The Dinner Files

One good friend just started a full time job after freelancing for years. Another friend has twins who are old enough now to eat real food so they’ve been trying to have family dinners most nights. Still another friend’s husband had a change at work and is no longer home in time to make dinner, which has always been his gig. In short, three friends in quick succession have asked for fast dinner ideas.

I’m going to try and keep them in mind in the coming weeks. Faster, quicker, easier. The fact of the matter is that I often cook that way and, due to some work-life circumstances this spring I’ll be cooking like that more anyway. At our house getting dinner on the table in a hurry often manifests in the form of pasta. Pasta with a lot of vegetables in it. I’m working on expanding that mindset (it’s difficult, though, since such pasta dishes are always a hit with all three of us).

This mushroom soba noodle soup is sort of a departure, right? Sure, it’s pasta and vegetables, but they’re in a soup! Hey, I’m trying here.

It may not be revolutionary, but it is delicious. Fresh, light, and perfect for this time of year when heavy winter foods don’t sound so great anymore but when you still need something to warm you up come dinner time.

Mushroom soba noodle soup

This noodle-y soup-y creation was inspired by a recipe for a mushroom hot pot in Japanese Hot Pots by Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat. It’s a great resource – especially if, like me, you like to make (and eat) big bowls of delicious.

4 cups broth (I used a mix of chicken and pork broth; one or the other or dashi would have been good, too)

1 cup sake

1/2 cup mirin

1/3 cup soy sauce

3 cups shredded Napa cabbage

1/2 pound shiitake mushrooms

1/2 pound oyster moshrooms

1/2 pound wild arugula (regular arugula or spinach would also work just fine, although with less bite)

1 pound tofu (firm, soft, silken – whatever you like) cut into three or four big pieces

1/2 pound soba noodles

some type of chile powder for garnish (we used ground ancho chile because it was in the cupboard)

Heat the broth in a medium pot. Add sake, mirin, and soy sauce. Bring to a simmer and cook, partially covered, for about 10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning – adding more mirin for sweetness or more soy for salt, if you like.

Add cabbage, cover, and cook until cabbage is wilted, about 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and trim mushrooms and cut into bite-size pieces if they are large.

Add mushrooms to the pot, cover, and cook until mushrooms and cabbage are tender, about 8 minutes. Add arugula, cover, and cook until the arugula leaves are wilted, about 3 minutes. Put large pieces of tofu on top of everything else, cover, and simmer until tofu is heated through, about 2 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook soba noodles in the boiling salted water until tender to the bite. Drain and divide between three or four large bowls.

Top noodles with the vegetables, one piece of tofu each, and broth. Garnish with chile powder, if you like. A few thinly sliced green onions would be tasty, too.

I spent some enjoyable hours reading Fuchsia Dunlop’s memoir, Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China, last month. So imagine my delight when I pulled out an old family favorite from my recipe collection and noticed that it was from a Saveur story by said Fuchsia Dunlop. (She recently wrote a thoughtful piece on her decision to stop eating shark’s fin – despite a long-time resolution to eat everything she is served – for the BBC. It’s worth checking out for anyone who ever feels that their politically influenced dietary practices cause diner table tension.)

This is truly a 30-minute meal. Alongside it we usually add some sauteed greens or a tossed salad with crisp lettuce (like Romaine) drizzled with a dressing of 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger, 2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar, 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil, a teaspoon or two of mirin or 1/2 teaspoon sugar, and soy sauce to taste.

Pork and bean thread noodles

I think is really is best when made with pork, but I’ve used ground chicken, ground turkey, and ground beef all to great effect. The ground lamb experiment, however, did not go so well. I made it once using picked crab meat in place of the ground meat, which was pretty tasty but, of course, completely undid the frugal appeal of this dish. We’ve never found the amount in the original recipe nearly enough for the three of us, so the amounts here are duly adjusted.

1/2 pound bean thread noodles

2 Tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

1/2 – 3/4 pound ground meat

1/4 cup rice wine or dry sherry (I will admit to having used sake or dry white wine when we had no Chinese rice wine or sherry around and they both worked  just fine)

2 teaspoons soy sauce, plus more to taste

3 Tablespoons chile bean paste [also sold as "chile bean sauce" or with the word "red" thrown in there – in any case both soy beans *and* fava beans or broad beans should be in the ingredient list]

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

6 green onions, chopped

Put the noodle in a large bowl and cover with hot water, let them sit about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a large saute pan or wok over high heat. Heat oil until it shimmers a bit. Add ground meat and cook, stirring, until it starts to brown.

Add sherry and soy sauce and cook, stirring, until liquid is half absorbed/evaporated. Add chile bean paste and cook, stirring, until the whole thing smells spicy, a minute or two. You need to stir a lot here to keep the paste from burning at all.

