6.16.2008

Excellent (read in sinister Montgomery Burns voice)



Last night I tore up some Asian cooking for the first time. I had one disastrous attempt at Pad Thai in college which allowed me to vent some anger by crushing peanuts with the back of my skillet. I usually just stick to take out. I poked around the interweb for inspiration and then threw together a meal centered around an egg theme: Egg Drop Soup, Fried Rice, and Easter Egg radish & kohlrabi salad.

I'd actually never even heard of kohlrabi before, so naturally, I bought three. My favorite description is green sputnik, but wikipedia says kohlrabi "is a low, stout cultivar of the cabbage that will grow almost anywhere". Kinda like me, except for the cabbage part. I was expecting a cabbage-like vegetable with tight leaves, but once peeled, it looks more like a radish on the inside. So I cut a purple and green one into rather un-uniform slices along with some radishes and doused the whole thing in a toasted sesame seed dressing.

Kohlrabi before:


Kohlrabi after:


I love egg drop soup. I made this version with veggie stock instead of chicken and added 5 crushed garlic cloves. Chopped baby bok choy and a shallot rounded it out. Once simmering, I swirled in 3 scrambled farm fresh eggs. This is the steamy pot of soup:


The fried rice was super easy. I just sauteed some shiitake mushrooms and peas in oil along with some rice wine vinegar and soy sauce, stirred in some already cooked brown rice, and in the center put some scrambled eggs in a well. Mixed it up and two minutes later, dinner was ready.

My favorite idea of the night: A cilantro centerpiece so everyone could garnish their own plates:

3 comments:

Back Garage said...

Yum! Next: bi-bim-bop!

Andrea said...

Ooooh! Nice produce

Anonymous said...

kohlrabi "is a low, stout cultivar of the cabbage that will grow almost anywhere". Kinda like me, except for the cabbage part.

Also except for the growing part. You may dream that you'll grow taller someday, but sadly you are eternally stuck at a pathetic 5'1". No growth for you!