Super Duh Easy Potato Leek Soup

The leeks at the supermarket were very beautiful this week, so I couldn't resist and bought one. I decided to make some potato and leek soup to go with my salads at lunch.


The problem with most potato and leek soup recipes is how much heavy cream and potatoes go into the soup.


You can still have the creaminess without adding too much fat or starches by subbing in cauliflower for some of the potatoes and using low fat (2%) milk instead of heavy cream.


This is a super duh easy soup that is pretty much goof proof and cooking merrily in 20 minutes. Takes about 40 minutes to completely cook through. Serves 4-6 hungry ppl.


You'll need:


1 large leek

3 yukon gold potatoes

1 head cauliflower

1 onion

1.5 cup chicken stock

1-2 cups milk

1-2 tbsp oil

1-2 tbsp butter

salt

pepper


Start by washing the outside of the leek. Chop off the root. Then slice the white part into 1/4 inch slices. Chop until you start to reach the green part. The green part is trickier because of the dirt trapped in the leaves. Just peel them off and rinse them under running water. Then chop the green part into 1/4 inch slices. Slice the onion in half then chop into 1/4 inch strips. Heat up some oil in the soup pot. Add the leek and onions with a pat of butter. Sautee.


In another pan, sautee cauliflower that you've rinsed and chopped into 1 inch pieces. Use some butter and salt to help with the browning.


Chop the yukon gold potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes. While the leeks and onions are caramelizing and sweating out their liquids, add the yukon potatoes. Keep sauteeing until everything is nice and golden brown and smelling tasty. Take the cauliflowers and add them to the soup pot. Sautee everything together.


When everything is nice and golden colored and smelling super tasty, add the cup of chicken stock. Turn the heat up to high. Cover the pot, and let it hit boil. When it boils, turn down the fire to a simmer, and add 1-2 cups of milk. The milk level is adjustable as long as the overall liquids cover all the ingredients. Salt and pepper to taste. Put the cover back on, and then let it simmer for another 20 minutes.


Go take a quick Facebook break and brag about making potato leek soup.


Come back to the soup. Poke the cauliflower and the potatoes. They should fall apart easily. Let cool slightly and then either use an immersion blender to puree the soup, or CAREFULLY ladle the soup into a food processor or blender and puree. I like mine sorta chunky so do as you wish.


Serve warm with a side of salad or with some toasted french bread. Yummers...

Mah Po Tofu Recipe

Issay's sister Mio asked me whether there are some good ma po tofu recipes out there. Yes there are. But since I cook it so often, I guess I can post mine too. It's adapted from Fu Pei Mei's famous home cooking cook book, published in Taiwan over 10 years ago.

Ma Po tofu is a vegetarian friendly dish. You can easily substitute the meat in the recipe with some vegetarian mince (which resembles ground pork) or some sort of minced tempeh. You can probably even just do a straight vegetarian version with some vegetable stock and peas and carrots.

Anyway, here's the regular recipe I cook for Issay. The key to making successful Ma Po tofo is to make sure you simmer the tofu for a good twenty minutes to let the broth penetrate into the tofu and flavor it from the inside out.

Ingredients:

1/4-1/2 lb ground pork, turkey, or chicken (beef is a bit too fatty so I'd not recommend it). Good ground meat consists of a good blend of fat and lean cuts.

1-2 blocks of soft tofu (2 blocks to make leftovers), cut into 1 inch cubes and blanched for 1 minute in boiling hot water

1 tbsp of Chili bean paste(chili bean paste is a fermented bean product with chili seasoning added,kind of like a strong miso with chili, except more flavorful).

1/2 tsp chili powder (gives the tofu a smoky flavor)

2 tbsp soy sauce

1/3 tsp salt

1/3 tsp sugar

11/2 cup chicken or veg stock

2 tsp cornstarch, dissolved in 1 tbsp of water into slurry

1 tsp sesame oil

Lots of freshly cracked black pepper

2 stalks of green onion, chopped

First of all, you need to boil a pot of water. Drain and cut the tofu into 1 inch cubes. Then place the cubes into the boiling water for 1 minute. Drain.

Then, heat up a tsp of oil in a wok or deep bottomed pan. Start browning the ground meat on medium high heat. Season with the salt, sugar, chili bean paste, chili powder, and soy sauce. The meat should be well browned and smell very fragrant.

Then, add the stock to the meat. Bring to high boil. Add the tofu, then keep on medium to high boil for 20 minutes. By the end of the 20 minutes, the stock will have reduced by about 1/3. Then, add the corn starch slurry to the tofu while the heat is on medium. Stir until the sauce begins to thicken.

Turn off the fire, drizzle with green onions, sesame oil, and cracked black pepper.

If you can't find chili bean paste, just use a regular chili paste to get the mild heat. It will lack the pungency of the bean paste, but will still be tasty. For those of you who are averse to eating spicy dish... well this dish is probably not for you. Jk... just put in a little chili paste. It will be a mild version but not really ma po tofu... :)

Canadian/Quebequois Foods

I am currently traveling in Montreal for the Waterhouse art exhibit. This is also a chance for me to sample the French influenced foods of Quebec province. So far I've consumed:

Quiche (tasted like microwave oven...)
Octopus and lentil salad (marvelous)
Sorrel soup (which I didn't even know what Sorrel was)
Freshly baked french bread (perfect crust to soft interior ratio)
Poutine (was amazingly non-greasy given the fries drenched in gravy factor)
Terrine au canard et orange (Pate is the perfect combo of fat and meat)

And some other foods I might have forgotten.

My impression of Quebec is that it is a lot like France in mindset and approach to food. The people eat well and the produce they buy and utilize in the foods are amazing. We visited the Marche Atwater, a local farmers and gourmet foods market and were blown away by its cleaniless and the quality of foods available. I sampled the terrine there, which was creamy and savory with a touch of citrus. It was my breakfast and was immensely satisfying!

The gleaming fruits and vegetables and GIANT turnips at the farmers market were also found in the regular big chain super market. Prices there were very comparable to US prices, and the quality of meats seem far superior. Case in point the pork tenderloin. In the US, pork tenderloin is sold in large hunks which contain both the actualy tenderloin and all the surrounding meat. In Montreal, the tenderloin is a thin strip of extremely soft meat sold in a vacuum package. The meat's superior softness really makes it worthy of being called "tenderloin," and the US version really pales by comparison. I cannot imagine how delicious the tenderloin tastes when sliced and the lightly grilled...

The supermarket there also carried exotic cuts of meat such as milk fed veal and horsemeat (I was a little freaked out by that one). There was also plenty of liver from chicken, pork and beef variety all located right next to the regular cuts. In the US you'd have to ask the butcher for pork and beef liver if you wanted some.

The foods in Montreal are also very international. In fast food courts at the mall, foods ranged from Thai to Vietnamese to Mediterranean. Usually you're lucky to find just one Panda Express in a Chicago food court. Never will you encounter other Asian varieties.

Tomorrow is my last day here and I want to eat at the local Chinatown. I've heard very good things about the restaurants and can't wait to try it!