Pellets! With Lemons and Leaves!

This summer, David and I had this approximate conversation.

Him: I'm interested in learning how to cook those...pellets. 

Me: (elipsis)

Him: You make indian food out of them... You boil them...They turn into soup...

Me (further elipsis)

Him: They're little, and round. I don't know what they are.

Me: You mean beans?

Him: No! They're flat.

Me: Lentils. (hysterical laughter) "Pellets"!

Him: Whatever. They come in different colors.

Now I tease him by saying I'm going to feed him pellets for dinner. This is a good recipe for soup made out of pellets which I made because there is a cafe downtown that serves something very similar to it. It's particularly nice on a rotten rainy day. I eat it with bread and butter.

1 cup of pellets, the orange kind

1 onion, cut up rather fine

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1/4 teaspoon turmeric, optional, but fun

1 small carrot, cut into 1/2 inch bits

1/2 cup user-defined* leaves

juice of a lemon

Put the pellets in a large-ish pot. Rinse them several times to get rid of any dust or foreign objects. Add about 8 cups of water, the onion, bay leaf, cumin, turmeric, and salt & pepper. If you want a slightly richer flavor, add a pat of butter or a couple tablespoons of olive oil.

Bring to a medium boil for about 20 minutes, or until the pellets start to dissolve, then add the carrots and leaves. Taste for salt. Boil until the pellets are totally dissolved, and the soup is as thick as you want it. If it starts getting too thick, just add a little more water. 

Right before serving, add the lemon juice.

*User-defined leaves: I have used frozen chopped spinach, and leftover "baby power greens", whatever those were. Spinach is usually what is found in lentil soup, but there is no reason you could not use kale, chard, baby bok choi, arugula, lambs quarters, purslane, or any number of other things, as long as you remember that some leaves take longer to cook and have slightly more pronounced flavors.

Chicken and Hominy Stew

  

  
I had something like this at a very fancy wedding reception. I was initially put off by the squash, because usually things with squash in them are made too sweet for my taste (except for pie, and sometimes even then). But I changed my mind, and here is my version.

1 butternut squash
salt, pepper, olive oil

1 onion
1 carrot
2 celery ribs
1 or 2 garlic cloves
1 large or 2 small chicken thighs

dash of salt & olive oil

1 tsp cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
1 pasilla pepper (less spicy) or 2 jalapeno peppers (more spicy)
1 chili in adobo

1 can hominy

More salt to taste

Peel, seed, and slice the squash into pieces about 1/2" thick. Toss with salt, pepper and olive oil, and arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake at 400 until a little brown around the edges. This will take a while, so in the meantime,

Chop the onion, celery, carrot, and garlic. Saute them on medium heat with a dash of oil and salt in a large, heavy bottomed saucepan. Mine is about a gallon size. When the onions are starting to go transparent, add the chicken. It's fine to use frozen, I always do. Poke the chicken to the bottom of the pan and let it brown a little, then fill the pot about 1/2 way up with water. Bring to a boil, then add the cumin, oregano, and chop the peppers and add them too. Cook until the chicken is done through, then drain and add the hominy. Boil gently until the chicken is starting to fall apart and you can mash it into bits with a wooden spoon.

By this time the squash is probably done. Take about 1/3 of the cooked squash and coarsely chop it. The rest can be used for something else. Add the chopped squash to the soup, taste for salt, and cook until the soup has thickened slightly and all the flavors have blended, about 15-20 minutes.

You should really eat this with tortillas and fresh cilantro, but I didn't have the energy to make tortillas today, and I was out of cilantro. More thoughts:

1. The original version of this used port rather than chicken, and I think I like that better. If you use pork, use a nice fatty cut.
2. You have to use enough salt. All the veggies add a lot of natural sugars, and the salt balances it out.
3. Skip the carrot? I ended up thinking it was unnecessary with the squash.
4. Consider using a different squash. Butternut is very easy to use, but it is quite sweet, which increases the need for salt. Kabocha or Hubbard squash might be a better fit.

I am still computerless, so I have no photos, but I got a message from Office Max saying my order has shipped, so I am excited.

*12/8/13 I now am have computer! So Excite. Picture enabled!

Noodle Soup

I feel like crap today, as I have felt for about 6 days now. I'm getting right tired of it. Meanwhile, here is a bowl of soup. I did not eat this soup today; I did not eat much of anything in fact, due to the crap-feeling business, but looking at this picture of soup from some time ago makes me feel better, so here it is.

