My friend Terri Lynn Coop has mastered the secret of perfect hard boiled eggs. I don’t know her secret, but I’m happy to share mine. Take this as advice from someone who sometimes boils dozens upon dozens at a time. (That doesn’t make me an eggs-pert, but I’m pretty good.)
Bring the water to a boil. Add some vinegar and salt to it. While you’re waiting for it to come to boil, pierce the large end of the egg with a pushpin or something. Slip the eggs into the boiling water. Cook them your usual time. When that’s over, pour off the hot water and add cold water to cover. Pour THAT off and change it again. Or just put the pan in the sink and keep flowing cold water over it. Start peeling those eggs when they’re just cool enough to handle. Smack the large end against something firm and start peeling there. And remember – the freshest eggs are the hardest to peel.
(Note: I see that I posted my lentil soup recipe before, three years ago. I’M KEEPING THEM BOTH. pmbaxter.com/index.php/2020/01/01/lentil-soup/ Key difference: the earlier recipe is scaled toward a smaller batch of soup, using 1/2 pound of lentils. This recipe is for a larger batch using the full pound.)
It’s a family tradition, and it’s delicious. AND it’s easy to make. You can make it too! Here’s how.
(Note that this is going to be about how I cook as it is about making lentil soup, specifically.)
Ingredients: dried lentils, water or stock, onions, garlic, potatoes, carrot, celery, bay leaf, oregano, bacon or ham (optional), soy sauce (optional), Worcestershire sauce (optional), crushed red pepper (optional)
You need to start with a good-sized pan or kettle. Add enough oil to cover the bottom of the plan, put the heat on medium, and add: some onion – at least one large or a couple medium, chopped. Add a potato or two, diced. I leave the skins on. You don’t have to.
When the onion has softened, maybe even taken on a little color, add several cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped or sliced thin. Give it another minute, and then – add your dried lentils. One pound. Add enough liquid to cover them, plus an inch or so. You have choices on liquid. Water is OK. Stock or broth is better. Vegetable stock, chicken stock, ham stock.
With the heat on medium, it should come to a simmer. While it’s doing that. add some celery and carrots. I’d probably start with three stalks of celery, sliced or diced, and a good-sized carrot or two medium carrots, again, sliced or diced. Larger slices or dices will be more likely to wind up with identifiable chunks in the finished soup. Smaller pieces will be more likely to blend in. Your preference here!
Now we season things a little bit! And again, you get to make choices. When I want a little salt in a recipe like this, I frequently use a little soy sauce, which gives you sodium and bonus umami. The trick here is to use it fairly sparingly. Like the garlic, I don’t want this to taste distinctly of garlic (or soy). It’s just one in the chorus of flavors. If you don’t use soy sauce, add salt to taste. Again, sparingly – flavors tend to intensify as this simmers. If you’re using premade stock rather than your own homemade stock, be even more careful with salt.
Several other performers in the chorus – a splash of Worcestershire sauce, a bay leaf or two depending on their size, and a sprinkle of oregano. Oh, and I add a little crushed red pepper.
One last thing you can add, or omit, is meat. I like ham (chopped, again as you like. Want big chunks? Fine. Smaller cubes more evenly distributed is good also.) Or bacon. The good thing about bacon is you can start by frying the bacon, remove the bacon (crumble and reserve it to be added along with the carrots and celery), and use the rendered fat to brown the onion and potatoes.
That’s it! Let it simmer away.At this point, you can probably cover the pan and reduce the heat to low. Give the soup an occasional stir. Keep watch; don’t let it burn in the pan, and keep adding liquid as needed. If you started with stock, you don’t necessarily need to add more stock. Water is fine.
When the lentils are cooked and the vegetables are done to your degree of satisfaction, it’s done! Serve and eat!
A couple more variations on the process: some chopped mushrooms are good in this, if you like mushrooms. I’ve added a tomato when I had a sad and lonely tomato just sitting around with nothing better to do. Some curry to taste can also be good. When you serve it, whether you added curry or not, a swirl of plain yogurt is tasty too.
This same basic recipe serves to make split pea soup as well, substituting dried split peas for the lentils. It could be bean soup if you substitute canned and drained beans (or soaked, cooked and drained dried beans.)
One last note. this makes a fair amount of soup. It does freeze well, it reheats well, and if you want, just cut the recipe in half. Make it with a half pound of dried lentils.
I hope you try making this, and I hope you enjoy it!
it’s pretty easy. if I can find fhe cookbook I learned it from, I’d cite it. But the technique is simple, and scalable.
Start out with a saucepan appropriate to the volume you’re gonna need. I’m going to guess that’ll be a 2 1/2 or 3 quart saucepan, especially if you want leftovers. And who doesn’t want leftover rice?
