An Exaltation of Soups (35 page)
Read An Exaltation of Soups Online
Authors: Patricia Solley
5. Meanwhile, make the
na’na dagh
by frying minced onion in 1 tablespoon of oil until golden brown, then stirring in the dried mint, crumbled between your palms. Remove from the heat and set aside.
O
S
ERVE
Ladle the soup into a large bowl. Sprinkle the
na’na dagh
all around the edges of the bowl, then swirl a dollop of sour cream or
kashk
in the center and sprinkle lightly with turmeric.
APAN
NEW YEAR MISO SOUP WITH RICE CAKE
O-ZONI
J
APANESE
S
OUP
E
TIQUETTE
Planning to serve this soup with those lovely Asian ceramic spoons? Be my guest, but you’ll be breaching Japanese etiquette. The ultimate standard of whether a food is Japanese or not is this: can it be eaten with
hashi
(chopsticks) or drunk from a bowl? If not, not Japanese. Besides, it really is easier to consume this sometimes dangerously sticky soup by delicately picking up that gooey
mochi
and other tasty bits to eat and nibble with chopsticks, then drinking the broth straight from the bowl. Not to scare you, but every New Year, a number of elderly Japanese over-estimate how much
mochi
they can eat at a bite and suffer the consequences of choking on it.
Serves 8
Shinnen akemashite, o-medeto gozaimase!
“The new year has dawned, indeed a matter for congratulation.”
I’
VE GOT TO
give this soup a big wow. It may not be easy to find the pounded
mochi
rice cakes, which look like opaque white blocks in clear plastic packaging, but they’re worth searching out. You take off the plastic wrap, stick the block under a broiler, turning on all sides with tongs as it blackens like a marshmallow at a cookout, and you’ve got yourself a sticky, runny, yummy hunk of molten, crispy rice goo. It’s wonderful at the bottom of a bowl of
dashi
with some chicken and leeks thrown in—the perfect way to bring in the New Year, whether that means January 1 or the more proper lunar calendar end-of-winter-and-time-for-spring-planting
Osho gatsu
festival, when you leave ill luck behind and craft a new beginning for yourself. The
mochi
rice cakes date back to the early ninth century, Heian-cho times, when they signified health, rebirth, vitality, and resurrection.
8
mochi
rice cakes
4 raw chicken breast halves, boned, trimmed, and sliced into thin strips
8 cups Japanese Soup Stock
(
dashi
)
6 tablespoons white miso
4 slender leeks or
negi,
white part only, sliced very finely on the diagonal
M
OCHITSUKI
,
OR
M
AKING
M
OCHI
It’s a pretty hilarious family or community outdoor sport that has you wielding huge hammers to pound steamed rice into a sticky ball, but this practice is based, of course, on millennia of serious Shinto and Buddhist tradition. In earliest days, rice was precious and a worthy offering to the gods at the New Year. In Shinto, each grain of rice symbolized a human soul, so pounded rice cakes offered millions of conjoined souls to the gods. Carried forward by Buddhists, the very act of making the cakes provided an opportunity for self reflection and purification. Try it and you’ll see why.
First, you steam lots of glutinous rice for several hours in a wooden steamer over an open fire, then you turn the rice into a stone or hardwood mortar
(usu)
, and give everyone a shot at beating it with a big wooden mallet
(kine)
until it becomes a sticky ball, while some brave soul turns it between whacks. The ball is briefly kneaded until it’s a thick white springy mass, then it’s shaped into smaller balls or pressed into flat molds, an inch thick, to dry.
Here’s what the great seventeenth-century poet and maker of haikus BashoMatsuo had to say about
mochi
and the New Year in
Narrow Road to the Interior:
It is New Year’s Day
for each rice field’s own sun—just
as each yearned for it
Ganjitsu wa
tagoto no hi koso
koishikere
and
O bush warblers!
Now you’ve shit all over
my rice cake on the porch
Uguisu ya
mochi ni fun suru
en no saki.
O
P
REPARE
1. Broil the
mochi
cakes in a metal pan under a hot broiler on all sides, turning with tongs, until the cakes are crisp and brown, but not burnt. Remove from the heat, pierce with a fork, and set aside.