There is fried tofu, and greens, plus noodles in fish broth, and I decorated it with minced ginger, green onions, and mushroom fluff. There is nothing mysterious about it (except maybe the mushroom fluff), it's just soup. It only looks pretty for about 30 seconds before you stir it up in to a mess and slurp it up, but those are an important 30 seconds, I think.

A Better Tortilla Formula

    

The trick is to use boiling water, and to smash them as you are frying them.  Here's the recipe-

400 grams all purpose flour
1 cup boiling water
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

Put all the dry ingredients and the oil in the bowl of your bread machine and turn it on. Slowly dribble the water in as the beaters agitate the flour. Let the knead cycle finish, and you're ready to go.

Roll out the tortillas as seen in the video toward the end of this post. The process is exactly the same, just bigger. You should get 10-12, 11" tortillas. If you make them little, you'll get as many as 15.

Heat a heavy skillet to medium-high. Make sure it is completely dry, or the tortillas will stick.

Have a clean, damp towel ready to wrap the finished tortillas in.

When the skillet is hot, lay a tortilla in the pan. It should turn translucent in about 5 seconds, when you turn it over. Use a silicone spatula to quickly but gently smash the whole tortilla against the pan for about another 7 or 8 seconds, then scoop it out and put it under the damp towel. Repeat until you've cooked all the tortillas. 

 Here are a few more technical pointers:
1. Use enough flour when you roll them out, or they will stick to everything.

2. Roll all the tortillas before you start cooking them. They really do only take about 15 seconds in the pan.

3. I have one of those large, super flexible pancake spatulas to do the smashing with. The smashing is important, it prevents the tortilla from developing giant bubbles which make them cook unevenly.

4. You will need a bigger frying pan than mine, like a 14" one. I'm going to be looking for one at goodwill.

5. As you can see from the pictures, one side of the tortilla has more freckles. That's because when you first put them in the pan, you basically just show it to the heat before flipping it over. That way you don't overcook it by accident.

6. You could put the hot tortillas in  tupperware or a ziploc bag, but I find that a towel allows them to stay moist as they cool without developing slimy spots. Once they cool off you can put them in something airtight.

What makes this a better recipe? The boiling water. I find that if I use cold water, the dough is springier, and harder to roll out. That makes it harder to make a very thin tortilla. If they're too thick, they take longer to cook, which makes them dry out of you use a lower heat, or burn if you use higher heat.. If you don't cook them long enough, they just taste like raw dough. In either case the texture is a little stiff and papery.

On the other hand, using boiling water partially cooks the flour to begin with, which alters the elasticity of the dough. This recipe makes a very durable, forgiving dough that is easy to roll out, but difficult to accidentally poke holes in. They cook up tender but not gummy, delicately chewy, and substantial enough to make a good burrito even when they are very thin.
So, what's in the bowl? Tortilla soup of course. This is a 'cheating' recipe, because it uses a can of Trader Joe's Cuban Style black beans as a main ingredient.

David helped me make it. My instructions to him over the phone at about 3 o'clock were something like

"Get the big cooking pot with the silver handle sticking off it. Fill it half way with water. Put it on the big back burner on high. Put 3 frozen chicken pieces in it, 4 if they're small. Chop up an onion and put that in. Open the can of chilis in adobo and put 3 chilis in the pot. When it boils, turn it down to 5 and ignore it until I get home."

When I got home at 7, I added a bunch of cumin, garlic powder, a blob of tomato paste, a dash of salt and the aforementioned can of beans, cranked the heat back up to a boil, and waited until the soup had reduced enough that it looked tasty. It was, very. You tear up chunks of the fresh tortillas and put them in your soup and they get all dumpling-y. You can add fresh tomatoes and cilantro, but I was out of those things the day I took the picture, and it was still very good.

Secret Ingredient Gazpacho

  

  
1 can whole tomatoes in juice
about 3lb fresh tomatoes
1/2 medium onion
1 clove fresh garlic
1 large green jalapeno pepper, seeds & ribs removed
1 whole red pepper
2 cucumbers
1/2 yellow pepper
1/2 green pepper
1/2 tsp roasted garlic chips
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
juice of 1 lime
juice of 1 lemon

2 tsp minced fresh tarragon
2 tsp minced fresh mint
1 T minced fresh thyme
3 T minced fresh parsley
1 tsp black pepper

some salt

1 T Secret Ingredient!*

This makes around a gallon of soup. In a blender, puree all the tomatoes, the onion, the jalapeno, the garlic, one of the cukes, and 1/2 of the red bell pepper, along with the spices & juice.

