka dots, getting brighter as time went past. Our soup - which was just as delicious as anticipated, by the way - was a litmus test.

I suspect a lot of us did that science experiment in the 4th grade where you use juice from a red cabbage to test for acids and bases, and I can only suspect that whatever's in the cabbage that does that is in purple cauliflower too. Based on follow-up experiments with the leftovers I can tell you that cold the soup turns sort of gray, brightens up to a nice light pink when reheated, turns fluorescent with acids, and goes a kind of tealy greyish green in the presence of a base (ie baking soda). So it's a litmus test/thermometer. A delicious litmus test/thermometer. I'd test for other properties, but, well, I ate it all. Occupational hazard, I guess.

Straight outta the fridge, cold.

Reheated in the microwave. My camera's kinda lame about color but it's a nice light rose.

Lemon juice: bright pink spots.

Admittedly this looks more like something you come across on WebMD looking up skin conditions than something
you wanna eat. But just stir it and it starts looking all swirly and tie-dye rather than infectious..

And turning a spoonful greenish-grey with baking soda, since I didn't wanna ruin a whole bowl. Science!

Brilliant

The New York Subway culinary map: http://www.rickmeyerowitz.com/Classic%20Htmls/SubCulinary-Enlarge.html

100 Chinese Foods to Try Before You Die

While we're listing goals...

I didn't do quite as well on this one.

[ETA - I'm updating this after my 2 1/2 months in Indonesia & SE Asia. Unsurprirsingly, there's a lot to add.]

1. Almond milk
2. Ants Climbing a Tree (poetic, not literal, name)
3. Asian pear
4. Baby bok choy
5. Baijiu
6. Beef brisket
7. Beggar's Chicken
8. Bingtang hulu
9. Bitter melon
10. Bubble tea - my favorite
11. Buddha's Delight
12. Cantonese roast duck
13. Century egg, or thousand-year egg - not so bad, actually.
14. Cha siu (Cantonese roast pork)
15. Char kway teow - Indonesia
16. Chicken feet - a little chewy for my taste
    
17. Chinese sausage
18. Chow mein
19. Chrysanthemum tea
20. Claypot rice
21. Congee - (aka bubur ayam, in Indonesia. Pretty sure I also had it at a Vietnamese pace in Philly once.)
22. Conpoy (dried scallops)
23. Crab rangoon
24. Dan Dan noodles
25. Dragonfruit
26. Dragon's Beard candy
27. Dried cuttlefish - no, but I saw a vendor with a cart of them
28. Drunken chicken
29. Dry-fried green beans
30. Egg drop soup
31. Egg rolls
32. Egg tart, Cantonese or Macanese
33. Fresh bamboo shoots - picked 'em myself in Laos
    
34. Fortune cookies
35. Fried milk
36. Fried rice - the only Chinese food I'd eat until age 10 or so, when I discovered wonton soup.
37. Gai lan (Chinese broccoli)
38. General Tso's Chicken
39. Gobi Manchurian
40. Goji berries (Chinese wolfberries)
41. Grass jelly - I think so.
42. Hainan chicken rice
43. Hand-pulled noodles
44. Har gau (steamed shrimp dumplings in translucent wrappers)
45. Haw flakes
46. Hibiscus tea aka jamaica aka Red Zinger
47. Hong Kong-style Milk Tea
48. Hot and sour soup
49. Hot Coca-Cola with Ginger -????
50. Hot Pot
51. Iron Goddess tea (Tieguanyin)
52. Jellyfish
53. Kosher Chinese food
54. Kung Pao Chicken
55. Lamb skewers (yangrou chua'r) - street vendor in Flushing
56. Lion's Head meatballs
57. Lomo Saltado
58. Longan fruit
59. Lychee
60. Macaroni in soup with Spam - eew?
61. Malatang
62. Mantou, especially if fried and dipped in sweetened condensed milk
63. Mapo Tofu - my current favorite thing ever
64. Mock meat
65. Mooncake (bonus points for the snow-skin variety)
66. Nor mai gai (chicken and sticky rice in lotus leaf)
67. Pan-fried jiaozi
68. Peking duck
69. Pineapple bun - (the Indonesian variety)
70. Prawn crackers - krupuk udang, served at nearly every meal in Malang
71. Pu'er tea
72. Rambutan
73. Red bean in dessert form - once, as a child, thinking it was chocolate - never again.
74. Red bayberry
75. Red cooked pork
76. Roast pigeon
77. Rose tea
78. Roujiamo
79. Scallion pancake
80. Shaved ice dessert
81. Sesame chicken
82. Sichuan pepper in any dish - Sichuan pepper in every dish!
83. Sichuan preserved vegetable (zhacai)
84. Silken tofu
85. Soy milk, freshly made
86. Steamed egg custard
87. Stinky tofu
88. Sugar cane juice - with lemon in a Singapore hawker center
89. Sweet and sour pork, chicken, or shrimp
90. Taro like a cross between a potato and an apple, except delicious. Helped harvest them in a little village in Java.
91. Tea eggs
92. Tea-smoked duck
93. Turnip cake (law bok gau)
94. Twice-cooked pork
95. Water chestnut cake (mati gau)
96. Wonton noodle soup
97. Wood ear - I'm pretty sure
98. Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings)
99. Yuanyang (half coffee, half tea, Hong Kong style)
100. Yunnan goat cheese