We’re going to start with one cup of rice. Add not quite twice as much water. Let’s say, 1 3/4 cup to start. Adjust subsequent batches to taste. Add your additions to taste. I add a little salt, a little turmeric, maybe a little butter.
Now: bring it to a boil.
Take the heat down to where it is barely simmering – medium low on my stove.
Put a lid on the pan, barely cracked. Set your timer for 15 minutes.
When the timer goes off, take the pan off heat and set the timer for another 15 minutes. Close the pan lid on the pan.
That’s it. You’re done,. When that’s done, your rice is done,. Fluff it up with a fork and serve. it won’t be sticking in the pan or burnt on. It’ll be… perfect. If it’s not quite perfect, you might need to use a little more water, or use a little less, to your taste.*
Over on Facebook, I posted this picture of a delicious dinner that included fried noodles.
“Fried noodles?” someone asked. So I went on to explain how I made them.
Boil some egg noodles until just done, and drain. How much? How many noodles do you want? I do two or three large handsful. Once you’ve made them a couple times, you’ll know how much you need.
In a frying pan (I think a good heavy cast iron frying pan is best, but use what you’ve got), get ready to sauté some onion until it’s got good color on it. Use the fat or oil of your choice. Bacon grease adds more flavor, but olive oil is just fine. I like to slice them so that they are close in size to the noodles you’re using.
When the onions are done to your satisfaction, turn the heat up to medium if it’s not at least that warm already, and add the drained noodles. You may need to add a little more oil, depending on how much the onions have absorbed. Mix the noodles and onions together.
The next step is what makes them fried noodles. Now, you just let them fry for five or ten minutes without touching them. Then use your spatula to stir them and flip them over some so that the noodle parts that haven’t gotten to spend quality time at the bottom of the pan get their fair share. This process makes the noodles crispy or crunchy to your taste.
When they are – serve them hot! Some fresh-ground black pepper on top to taste is good. A little gravy or pan juices from a deglazed pan would not be a bad addition, either.
If you search for peanut sauce recipes, you’ll find some common elements. Peanut butter. Hot water. Soy sauce. Something sweet. You can use white sugar or brown sugar or honey. I saw a recipe with agave nectar, if that’s what you want.
Beyond that, a little acid. No, not THAT acid. Acid like lime juice or lemon juice or some kind of vinegar. Rice wine vinegar is good, but white vinegar or apple cider vinegar is good too. I’ve never tried balsamic or wine vinegar.
And garlic. Finely chopped garlic, a clove or two. Garlic powder, if you don’t have fresh garlic on hand. (Not garlic salt. This is salty enough with the soy sauce.)
If you don’t like garlic, leave the garlic out.
Then, heat to taste, and by heat, I mean the flavor. A little cayenne pepper, a little hot sauce, a little crushed red pepper; something like that.
Finally, a little dark sesame oil is good. A VERY little. A little goes a long way. If you don’t have this, don’t let it stop you from making this. It’s fine without it; I just like it better WITH just a little.
What you add after that depends on your pantry, your taste, and your imagination. A little fish sauce? A little hoisin sauce? Some chili-garlic paste or a little Sriracha? If you like. Go for it. A little grated fresh ginger is very good, too. Grated fresh ginger, not the powdered stuff.
A couple serving suggestions. While this is excellent over steamed broccoli or pasta or cardboard, it’s even better if you have a little crushed peanuts to sprinkle on top, for the crunch. Another good addition: finely chopped green onions, if you like those. And cilantro, unless you are my friend Kelly and have the genes that let you taste what it REALLY tastes like. Maybe a squeeze of fresh lime juice on top.
That’s pretty much it. What this lacks is exact proportions, but don’t worry about that. You have the recipe below as a starting point. Add my suggestions to it from there, a little at a time. You may have to make it more than once and experiment. This is the price you pay to develop your ability to create deliciousness. You can do it.
If
you ever make hard-boiled eggs, here’s a tip you might want to try.
Bring the water to a simmer, THEN add the raw eggs and proceed as usual.
Adding the cold eggs to the boiling water results in eggs that are
easier to peel. I’ve done several dozen eggs of different sizes and
freshness since I heard of this tip, and the ease of peeling – along
with the egg peeling cleanly – is greatly improved.
Some say very fresh eggs don’t peel as neatly or cleanly, but with this technique, the freshest eggs I boiled peeled easily.
Also worth doing – poke a little hole in the big end of the raw egg
with something like a pushpin before putting it in the simmering water –
it decreases the chance of the egg cracking while cooking.
“Your recipe calls for a can of cream if mushroom soup. Was that a typo?”
“No. The labels was torn off after the ‘cream of’ part, so it MAY be mushroom – or it may be cream of something else.”