Mince the herbs by hand or they will turn onto green mush and discolor the soup. Dice the remaining cucumber and bell peppers, and stir everything together.

* This is where the secret ingredient comes in.

Add only about 2/3 the amount of salt you want, and then add either 1 tablespoon of thai fish sauce or 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce. If you use soy, it has to say it's dark soy sauce, or it won't be the right kind.

Since both dark soy and fish sauce are basically liquid salt, why not just use salt? Because even though tomatoes, garlic & onions taste delicious together, they do not have that special, mouth filling, savory taste unless they are cooked. By definition, gazpacho is not cooked. Even cheating a bit with a can of tomatoes doesn't quite do it. Therefore, you need something rotten, or at least, powerfully fermented. Either sauce will perfectly round out the flavor of the soup.

The difference between soy & fish is subtle; personally I like the soy better, except for the fact that it does change the color of the soup slightly. Fish sauce keeps the appearance of the gazpacho the same, but I think it's a little less fruity or something. It's your call. If you can't decide, you can do what I did and add about 1 drop of either secret ingredient to individual servings to perform a taste test before flavoring the whole batch.

I like to eat mine with avocado and a dab of yogurt, because why leave well enough alone?

Cheap Grub

 

 
Last year or so I was talking about how most green leafy vegetables come in strangely large units. Cabbage, napa, collards, that stuff. Kale seems to be the exception to the rule, at least lately. I go to Fred Meyer and they're asking a buck-fifty for like, 6 meager leaves. Pfffft! That's maybe a serving? Ridiculous. Back to Trader Joe's. A big bag of kale there is about $2, and it's ready to go in the pot when it gets home. This soup is unremarkable looking, but it's tasty as well as cheap, and you only need one big pot to cook it.

Kale and Sausage Soup with Lentils and Things

1 italian sausage link, mild or hot- about 1/4 lb
1 onion
1 clove garlic
6 or 8 mushrooms
2 tsp broth concentrate
2 T tomato paste
1/4 cup brown, black, or green lentils
water, of course
2 carrots
1/2 bag of kale
salt & pepper

Use a 4 or 5 quart sauce pan with a fairly heavy bottom. Heat about a tablespoon of oil in it, and put in the sausage to brown. Meanwhile, dice the onion & mushrooms. Add the onions and mushrooms to the pot and stir them around. As the onions brown, start cutting little bits off the sausage. This will make the sausage into unevenly sized lumps, from little tiny grains to maybe half-inch chunks. When the sausage is browned, crush in a clove of garlic. Fry the garlic just until it is barely browned then add about 6  cups of water, the tomato paste, broth concentrate, and the lentils. Stir until the tomato paste is dissolved, and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer, cover, and leave it alone for about 45 minutes. Peel and chop the carrots, then add them and the kale to the pot. You may need to add a little more water, due to evaporation. Cover the pot again and cook for another 45 minutes or so, until the kale is tender. It takes a long time. Taste for salt and pepper, serve with a dollop of greek yogurt if you feel indulgent.

Notes:

1. Yes, this recipe takes at least a good 2 hours. It's soup. Proper soup often takes a long time to develop flavors.
2. You could just squeeze the guts out of the sausage link instead of dinking around with it in the pan. But I happened to want the extra texture from the bits of sausage casing. Kale is very assertive, it needs plenty of assertive, bumpy, things to go with it.
3. Kale also cooks down quite a lot. Let it wilt into the soup pretty well before adding any additional water during the second half of cooking, or you may get an inaccurate idea of how much water you need to put in.
4. This soup needs a good bit of salt. The long cooking time causes the vegetables to become quite sweet, and the tomato paste adds plenty of sugar also. If you don't salt it, it will be very disappointing.
5. Likewise, do not use sweet italian sausage. It usually has too much fennel, and will not give the peppery kick the soup needs.
6. Brown, green, and black lentils hold their shape well when they're boiled. If you just want to thicken the soup, use red lentils, which dissolve rapidly during cooking. I used green ones, incidentally.

You need some nice crusty rolls with this, I think.