Add stock and bring to a simmer. Add more soy sauce to taste. Add drained noodles and simmer until liquid is mostly absorbed, about 10 minutes. Stir in green onions and serve hot.

My dashing husband dashed this off for dinner last night. Broccoli, red cabbage, tofu, plenty of ginger and soy sauce, and “chow mein” noodles. Was a bunch of green garlic included but indetectable due to all the stronger flavors? Sure. Would I have ever thought to put red cabbage in a stir-fry with tofu that might get dyed a bit, um, blue? No. Was there, perhaps, just a smidgen too much soy sauce included in the dish? Yes, yes there was. Was it  delightful to have a piping hot dinner placed in front of me without ever having stepped into the kitchen last night? Absolutely.

And the red cabbage? Not a bad addition to a stir-fry. Not bad at all. As long, that is, that you don’t mind slightly blue tofu.

I had the great pleasure of dining with Kent and Kevin Young and their families last night. We all headed to Thai House Express, where some plate sharing and some plate hogging occurred (I did not feel like sharing; I just wanted my silver noodle salad). Very Tall Cousin Sam joined us and ordered some crazy double noodle creation in a yellow curry sauce. Note to self: next time you go to Thai House Express order crazy double noodle creation in yellow curry sauce.

p.s. My mom was at dinner last night too. We both ordered the exact same thing we did one year and one day ago.

I walked a huge loop through the Presidio and Crissey Field yesterday. It was bright and clear and sunny and just unbelievably windy. It was so lovely I stayed out longer than I had planned, so as I high-tailed it across town to pick up Ernest from his afterschool program I tried to think of what to make for dinner. I had had an early lunch and foregone my afternoon snack (I’m like child – I need that little something around 3 or 4) and was hungry enough that I felt just a little faint. I honestly could not remember any foodstuffs we had in the house except for a half dozen beets – 3 red and 3 golden. I seriously could not think of a single thing to make with 6 beets, much less anything that sounded remotely delicious.

Brain freeze.

I called my dashing husband almost in tears. He suggested Ernest and I fetch him from the office and all go out for Thai noodles. I’m not sure any food has every tasted quite so good as those did. Maybe the freeze-dried chicken à la king we used to have when we went camping when I was a kid. I was convinced it was the best dinner ever and could not for the life of me figure out why we never ate it at home. My mom finally humored me and made some. My 8 year-old self learned the magic that hunger, physical activity, and fresh air can have on the taste buds.

Thai Food Express. It’s a restaurant. It’s also how I experienced dinner last night. A quick request for tom ka gai and maybe some noodles made from my sick bed and… voilà!, my dashing husband returned with  steaming tub of spicy chicken and coconut milk soup and two kinds of noodles.

Ernest, noodle-lover that he be, dug in with gusto. Too much gusto, it ended up. About half-way through his plate of noodles he started crying. The broad, flat noodles were, it must be said, a bit spicy. Quite spicy. The kind of spicy you don’t notice, however, until several bites in. And it takes just as long to dissipate.

Water, plain rice, milk, and yogurt were all offered as curatives. He preferred to sit and rub his lips and cry. I ate my soup and went back to bed.

I was feeling a bit blah. We got some take-out from our favorite Thai place. I requested the silver noodle salad because I love love love it. I LUV it. I thought: that Thai silver noodle salad sure will be a bright spot on my exhausting blah day.

I can only assume the restaurant ran out of silver noodles. Why else would the silver noodle salad have giant squares of rice noodle that roll up into tubes in it instead of skinny, tangled silver noodles? Like so much food, a large part of the appeal with the silver noodle salad is the texture, which, as you might imagine, was shot to hell with the noodle change-up.

It was just all so disappointing.

Since I can’t cook or otherwise fend for myself and child, and my husband, lord, and protector had a business trip, my mother has come to help. Like an angel. Sent from heaven. Just like my great-grandmother used to say. (Actually, my great-grandmother used to say I was an angel straight from heaven, just like my mother. She would say this with a straight face and complete sincerity when I was 15-16 years old.)

From the airport we headed to Thai House Express. I had my favorite silver noodle salad, my mom ordered green curry with chicken, and Ernie got “what Daddy gets”–pan-fried noodles with vegetables and tofu. He ate about half of it before putting his head in my lap.

A few minutes later he broke into tears, distraught that his mother and grandmother had “eaten all my noodles!”

Indeed, we had. We had eaten the remainder of the poor starving child’s dinner. Almost. He got a few more bites and was only comforted with the explanation that his dish was the best and we couldn’t resist its deliciousness.

Do angels sent from heaven eat their child’s (and grandchild’s!) dinners?