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Thursday, September 22, 2011

SOUP IN A WOK

If you want to make soup, it can be very simple utilizing canned broths, and utilizing a wok. In the classic way to make soup, like a beef soup, chefs would roast beef bones for hours to get the rich flavors out of the bones and bits of the meat, and then the bones would be added to liquid such as water and some vegetables to make the soup itself or the base for it.


Asian influence soups are much easier to make and quite frankly more to the point. Here's a simple beef soup with cabbage and some onions, and carrots.


1/4 lb. of thinly sliced flank across the grain, seasoned with salt and pepper. In a bowl, place 2 tbsp. of soy sauce, 1 tsp. of sesame oil, and 1 tsp. of oyster sauce. Mix the meat together real well and let it stand at room temperature.


Slice a small onion into thin strips, set that aside.


Grate a half a small carrot and set that aside.


Thinly slice 3 cups of cabbage set that aside.


1. Heat up a wok (10 inch) over medium high heat with about 2 tbsp. of vegetable oil, when hot add in 1 tsp. of minced ginger and 1 tsp. of minced garlic, stir for about 20 seconds. Add in the flank steak slices. Cook for about  3 minutes, then add in the onions and carrots and cook for about 2 minutes.
2. Add in 2 cans of low sodium beef broth, bring to a boil, then lower to simmer, cook for about 10 minutes. Add in the cabbage and off the heat.
*Season with soy sauce, salt and pepper if is too weak. The flavors for marinating the meat at the beginning should add flavor.


This makes about 3 servings of 6 oz. bowls.


To make this a Thai or Filipino dish, add Nam Pla (Thai fish sauce) or Patis (Fish sauce of the Philippines) to the soup, and add rice noodles for a noodle soup. Asian soups are very popular these days and very quick to make, unlike French influenced or Euro soups where there's a lot of roasting bones going on, Asian soups really cuts to the chase, it may not have rich flavors as their Euro/French counterparts, but it can be very delicious nonetheless.


If you are making your own beef stock/broths, then you'll have to roast them bones, but with some fine products out on the market for home chefs, you don't need to do that, heck I don't, there's some very good products out there, and yes, pro chefs at some of the finest restaurants use these items to cut cost, and really, you can't taste the difference too much. Use low sodium broths all of the time so that you can really adjust the flavors, remember too much salt can ruin a dish and also bad for your blood pressure.


But for your culinary purist, okay roasting bones is the only way to go, there, did that make you happy?

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