Like Tortilla Soup, only Chinese

  

  
Here's something I can't explain: why do I like this so much, when it was so repulsive to me when I was a kid? I used to be very particular about some things. Crunchy things should remain that way, and squishy things should not gain texture at a later point in their existence. A soft food that was made hard was only marginally more palatable than a crispy thing that was made soggy. There were a few narrow exceptions to the soft-to-hard rule, (crunchy bits in fried rice were desirable, but not crust on melted cheese) but none, ever, to the hard-to-soft rule.

This is made with the leftover home made noodles from this year's christmas chow mein. When Dad used to dump the leftovers from chow mein into broth, I could barely make myself eat it, I thought it was so horrid. Now it's comfort food. Go figure. If you like tortilla soup you'll like this, it's just got chinese flavorings in it instead of mexican. You could use any kind of soup if you'd rather, but if you don't have home made noodles, you should slice up and deep fry some flour tortillas. It'll taste the same. Don't start thinking you can use store bought chow mein noodles, those things are irredeemably bogus.

2 cups broth, I use concentrate in water
1/2 lb firm tofu, cubed
1 cup greens, this has frozen spinach, but baby arugula is excellent
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1 tablespoon fish sauce (recommended) or soy sauce

sesame oil & green onions to taste

Bring the first 5 things to a boil in a saucepan, then simmer until the greens are done. That'll only take about 5 minutes. Pour the soup over a heap of noodles in a bowl, sprinkle on some sesame oil and a few bits of green onion, if you want them.

Noodles are auspicious, of course. So happy new year!

Magic Soup 2

  

  
Some of you may remember my first set of instructions for magic soup. It isn't really a recipe as much as it is an assembly outline, but it makes a tasty, attractive looking, light meal very quickly.

2 cups soup stock
1/2 block tofu, cubed
1/2 a dried kaffir lime leaf
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1/4 lemon
a couple slices of ginger

simmer everything together for maybe 10 minutes, tops. Throw out the lemon. Serve topped with:

minced cilantro
green onions
a few sliced sugar peas
a couple little tomatoes
a pinch of toasted garlic chips
sesame oil

a couple things-

1. I used firm tofu. Soft is fine, but it tends to disintegrate with boiling.
2. You can use all sorts of veggies, but since you aren't actually cooking them, stick with delicate varieties. Sugar peas, mung bean sprouts, jicama, red or yellow bell peppers, these all have the same sweet/crunchy combination which is a good contrast to the tart soup and the soft tofu.
3. I used a spoon of broth concentrate for stock. It's totally legit, in my book.
4. You could probably do this vegan. Use veggie stock and swap soy for the fish sauce. If you do though, don't skip the garlic, and probably not the tomatoes. Both those things have high concentrations of amines which will give you a more satisfying flavor in the absence of meat protein.
5. Fresh herbs! 

This soup was brought on by remembering vietnamese hot & sour soup at Dalat. They put pineapple, bean sprouts, shrimp, mushrooms and other stuff in it, which sounded perfectly horrid the first time somebody told me about it. It's delicious though. I suspect that they use white pepper to season their soup, which I don't have, so I skipped the spicy thing this time around. Don't let that stop you though, if you likes the hot, go for whatever strikes your fancy.

How many things can you do with a napa cabbage?

           

I know that you're supposed to eat your veggies, and that the cabbage family is supposed to be especially good for you, but the fact is that none of those things seem to grow in single-person sizes. Kale? Comes in a giant bunch. Cabbage of all sorts comes as a thing somewhere between a dwarfish bowling ball and a torpedo. Mustard can seemingly only be purchased by the forest, and if you want bok choi you must take an entire spinney of the stuff. Unless you want to buy plastic bags of pre-washed, pre-cut, pre-everything-ed veggies, you have to commit to making a whole series of dishes made out of the same thing. Since my hippie environmental principles revolt at the veggies in bags, in the winter I eat a lot less greens than I do in the summer, when I go to the farmer's markets. I do pay more for food at the farmer's market than at the grocery store, but I figure that if I buy something at fred meyer that is less than inspiring and end up throwing half of it away in the end, I've paid just as much for what I did eat, and got less value for my money.

