Politics and Peppercorns: Chicken Soup for T's Soul

An interesting collection of Thursday cooking.

I was planning on coming home and just rocking out a little surf and turf--some spare ribs and king crab legs I picked up at the international market.

::detour::

Atlanta is home to the Dekalb County Farmer's Market--a gourmet chef's best friend. Super fresh, high quality, organic produce all for LESS than you would pay at Kroger and many many times less than what you would pay for similarly fresh food at Whole Foods. Fresh fish and meats, really cheap spices, and even phenomenal bunches of flowers. It's overall one of the best places ATL has to offer.

I haven't yet found its equivalent in DC. I've heard decent things about Eastern Market, but it just burned down. The Maine Avenue fish market has equally fresh fish, but for much much higher prices. I tried Grand Mart a few weeks back for my housewarming, but wasn't super impressed. So this time I drove about a half hour out to Fairfax to visit Super H Mart. Was the drive worth it?

Yes and no. Yes because as far as produce goes, this spot was unquestionably the best I've been up here. Widest variety + super super fresh. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the meats, which still means we're talking multiple trips for even the simplest dinner parties. Plus, it's a half hour drive. Without traffic. Yikes. And they didn't have kaffir lime leaves. What kind of international market doesn't carry kaffir lime leaves? (Although neither did Grand Mart, for that matter)

::end detour::

So I pop the spare ribs in the oven with some jim beam, liquid smoke, lemon juice, and soy sauce and cover with aluminum foil. Four hours later, at 250 degrees, the boys were done. I upped the heat to broiling to get me that crispy outside (man, I wish I still had a grill) and slathered them in my barbeque sauce (which I'm running low on...). And check out just how fall-off-the-bone they were. Yeah, Uncle Mark--homeboy don't play around.

During that four hours, Alyse came over to sample some of the German Chocolate Cake we made on Sunday. But once I heard that one of my friends had come down with a little cold, I knew what we had to do.

Chicken Soup. What else?

And now that I've learned to trust Alyse's judgment in the kitchen, I can start doing some collaborative cooking. We started with only five cups of chicken stock and what I had in my fridge and created a pretty solid soup.

I started with some diced yukon gold potatoes that hadn't gotten mashed for Iron Chef. Alyse went to town on the veggies and sauteed diced onions, celery, ginger, garlic, a cerano chile and carrots. I worked on bringing the broth up to being full of flavor: cumin, chili powder, onion powder, paprika, some black peppercorns, honey, and a dash of ground black pepper.

I added some chicken that had been browned in some olive oil and let that cook through into the broth u, then added the rest of the veggies and let the mixture simmer until the flavors started to congeal. At the very end, added some chopped cilantro for freshness and some red bell peppers for a little crunch texture and some color. I'll definitely call this one a victory.

By the way, I purposely left salt out of this one. Most pre-prepared chicken broths come with a decent amount of sodium added, and mine was no exception.

While the soup was simmering, I treated myself to the king crab legs I got from the store while Alyse and I dreamed about opening a restaurant. Nothing doing here really--just some steam and drawn butter. Yum. I must say, it's kinda nice having a second mind in the kitchen. I totally would have forgotten the garlic if Alyse hadn't been here to remind me. Good stuff.