What to do with a lot of ginger

In Chinatown last Saturday, I bought a good-sized chunk of ginger--75 cents worth at $1.30 a pound. I knew that I'd use about an inch of it in the soup I was planning to make the next day--but what to do with the rest of it rather than add it to the pieces of ginger hiding in my freezer.

Then I remembered the wonderful African ginger drink that Allan and Paula and their Malian house guest had made the last weekend. I called Allan to get the recipe; here's what he told me more or less:

African ginger drink

Heat 6 cups of water.

Meanwhile peel and grate enough ginger to make a full cup, put it in a large bowl, add a cup of sugar, about 4-6 cloves and 3/4 sticks of cinammon.

When the water boils, pour it over the ginger mixture, and cover.

Let it stand for at least an hour and a half. Then add 4 cups of tap water, zest from an orange (or maybe 2), juice from 2 oranges, and zest and juice from 1 lemon.

Chill (or not) and serve.

***

Here are my adjustments:

For the orange juice and zest, I substituted zest from 1 lime, and juice from 2. I kept the lemon.

Instead of sugar, I used about 4 Tb. of agave syrup.

I strained most of the mixture, but left some of the ginger pulp in. (Alan's may have been strained, but he didn't mention this stepp.)

Alan told me that this beverage is popular throughout West Africa, and when I looked it up online, I found many versions, including one spiced with pepper instead of cinnamon and cloves, though most seem to call for beginning with 6 cups of water.

It's tasty, tangy, refreshing, and very easy, though grating the ginger takes a bit of time if you don't use a food processor.

World's Simplest Chocolate Truffle Recipe

Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but this recipe is about as easy as they come and practically foolproof--about all you can do to ruin it is burn the chocolate.

9 1/2 oz. bittersweet chocolate
4 Tb unsalted butter
1 C. heavy cream
up to 3 T rum or brandy, or 1 T vanilla
cocoa or ground nuts (optional)

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or (taking care not to burn) in microwave--or if you have neither, in a saucepan over very low heat stirring frequently.

Cook butter and cream in a saucepan over medium heat till they boil; then remove from heat, and carefully stir in chocolate and flavoring.

Set the pan in a larger pan of ice water, and whisk until the mixture thickens enough to hold a peak (it will lose most of its shine)--should take 5-10 minutes. Don't worry if you accidentally splash in a little water. My sister Kristine and I did this once, and thought the the end result had an unusually silky texture.

Use two teaspoons (or a melon scoop and the tip of a fork) to form truffles--number will depend on size.

Set them on a cookie sheet (no need to grease), pie tin, or similar surface; cover with plastic wrap or waxed paper, and refrigerate for an hour. Then roll them in cocoa or ground nuts if desired.

I've always just kept these in the fridge for as long as they lasted, but Kristine says they'll survive mailing.

My Main Soup

Years later, I can't remember where I got The Black African Cookbook-- flea market, used book store?--but one Christmas or summer visit, I gave it to my sister Kristine and brother-in-law, John.

After thumbing through it, we decided to try a couple of recipes--injera and Sambhar Soup. They were both terrific, and the soup soon became one of my staples. It's the soup I've cooked most often ever since, and one of the few recipes I actually copied into the little loose leaf recipe book my other sister, Joanne, gave me. Its page has long been covered with soup stains, but by now I know it by heart:

Sambhar Soup

1 c lentils or split peas
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1 bell pepper chopped (I often use poblanos)
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 qts water
3 tsps curry powder (I'm guessing they call for tsps rather than 1 tb because a teaspoon will fit more easily into the typical spice jar)
1/2 c tomato sauce (I sometimes use tomatoes or just omit; last time I made it, I added the tomato juice I'd drained from a can of Italian plum tomatoes when making puttanesca sauce)
3 tsp salt (I usually don't salt it)
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp dry mustard
juice of 2 lemons (most of the time I just use 1)
coriander chopped (I usually omit)

Drain lentils. Put lentils, onions, pepper, potatoes,
and water into deep soup pot and bring to a boil. Stir
well. Turn down heat, cover, and simmer till vegetables are
tender.

Put through a strainer or food-mill (I've never done this; the first time we made it, we looked, tasted, and agreed it was just fine as is), then back into pot.

Add tomato, spices, and lemon. Simmer for 10 minutes.

If you'd like to get the lovely little cookbook this comes from, good luck. And let me know if you find it. I've tried Amazon, Powell's, and Google--long out of print, I'm guessing.

Searching for the soup online, I learned that it's actually South Indian--but then there are many South Africans with roots there.

Chicken Neck Soup

Trying to shake a lingering chest cold earlier this month, I craved chicken soup, homemade not take-out, but felt far too tired to make it. Till passing the poultry section of the local Whole Foods, I noticed some packages of chicken necks. What if I just bought some of those and cooked them in a lot of water for a few hours? It might not produce much of a soup--would likely be about as minimalist as Stone Soup--but it would be warming and surely at least a little therapeutic.

And the idea of having a bunch of chicken necks all to myself felt oddly luxurious. Roast chicken is one of my favorite dishes, and the neck one of my favorite parts, but growing up, I was one of four siblings and two parents contending for that neck. Usually two or three of us shared the neck, for which we relinquished our interests in heart, liver, and gizzard. Had I ever in my life actually eaten two chicken necks at one meal?