So after I made the dumplings, I had a napa. Fortunately, I also had a great deal of soup stock, and these two things are the main ingredients to the dish that I remember most from being a kid. When I was in kindergarten, I was the only chinese kid in class, and probably the only one my little classmates had ever actually spoken to. I don't guess they would have had much opportunity to associate with my two older siblings. One day Ms. Ryan asked us all during show and tell what we ate at home. Of course everybody wanted to know if I ate a lot of chop suey. And egg foo young. I don't think I had ever heard of that. So I said no, we ate soup. And noodles. And sometimes we ate macaroni and cheese! I was given the strong impression that somehow my answers were not the correct ones. My chineseyness was inadequate to the task, evidently. I tried to redeem myself by demonstrating my ability to use chopsticks, but I don't think it did the trick.

In any case, we continued to eat soup. Dad usually put meatballs in it, or something like that. I am sick and tired of dealing with meat mess in my house, so I just put in tofu, cabbage and wide rice noodles. We used to have mung bean noodles in everything, but these were what was in my cupboard. Chop some napa leaves and tofu, simmer them in the stock with the noodles until the noodles are soft, then sprinkle on a few green onions and a little sesame oil. You can put in a szechuan peppercorn too, if you like, but I forgot.

Chicken Soup with other stuff

As usual, I was mooching off my brother, and there is a resulting recipe. This is a third-hand recipe that originated in a cookbook with a depressing title, "heart healthy recipes" or suchlike. But don't be put off, it is very tasty.

4 chicken tenders, mine were frozen
1 qt water
1 T broth concentrate
the white parts of 4 green onions, chopped pretty small
1 bay leaf
1/2 of a tiny can of roasted green chilis

1 can white beans
1 cup corn nibs, I used frozen
1+ T cornmeal

I discovered to my dismay that I do not have any chili seasoning; here's what went in it instead:

1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4+ tsp garlic powder
3/4 tsp ground cumin
scant 1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp marjoram
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp ground coriander, although I do start with whole seeds and crush them up. Better that way.
1/4 tsp paprika

Put the chicken, water, and stock concentrate in a 3 or 4 qt pot and bring to a boil.  No need to thaw the chicken if you use frozen, it just adds fussing. When the chicken has thawed and cooked mostly through, use a fork and a spatula or something like that to tear the meat up into little chunks. Put the onions, chilis and the other seasonings in and simmer for about 30 minutes or until the flavors blend and the chicken is quite tender. Then drain and rinse the beans, add them and the corn nibs to the soup and bring back to a boil. Sprinkle on the cornmeal and simmer until the soup has thickened slightly.

You can add a dash of cayenne for more heat (highly recommended) and because it is very boring to look at, do garnish it with some cilantro, or parsley if you don't like cilantro. It's more fun to eat that way. I put a dab of hot sauce on it for the picture. And Greek yogurt.

Yup, Still Asian

I checked.

You can go to the trouble of making this yourself, or do what I do- go to trader joe's and buy a carton of the organic unsweetened soy milk. That's all it is.

I have many thoughts about this dish. Dad used to make "bean milk" from scratch when I was a kid, and sometimes tofu. I didn't like it. Soybeans have a strong earthy taste, and I only started to enjoy earthy flavors as an adult.

I think that in the late '70s and early '80s, there was no really good source of tofu and soymilk in Michigan, and dad always had a swath of mad scientist in his personality anyway so it suited him to make it himself from time to time. Family legend has it that dad was the guy who taught the first reliable hippy outfit in Ann Arbor how to make decent tofu to sell at the food co-op, but there is no evidence for this that I know of.

The procedure for making soymilk is to take your dry soybeans and soak them overnight to 24 hours in about a double volume of water. The beans puff up a lot, which you'll have noticed if you've ever cooked any other kind of dry bean. Then you put the raw beans in a blender with enough water to cover them in the pitcher and grind them as fine as possible. It takes a long time, is really noisy, and makes a mess. The finer the bean particles get, the better. Once the beans are all ground up, strain the slurry through a cloth bag (dad used an old t-shirt) and reserve the liquid; that's the soymilk. Throw away the mass of gunk left over. I don't know what the ideal proportion of water to bean is, alas. Also, I can't remember if you grind the beans in the soaking water, or throw it away and use fresh. Probably the latter.

You have to cook the soymilk before eating it of course. Bring it to a boil, then turn it down to a simmer and let it get some skins on it from condensation. The skins are a key part of the whole bean milk experience. To serve, put it in large bowls and throw in any of the usual chinese flavored things, according to taste: green onion, bacon bits (not chinese I know, but that's what was in it at my house) cilantro, spicy pickled radish, sesame oil, fresh grated ginger, szechuan pepper-salt, soysauce, hot chili pepper sauce or slices. Good for breakfast.

