Chinese New Year

Tomorrow is New Year's Day for Chinese and those who celebrate the Lunar New Year - so if I was Chinese, I'd stay home today and stuff scores of dumplings for soup. Then I'd have lots of relatives over at midnight to eat the soup.

But - being who I am, I had to work at the library until 8PM, which doesn't leave a lot of time for dumpling-stuffing.

I'm also not Chinese, of course, and haven't got a lot of mobile relatives to gather to my bosom but I did flash on a Twenty-First Century maneuver for New Year's Dumpling Soup in a flash.

I microwaved a bag of veggie dumplings (mine were from Trader Joe - in some places they are called Mandoo) and carefully floated/sank them in 3 pints of canned chicken broth, then warmed up the whole shebang to just below boiling.

I flavored it with a little white pepper, but if I had had some sherry or yellow wine on hand I'd have added a ounce of that.

For dipping sauce I use mostly soy sauce with a little flavored rice vinegar (sushi vinegar) and even less toasted sesame oil for the base. I added a few drops of red pepper oil and one small, super-hot dried pepper crumbled into a portion (about and ounce) and a crushed clove of garlic to another portion. Hey, presto, three dip sauces!

Happy New Year, Spring Festival, or etcetera.

The Further Adventures of Onion Soup

This is the all-important rich brown crust that develops after caramelizing the onions.

Tastes SO good!

And the final product; rich and savory french onion soup.

Don't forget to cool the bowls after you remove them from the broiler. You WILL enjoy this!

Onion Soup on a cold Saturday

I encountered this Onion Soup recipe in a DVD by America's Test Kitchen.

Three pounds of sliced onions on the left. Onions cooking down on the right.

French Onion Soup Gratinee

Tie the parsley and thyme sprigs together with kitchen twine so they will be easy to retrieve from the soup pot. Slicing the baguette on the bias will yield slices shaped to fill the mouths of the bowls.

Serves 6 (more at my house)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 medium red onions (about 3 pounds), sliced thin
Table salt
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth (canned)
1 3/4 cups low-sodium beef broth (canned)
1/4 cup dry red wine
2 sprigs fresh parsley leaves
1 sprig fresh thyme leaves
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Ground black pepper
1 baguette , cut on the bias into 3/4-inch slices (2 slices per serving)
4 1/2 ounces Swiss cheese , sliced 1/16-inch thick
1 1/2 ounces grated Asiago cheese (about 3/4 cup)


1. Melt butter in large soup kettle or Dutch oven over medium-high heat; add sliced onions and 1/2 teaspoon salt and stir to coat onions thoroughly with butter. Cook, stirring frequently, until onions are reduced and syrupy and inside of pot is coated with very deep brown crust, 30 to 35 minutes. Stir in the chicken and beef broths, red wine, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf, scraping pot bottom with wooden spoon to loosen browned bits, and bring to simmer. Simmer to blend flavors, about 20 minutes, and discard herbs. Stir in balsamic vinegar and adjust seasonings with salt and pepper. (Can be cooled to room temperature and refrigerated in airtight container up to 2 days; return to simmer before finishing soup with croutons and cheese).

2. For the Crusts: Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the bread out on a rimmed baking sheet and bake, flipping once, until lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Remove the bread from the oven. Turn the oven to broil.

3. Set heat-safe soup bowls or crocks on rimmed baking sheet and fill each with about 1 1/2 cups soup. Top each bowl with two toasted baguette slices and divide Swiss cheese slices, laying them in a single layer, if possible, on bread. Sprinkle each serving with about 2 tablespoons grated Asiago cheese and broil until well browned and bubbly, 7 to 10 minutes. Cool 5 minutes and serve.

Here are the pictures of 3 lbs. of onions, sliced ($1.99 at Trader Joe) then the red onions cooking down, a very important view of the brown crust, which really does take over half an hour to form and a final picture of the rich brown finished soup. I didn't take one of the bowls ready to serve. We ate them up in about 10 minutes.

Look to the next post for more pictures.

The Long Christmas Dinner

was a play by Thorton Wilder. My Christmas Dinner was a filling meal for 6 people,, with nods to several times and places.

Tea Eggs garnished with Caviar

Herb-Crusted Rack of Lamb

Yorkshire Pudding

Roasted Root Vegetables with Rosemary

Mushroom Risotto

Cold Asparagus with Chinese Flavors

Spicy Tomato Aspic with Cottage Cheese

Old-Fashioned Ambrosia

A Bowl of Smoking Bishop

Jim made the punch, of course and Alyson and Jamie helped with the Ambrosia. My Mom assembled the appetizers and helped me plate the Aspic salad.

The tea eggs and the asparagus are a nod to James' former homeplace, China; and the aspic was something we used to have on every Christmas table in my childhood. I made mine spicy with horseradish and black pepper. It tasted a lot like a Bloody Mary, which was just what I wanted.

Recipes tomorrow. The dishwasher is chugging away with the second post-dinner batch (there were two before dinner also) and dirty dishes still in the sink and on the floor.

The lamb bones have been simmered for stock and Mommo took Ambrosia and Roasted Veggies home. To bed, to bed...snowstorm due tomorrow.