Another goal to aim for...

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
"Here’s what I want you to do:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating."

Keeping in mind that I haven't eaten seafood or (corn-fed) beef in about 10 years...
[ETA - also updated after Indonesia etc. Not much longer, but way more badass.]

1. Venison - got some sausages in my freezer right now
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich - probably tried one at one point. I hate peanut butter. Jelly too, actually.
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart - long long ago...
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle - it was on a terrible dish of macaroni & cheese.
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - wine tasting in CT. Strawberry. Not terrible.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes - mmmmmm
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras - in Italy I was served some sort of liver - foie gras? pate? - rolled up in pork. Way too rich - I couldn't eat it.
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda - I've taken to eating the Northern Italian version, with olive oil, tomatoes, salt, pepper, & herbs on a good baguette. Fantastic in late summer.
31. Wasabi peas - yuck
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
X 38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O X - never tried a jello shot in college, though they were common. I'd like to think I've got the good sense not to do it now.
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail - sup buntut, an Indo specialty
41. Curried goat - no, but I did have goat satay
42. Whole insects - grasshopper tacos in New York, fried tarantulas in Cambodia, fried crickets in Laos, and silkworm larvae & a giant water beetle in Thailand. Tasty little buggers, for the most part (pun fully intended).
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk - goat cheese and yogurt yes, never straight milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more - Octomore
X 46. Fugu X - I'm not willing to risk death for a piece of fish. Sorry.
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi - at the Modern Languages Dep't party senior year of college, the same professor who'd just introduced me to Barolo offered me one of these. What a cruel trick.
53. Abalone - New Zealand, in fritter form.
54. Paneer - had some for lunch today, in fact.
X 55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal X
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine - Melted cheese & french fries... yum.
60. Carob chips - tastes like raisins.
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian - Durian cake from Singapore, actually; the beginner's version of the fruit. Kind of like the inside of a Fig Newton, but denser, stickier, and made of durian. Tasted like onions. ETA - had a durian shake in Malang. Fruit really shouldn't taste like onions.
66. Frogs’ legs - very tasty.
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake - all of the above
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe - I have a bottle of absinthe that I bought in Switzerland. Is it louche? I don't know.
74. Gjetost, or brunost
X 75. Roadkill X
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail - If rubber bands and dirt had a love child, it would be a snail. The garlic butter was good though.
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare - does rabbit count?
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
X 91. Spam X
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa - definitely harissa. Not sure if it was rose or not.
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake - cobra. First I drank its blood and bile from a shot glass, then ate the stir-fried meat for dinner. A little chewy, but not bad. And yes, I have pictures to prove it.

Zen Merlot

Because I like wine, and haiku is free.

http://www.redwinehaiku.blogspot.com/