Chinese Sizzling Rice Soup

East Garden, Stockton Calif

3~4 Ounce baby shrimp

3~4 Ounce chicken breast (skinless and boneless) (cut into thin slices)

1 egg white, beaten

2 Tablespoon cornstarch

1 Cup peanut oil (for frying)

1 Quart of homemade chicken bone stock made with onions, carrots, celery, ginger, and scallions

1 Ounce sliced cremini mushrooms, sautéed

1 Tablespoon water sliced chestnuts

1 Tablespoon sliced red radishes

1/3 Cup fresh snow peas

½ Large carrot, sliced thinly on diagonal, blanched

1/2 Teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon Shaohsing wine

1 Tablespoon Marin wine

2 Crispy oven-dried jasmine rice cakes¹, fried

Mix the shrimp, chicken, egg white, and cornstarch. Let rest 10 minutes.

Bring chicken stock to a low simmer. In a very hot wok, quickly stir fry shrimp and chicken for 2 minutes. Remove and drain on paper towels.

Preheat a cup of peanut oil to 375 F in a pot, in preparation for frying the rice cakes.

Quickly stir fry mushroom, water chestnuts, snow peas, peas, carrots, Marin, salt and Shaohsing wine. Add cooked vegetables and shrimp/chicken to stock, simmer on low. Correct seasonings.

Fry two oven-dried rice cakes quickly on both sides in very hot peanut oil. These will puff up and cook in 10 seconds a side. Drain on paper towels, then, in the company of your diners, add rice to soup while still piping hot and sizzling.  Garnish with a bit of soy, diagonally-sliced scallion greens or garlic chives and chopped cilantro. Serve immediately,

Notes:

Rice cakes can be made weeks in advance and store in plastic bags until needed, Make steamed rice as normal, except use less water. Store rice in an open tray for an hour in the refrigerator, then collect and store in a covered bowl overnight. Roll out some rice ¼ thick on parchment paper. Use a wet inverted rice bowl to stamp out “rounds”. Dry these on parchment paper on a cookie sheet for an hour at 300 F in a convection oven. They must be "bone dry" before go into plastic else the will mildew. If you don't think they are dry enough, reduce the heat to 170 F and leave in oven another 30 minutes. Let air dry for 20 minutes before bagging.

Crunchy Coleslaw

The satisfying character of crunchy coleslaw comes from dicing the pieces² as opposed to grading or merely slicing. You may also make this using some red cabbage to add color and improved nutrition. Red tastes the same but has increased antioxidants, potassium, Vitamin A and more Vitamin C.

1 Large head cabbage finely diced

1/3 Cup diced carrot or more

2 Tablespoons onion powder¹

1 Tablespoon garlic powder

1/3 Cup granulated sugar or less

1 Teaspoon salt

1 Teaspoon each of white and black pepper

1/2 Cup whole milk

1/2 Cup Best food mayonnaise

2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

1 Teaspoon tarragon

Peel the carrots. Cabbage and carrots must be finely diced. I do this by hand on a large cutting board but remove the cabbage’s stalk portion by cutting it out.

Pour cabbage and carrot mixture into large stainless steel bowl and stir in other ingredients thoroughly. Correct the seasonings. Cover bowl and refrigerate overnight before serving.

Note:

1. Onion powder is made from oven dried yellow (Spanish) onions.  See here
2. Diced style coleslaw is considered "southern style".

Ardeshir’s Persian Dried Yellow Onions

Ardeshir was the master librarian for Valid Logic in 1986. He was deeply interested in food especially his own Persian food. He taught me to appreciate the regional foods and how to shop for Persian ingredients. These Persian onions are great as a condiment for cooking such as rice, vegetable dishes, stuffing’s, dressings, sauces, soups and onion dip. The onions sweeten like raisins in the sun by this slow drying process.  It is best to do a whole lot of onions at a time as the oven is on for a long time and the volumetric yield is low. Onions reduce in volume 30:1 or more. Six whole chopped onions make a cup and a half of dry product.

Chop uniformly 6-10 large yellow onions. Set your oven on its lowest temperature. (170^o F) Prop the oven door slightly open with wooden spoon. Dry onions on Teflon sheet pans on multiple racks. Turn onions over several times to expose wet onion with a spatula. Onions are done when all are a deep camel brown. They will begin to turn pink before this stage. (Five to six hours.) Store up to a year in an air tight jar.

These onions may be ground, once dried, into onion powder. Use the onion powder to make onion pastry dough or simply as a condiment. I use an old coffee mill for grinding.