Supposedly, this should be served with chinese beignets. I never liked them, but I do appreciate their authentic chinesey-ness.

Also, you need to drink green tea with this. I always forget that I like green tea. Don't fool around with any bagged crap though. Get the real stuff. I've been hoarding some excellent green tea for a while, it has a sweet, floral, grassy taste to it. Very zen, makes me feel extra oriental, as if the bean milk wouldn't do it. Here's what real green tea should look like. Sorry, I have no brand names to give out, I have no idea what this is. It came out a mylar bag given to my sister by some of dad's minions before I moved to NYC. Which tells you that it keeps really well.

So, how do you get tofu out of bean milk? You need to curdle it, then strain and press the curds, again with your cloth bag/t-shirt aparatus. The way to curdle it is, you throw in some magnesium sulphate. Yeah, that's what I said. A very dilute solution, of course, but I swear that's what dad used. I told that to a guy I had a crush on in college, and he was repulsed. He said something like 'ohmigod! Thats the the stuff my mom puts on her feet!'

Hey, I'm asian. What do you want?

Vacation Is Too Short

I am reconciled to the tomatillos.

Avocado Tomatillo Soup

2 avocados
1/2 lb tomatillos, husked & rinsed
1 jalapeno
small bunch of scallions
1 t grated fresh ginger
1 t minced fresh parsley & mint
1 celery rib
1/2 large bell pepper. I used green.
2 cups stock
about 1/2 cup greek yogurt
some salt
some oil

Dice up the peppers, (both kinds), celery, tomatillos and scallions, including most of the green parts. Reserve a couple bits of scallion and bell pepper for garnish later, if you like.

Put the diced ingredients in a heavy pan with the oil, ginger, herbs, and a dash of salt, and fry at a moderately high heat until you get some browning in the pan. They'll cook down quite a lot.

Add the stock and boil, covered, until the tomatillos have dissolved. Takes about 20 minutes. Check for salt; if it's real bland add some more, but the stock concentrate I used was pretty salty, so I didn't need any.

Cool it somewhat, then puree the soup with the avocado and greek yogurt. I leave the bumps in everything, but if you wanted a finer texture, you could puree the soup and strain it before adding the avocado and yogurt.

Some things to know: I got this out of a vegetarian cookbook, which called for vegetable stock, and 4 cups of it too. I wanted a more substantial texture and intense flavor, so I cut down the liquid. It also said to chill the soup, but it's pretty tasty warm (I was hungry).

I garnished the soup with another dab of yogurt and some crushed chili paste. And I added a few chunks of avocado in at the end, I need my food to have texture.

I love having time to goof around.

Yogurt Cuke Soup

This is a very subtle dish. If the amounts of seasoning seem small, don't be worried. It's important to allow 2-4 hours of sitting time after you make it so that the flavors will have time to blend without loosing the freshness that is such a big part of the appeal.

1 qt yogurt- use greek style. Regular plain yogurt will be much more sour. Fage brand is hands-down the best, but Trader Joe does all right. I made my own using Fage as a starter, but there's no need to go to all that trouble.

1 lb persian, chinese, or pickling type cucumbers. The point is that they should be sweet with tender skins.

1 or 2 regular ol' cukes

1/2 tsp dill- I used dry, and it was just fine. If you use fresh, you may want more.
3 mint leaves, very finely minced
1/2 tsp freshly ground coriander seed

1 small clove garlic
the white part of 1 small green onion, minced a bit.
2 T olive oil- fancy is good here, I like the pepperyness
1 T fresh lemon juice

salt & pepper
toasted walnuts and more green onions for garnish

Put the yogurt in a large bowl with the mint, dill and coriander

Cut the persian cucumbers into little matchsticks and put them in the bowl with the yogurt.



BEWARE THE MANDOLINE! Dangit.


Peel the regular cukes and remove the seeds. Chop into hunks and put them in a blender/processor with the garlic clove, onion, lemon and olive oil. Puree thouroughly. Whether you use one or 2 cukes will depend on how thick you want the soup to be. If you like it thinner, use 2. If you want it more like a dip, use one, and make it be a small one. Add to the yogurt. Salt and pepper to taste.


Top with nuts and green onion bits, if desired, and serve with bread or pita chips. The ones in the picture are sesame flavored.