The bunch of necks turned out to be five once I opened the package, which weighed less than a pound. I filled a pot of water, threw them in, and started cooking. After maybe an hour, I took out the necks, let them cool a bit, broke them in halves or thirds, and threw them back. Then added a large onion cut in eighths, carrot, celery, and bay leaf, and ground in some pepper.

After another half-hour or so, too hungry to wait longer, I scooped out two pieces of neck and a cup of liquid. Expecting little more than minimally flavored hot water, I savored instead fresh, delicate essence of chicken that set my tongue dancing.

I added another carrot and a quarter cup of French lentils to the simmering broth, and an hour later called it done. The flavor was more intense now, but still delicate--not your typical chicken soup. I ate more that night, more the next, and froze the rest.

Two weeks later when Jim was next in town, we polished it off. "Eating soup with your fingers--that's different," Jim said between bites of neck. We used toothpicks to extract the soft shreds that clung to the bones.


Chicken Neck Soup (5 or more servings)

Five or more chicken necks
10 or more cups of water
One large onion, cut into eights
Two or more carrots, cut into pieces
One stalk of celery
One bay leaf
Fresh-ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup lentils, preferably French, or rice

Optional stuff I might try next time: parsley, other herbs, green onions, radish, turnip, jicama, lemon juice (though the charm of this soup is its simplicity).

1. Add chicken necks to water and cook to the boiling point over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer. Skim off the foam once or twice (there won't be much).

2. After 45 minutes or so, remove necks, cool briefly, break into two or three pieces each, and return to pot. Add onion, celery, half of the carrots, bay leaf and pepper, and simmer another hour or so.

3. Add lentils or rice and the remaining carrot pieces, and cook until done (at least half an hour for lentils).

Where the Heart Is

Some years ago, I was extolling the pleasures of eating doves my dad had shot, when someone exclaimed, "You ate the bird of peace!" I wish I'd had the wit to answer: "And I enjoyed every bite!" I didn't think of those doves as birds of peace, but as succulent morsels--and a rare treat (or more likely, given his cooking style, well done).

I grew up eating quite a few things friends find yucky--like brains and eggs (swimming in butter) when visiting Grandma Paulsen..

Now and then Dad cooked kidneys (lamb, I think), and although the predicable smell that filled the house was hard to take, the results were tasty.

One of my favorite dishes as a child was Heart Soup--another special treat. My sister Joanne thinks we'd have it maybe twice a year, but I remember it as dinner on Christmas Eve.

In my early days in New York, I sometimes bought a veal heart, sliced it, and sauteed it, but I've never actually made the soup, though I must have asked my mother for the recipe.

Here it is as I found it recently on a yellowing page that included other family favorites:

Heart Soup

For the amount that you would want, buy a veal heart if possible, and a soup bone with some meat on it. Put in your dutch oven, probably, and cover with cold water. Cook for several hours, at least 2 to 2 ½ to get the broth strongly flavored. Add the last hour some onion, carrot, celery, parsley and anything else you want. The last 20 min. or so of cooking I add some canned tomato or you could add several small fresh tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. If you cannot get a soup bone, several pieces of beef ribs, it just adds additional flavor to the soup, especially when you use only 1 or 2 hearts.

Especially when you use only 1 or 2? If Mom were still with us, I'd ask just how many hearts did you use, and how many should I?

Not that I'm going to make it anytime soon. Unfortunately, I'd probably have to eat it all myself.

I Paid for It .

Jim and I were making Caldo Verde, a Portuguese soup, to take to Jim's parents' place for Thanksgiving. The beans were on, the onions were in, Jim was rinsing and tearing the kale, and I was slicing the chorizo--the dry kind, from Spain--more thinly than I usually do so that 14 diners could all perceive a satsifying amount of sausage in their bowls.

"Please don't cut the fat out," said Jim. "I figure I paid for that fat."

He was eluding to the habit I'd developed, when making the soup by myself, of using the tip of a paring knife to extract whatever globules of fat I could from the chunks of chorizo.

What about the casing, I asked? I usually peel it off. He said he'd paid for that, too.

I can't say I noticed that our full-fat soup tasted any different from my lightened version, and I realize that the amount of fat I typically remove is likely neglible. So back home, making the soup alone this week, I did it Jim's way, except for the casing.

Though my obsessive/compulsive side kind of missed the delicate task of fat extraction, the process of sausage prep went a lot faster.

When it came time to do the kale, Jim's words leapt to mind: "I paid for that, too." So shouldn't I use the kale stems instead of dumping them? I thought about chopping them and adding them to the soup, but there were plenty of kale leaves in there, so I bagged them and stuck them in the freezer.

One of these days I'll throw them into a vegetable stock pot, or maybe chop them and use them as the chicken replacement in mock chicken rice soup. I tried that once, and it wasn't bad.

You can find many versions of Caldo Verde online; here's mine:

Portuguese Kale Soup (from Carol Ames and Philippe Perebinossoff)

1 pound of pea beans (or navy)
10 cups of water
1 pound of sausage or less (I use one package of spicy Spanish chorizo, around 8 oz), sliced if you like
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pound of kale
2 cups of chopped potatoes
salt and pepper if you like

Bring water to boil with beans. Add onion and sausage, and simmer 2-3 hours. Tear kale leaves from stems, and add them about 3/4 to 1 hour before the soup will be done. Then add the potatoes, and finish cooking.