G Is For... Gazpacho

It was hot and sunny few weeks ago that I decided to try my hands and knives for the first time to make Gazpacho ~ that famous cold soup slurped world wide! Every where I went, it's in the Summer Menu. It's so famous that food companies even produced it in tetra-paks, cans and bottles! It's one of Spain's famous export besides Paella, La Tomatina, Bull Fighting, Flamenco and... Real Madrid :-D Ok, I admit am not a football fan but I do knew few names here and there.

Gazpacho is a kind of seasonal raw soup with refreshing quality ingredients that's a sure hit and instantly remembered of European Summers besides it's suitable for vegetarians too. You won't go wrong if you serve it at dinner in those hot summer days! By the way, another similar cold soup to Gazpacho is the Vichyssoise (scroll down to the bottom page of how Vichyssoise influenced Anthony Bourdain and in entertainment). Traditionally, it's blended with hard bread (or stale bread) rather than serve separately as toasts with or without onions. Some people don't like hard bread incorporated into the soup :-) Of course, you can add hard boiled eggs, ham, croutons, almonds if you want to make other variation of non-vegetarian cold raw soups like Salmorejo and Ajo Blanco or Gazpacho Manchego which is a meat stew (mainly rabbit and chicken meat) from La Mancha, Spain.

So, here's my first try of traditional homemade Gazpacho or Gazpacho Andaluz with seasonal ingredients! I don't use mortar and pestle for the pounding of vegetables even though is sometimes favoured to give the soup textures and to avoid foaming created by food processors. I imagined with horror, a large barrel-size mortar, long pestle pounding away with loads of vegetable chunks strewing everywhere on the kitchen floor... and a chirpy 3 ½ year old, happily picking up the scraps? Oooofff... :-|

Gazpacho Andaluz

Serves 4-6 portions

To be blended in food processor:

½ Cucumber ~ skinned, deseeded & chopped roughly

5 nos Red Tomatoes ~ deseeded & diced (choose medium size sun ripened tomatoes)

1 no Yellow Onion/White Onion ~ medium size, roughly diced

½ Red Capsicum ~deseeded & diced

2 cloves Garlic

3 slices of hard breads (or stale bread) ~ wholemeal or white, no problem

1 Liter Water

2 Tbl Red Wine Vinegar/Xérès Vinegar

3 Tbl Olive Oil

2 Tbl Tomato Concentrate

Sea Salt & freshly grounded Black Pepper to taste

Garnish:

½ Yellow Onion/White Onion - finely diced

½ Cucumber ~ deseeded & diced

½ Green Capsicum ~ deseeded & diced

Extra Virgin Olive Oil ~ for drizzling, generously

Method:

1. In a food processor, add in the vegetables and stale bread. Blend them into a mixture. Add in the salt and pepper to taste. Then the vinegar and blend the mixture again until it's smooth and creamy.

2. While the food processor still turning, add in the olive oil and tomato concentrate.

3. Pour into a soup tureen or pot and chill it minimum 2 hours in the refrigerator. Just before serving, check the taste again and adjust if necessary.

4. Ladle the gazpacho into individual bowls or soup plates and sprinkle the reserved garnishes over the soup.

Note: I like to use Yellow Onion for this soup because I like it's stronger and complex flavour that complements the Capsicums and vinegar. You can use milder and sweeter white onions or omit it if preferred as sometimes it's not included in the Andalusian region . To chill the soup faster, I poured it into a stainless steel pot ( I would love to have it in a Soup Tureen but I don't want to break it accidently) or if you use a tall blender, you can just put the whole jug in the fridge. If you think it's too liquid, you can start with 800 ml of water and slowly add extra water to achieve the consistency you like... or lessen the liquid to make Arranque Roteño, gazpacho cream :-)

Enjoy!

Stir-fry Gai Choi With Shiitake Mushroom and Salted Fish

There are several bitter and pungent vegetables that I love to eat like bitter gourd, chicon (Belgian Endive), and Gai Choi/Kua Chai is one of them. I can assure you, is like eating mustard instead of seeds, you're eating the fleshy and thick stems and pungent leaves. I also like wasabi... ☺ According to TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), bitterness is good for cleansing gallbladder, liver, kidneys, etc.

This Chinese Mustard Cabbage appeared mostly in soups, stir-fries and pickled as salted mustard leaves. The size is very large... sometimes you can find as big as human head! One thing weird about this Mustard Cabbage was it has lots of holes which means ... worms, well, most of the time. I remembered my mom used to remind me to look for wriggles even after the vegetable washed. I don't know why but that's how most Asian people recognised this vegetable. Yep, no joke about it! I'm lucky the piece I bought as pictured here is clear of worms but still with holes here and there on the leaves! That's why is best to soak the leaves longer in water to get rid of this pest and also dirt. Usually, I will soak the leaves in warm water with vinegar for few minutes, rinsed and drained in a colander.