The elusive 5-way sugar cookie

from Life magazine, November 14, 1949, page 90

The aforementioned recipe, as I remember it, in all it's colored glory!

Now here is my transcription of the recipe, and some notes from the first time I made it in 30 years or so...

Ann Pillsbury’s 5-Way Holiday Cookies

From Life magazine November 14, 1949

Yield: 7 dozen medium (I get more)

• 1 ¼ cup shortening (1/2 butter)
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup cream
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 4 cups sifted flour
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 ½ tsp. salt

Cream shortening and sugar; add eggs, cream and vanilla and beat until light. Mix all dry ingredients and add to the creamed mixture. Divide the dough into five equal portions and mix in additions, below.

Form cookies by Tablespoonfuls on greased cookie sheet, flattening each spoonful slightly, and bake at 400° for 8 to 10 minutes.

Additions:

For Orange-Pecan: 1T. grated Orange rind (zest) and ¼ cup chopped pecans; top each cookie with a pecan half.

For Coconut: add ½ cup shredded coconut; dip tops in beaten egg (yolk or white) and dip in plain or colored coconut.

For Chocolate-Nut: 1 sq. melted baking chocolate (unsweetened) and ¼ cup chopped nuts and 1 Tablespoon cream.

Fruit: ½ cup chopped candied fruit (fruitcake mix) or mock mincemeat.

Plain: top with colored sugar.

Variations:

These take 10 minutes to bake in my 400° oven. Coconut always seems slightly underbaked and may need another minute.

Fruit and spice: chopped a combination of seeded raisins and candied ginger, total about 1/3 cup and about ½ tsp freshly ground spices (cinnamon, cloves, mace, black pepper and coriander). Good but could use more raisins and spice.

I didn’t much care for the fruitcake variation as a child. The pecan-orange is probably to best balanced and most distinctive flavor combination.

Must go now - gotta start Jamie's birthday cake.

The elusive 5-way sugar cookie

from Life magazine, November 14, 1949, page 90

The aforementioned recipe, as I remember it, in all it's colored glory!

Now here is my transcription of the recipe, and some notes from the first time I made it in 30 years or so...

Ann Pillsbury’s 5-Way Holiday Cookies

From Life magazine November 14, 1949

Yield: 7 dozen medium (I get more)

• 1 ¼ cup shortening (1/2 butter)
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup cream
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 4 cups sifted flour
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 ½ tsp. salt

Cream shortening and sugar; add eggs, cream and vanilla and beat until light. Mix all dry ingredients and add to the creamed mixture. Divide the dough into five equal portions and mix in additions, below.

Form cookies by Tablespoonfuls on greased cookie sheet, flattening each spoonful slightly, and bake at 400° for 8 to 10 minutes.

Additions:

For Orange-Pecan: 1T. grated Orange rind (zest) and ¼ cup chopped pecans; top each cookie with a pecan half.

For Coconut: add ½ cup shredded coconut; dip tops in beaten egg (yolk or white) and dip in plain or colored coconut.

For Chocolate-Nut: 1 sq. melted baking chocolate (unsweetened) and ¼ cup chopped nuts and 1 Tablespoon cream.

Fruit: ½ cup chopped candied fruit (fruitcake mix) or mock mincemeat.

Plain: top with colored sugar.

Variations:

These take 10 minutes to bake in my 400° oven. Coconut always seems slightly underbaked and may need another minute.

Fruit and spice: chopped a combination of seeded raisins and candied ginger, total about 1/3 cup and about ½ tsp freshly ground spices (cinnamon, cloves, mace, black pepper and coriander). Good but could use more raisins and spice.

I didn’t much care for the fruitcake variation as a child. The pecan-orange is probably to best balanced and most distinctive flavor combination.

Must go now - gotta start Jamie's birthday cake.

Searching for Pillsbury

The first memory I have in regards to cooking is of sprin(dumping)kling colored sugar on cookies before they are baked. I believe I was three years old, and it may be my oldest accessible memory.

Certainly before I could read I could roll out sugar cookie dough, cut out the cookies, carefully fitting the cookies together so as not to waste dough, and decorate them. I also put pans into the hot oven, and removed them with cotton looper potholders.

I got a set of miniature cake pans for Christmas when I was five, and after using up the miniature cake mix packaged with them, I made cakes from the Washington Flour single-layer sized mixes, measuring the ingredients when my mother read them off to me.

(pictured-not my real mother)

The following September I started school and learned to read, so by Christmas, I could read the instructions myself.

I think reading those instructions, and other recipes was my first experience of learning a new skill by reading - something I've never stopped.

Lately, I've been trying to find a recipe I remember from childhood. Pillsbury 5-way sugar cookies. I've Googling my brains out, without success.

I asked my Mother to find it, as I remember it from her notebooks, but she's stymied, too.

That WAS, until today.

After I got home from church, I Googled again, this time with 5-way (figure five hyphen way) and Google books rendered up selections from a 1949 Life magazine.

Check back tomorrow - my rendering of the recipe, and my first revisit in thirty or more years.