2. Prep the remaining ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
O
C
OOK
1. Dip the chicken strips into salted boiling water for 2 minutes, then drain, discarding the broth or using it for another purpose.
2. Bring the
dashi
to a boil in a large saucepan over medium heat, then add the chicken pieces and simmer until tender, about 4 minutes.
3. Put the miso into a small bowl and whisk 1 cup of hot
dashi
into it until well blended. Pour back into the soup, bring just to a boil over medium heat, then remove from the heat.
O
S
ERVE
Place a broiled rice cake in the bottom of each of eight bowls, then ladle the soup over them, evenly distributing the chicken pieces. Top with slivered leek, cover the bowls with lids, and serve immediately.
OREA
BEEF AND RICE COIN SOUP
TTOK-KUK
H
OW
M
ANY
B
OWLS OF
T
TOK-KUK
H
AVE
YOU
E
ATEN
?
This soup is associated with adding age—if you eat a bowl, you automatically turn a year older. Needless to say, you don’t want to eat a bowl any more than one time a year, lest you age prematurely. Indeed, it’s tradition in Korea to ask a child’s age by asking how many bowls of
ttok-kuk
he or she has eaten. So when do you eat that bowl? Not on your birthday, but on
Sol-Nal
, the New Year.
Before the holiday, Koreans scrub their homes to wash away the year’s misfortunes; they burn sticks of bamboo to cast off demons; they fill the house with brightly lit lamps; and they stay awake all night for good luck. At dawn, they offer freshly harvested foods on their home altars to honor their ancestors—and they place a bowl of
ttok-kuk
in front of each ancestor’s tablet before sitting down to enjoy a bowl themselves.
Serves 6 to 8
T
TOK-KUK
IS A
beautiful and festive soup: delicate strips of yellow egg and bright green scallion slices setting off a rich beef broth that is crammed with color and texture—chewy white rice-cake medallions, tender meatballs, and juicy beef strips. At serving time, it gets an aromatic boost with a last-minute crumble of dried seaweed, cayenne, and green onion. If it weren’t for the penalty of aging a year with each serving, I’d recommend a bowl at least once a month.
F
OR THE RICE COINS
6 to 8 rice cake sticks
F
OR THE TOPPINGS
2 teaspoons peanut oil
¼ pound boneless beef, partially frozen, then cut into fine strips
Salt and pepper to taste
2 ounces ground beef, formed into marble-size meatballs
1 teaspoon flour
1 egg, beaten
F
OR THE SOUP
8 cups (2 quarts) Beef Stock
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 green onion, thinly sliced on the diagonal
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon hot chile sauce
G
ARNISH
1 tablespoon chopped green onion
1 tablespoon crushed dried seaweed
Pinch of cayenne
N
EW
Y
EAR
R
EFLECTIONS
Spring has come to a country village;
How much there is to be done!
I knit a net and mend another,
A servant tills the fields and sows;
But who is to pluck the sweet herbs?
On the back-hill, weeds grow and grow.
—H
WANG
H
ûI
,
fifteenth-century Yi Dynasty statesman and poet
O
P
REPARE
1. The night before (as needed), depending on whether your rice sticks are soft or hard as a rock, you may leave them out overnight to harden or soak them in water overnight to soften. They should be soft enough to cut with a knife yet hard enough to hold their cut shape.
2. An hour ahead, carve away the edges of the rice sticks, then slice them into thin rounds (like thick wooden coins, symbolizing wealth and prosperity in the New Year) and soak them in cold water for 30 minutes.
3. Prep the topping ingredients, separately, but all in the same skillet:
Heat the peanut oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat and fry the beef strips until just cooked through. Remove them with a slotted spoon, season with salt and pepper, and reserve.
Season the ground beef and shape into small meatballs. Sprinkle with flour, then dip them in the beaten egg (reserving the remaining egg) and fry in the skillet in the same oil. Remove with a slotted spoon and reserve with the beef strips.
Pour the unused egg into the skillet (adding oil if needed) and let it cook into a thin sheet. Flip once to cook on the other side. Slice into four quarters, stack, then cut into thin strips and reserve with the fried meats.
O
C
OOK