To cook this vegetable is quite easy... For soup, I used a whole head. I easily could finished that amount in one sitting but I tried to constraint myself from doing so ☺. For stir-fries, I usually use about 4 large outter leaves for 2 persons because the leaves emerged smaller as you peel towards the heart of the cabbage. So, you need to adjust the quantity accordingly.

Stir-Fry Gai Choi With Shiitake Mushrooms and Salted Fish

Serves 2-3

2-4 leaves Gai Choi (Chinese Mustard Greens)

4 pcs Dried Shiitake Mushrooms, soaked until soften & drained

10 g - 20 g Salted Fish (any type will do) (optional)

2 cloves Garlic, minced

1/2 pc Carrot-julienned

Some Water or Chicken stock, about 1/2 - 1 cup (optional)

Oil for cooking

Salt to taste (optional)

Method:

1. Wash the Gai Choi leaves (Chinese Mustard Greens) thoroughly from grits and drained. Cut or tear into bite size pieces. Set aside.

2. Cut the softened Dried Shiitake Mushrooms into strips.

3. Rinse the Salted Fish from excess saltiness. Pat dry with kitchen papers. Sliced into small pieces of 5 cm,

4. Heat a wok/pan with some cooking oil. When pan is really hot, add in the minced garlic. Stir until fragrant.

5. Add in the Salted Fish and fry until it's golden brown and crispy.

6. Then the sliced mushrooms strips and julienned carrot. Stir for a moment.

7. Add in the Gai Choi, stir quickly and add in the Chicken Stock or Water. Let it simmer until the vegetable soften to your liking. * When I'm using salted fish or Chicken stock, I don't add any more salt. Adjust the taste accordingly.

8. Dish out and serve with rice.

Cheers!

Stir-fried Ginseng Eryngi Mushrooms With Leek & Capsicum

It's been several times now that I included Eryngi Mushrooms in my diet and my family like it as well. Firstly, it's a hardy mushroom and not easily spoilt compared to other species of mushrooms. For this dish, I used Ginseng Eryngi Mushrooms with some leeks and capsicums. Usually, when I had my meals, I like to have some varieties on the table with minimum 2 dishes with rice or noodles. I tried to have meat, vegetables, poultry or fish combinations but most of the time vegetables are the highest quantity consumed :-) I think my fridge has more vegetables than ever before. Must be the habit since childhood... :-)

Stir-Fry Ginseng Eryngi Mushrooms With Leeks & Capsicum

250 g Ginseng Eryngi Mushrooms

100 g Leeks

1 nos  Red Capsicum - medium size

2 cloves Garlic-minced

Sesame Seeds - toasted

Soya Sauce to taste

Shaoxing Cooking Wine to taste

Cooking Oil

Method:

1. Remove any grits from the mushroom and cut off the hard stump. Wash the whole mushrooms and pat it dry. Slice the mushrooms about 2-3 mm thickness or to your liking. Set aside.

Note: This is the only mushroom that I would wash under running water :-P

2. Wash the Leek stalks thoroughly from grits. You can slice it first then wash with water or remove each layers which were affected by dirt and soak in water so that the dirt will sink to the bottom. After cleaning, slice diagonal the leeks and set aside. You can slice in rounds but I prefer diagonal cuts in leeks.

3. Wash and cut capsicums/bell peppers in halves. Remove the seeds and white pith. Slice diagonally as well.

4. In a pan or wok, heat the oil. When oil is hot, add in the garlic. Give it a few stir until fragrant.

5. Add in the, vegetables. Give a good stir and then add in the Ginseng Eryngi Mushrooms. Stir the vegetables thoroughly.

6. Stir in some soy sauce to your taste and add in some Shaoxing cooking wine. If you don't have Shaoxing wine, you can use brandy/cognac or dry sherry instead... :-)

7. Just before serving add in the toasted sesame seeds. Give a few stirs and serve hot with rice or side dish to your main meal...

Note: You can make a thicker grave/sauce by mixing 1-2 tsp of cornflour/cornstarch with some water and pour back into the wok/pan. Stir a few minutes until the gravy thickens. Dish up and serve hot.

UPDATE: For those who are interested to read more about Folklore/ Cookery/ Mycology/ Drug, you can download this digital edition of Mushrooms, Russia and History, 1957 by Author, Robert Gordon Wasson & his wife,  Valentina Pavlovna Geurcken. It was scanned from original from a generous contributor and hand corrected by Igor Dolgov, Zachary Jones and Gred Golden. It's a rare book which fetched thousands of USD!

♫ Enjoy ♪