Confessions of a Line Cook: i refuse to believe i'm the only one who's made this

Monday, March 28, 2011

i refuse to believe i'm the only one who's made this

so, i don't get to make soups at work...i think in the year i've been there i've only made two soups....one was like a week after i started working there and then a few months ago i just kind of fell into a spot where a soup was needed, but that one ended up scorched (allegedly...i thought it was fine).  and i'm pretty ok with it, we have four other guys who make soups, and they're all good at what they do, and they each have a style of their own, so it works out great for the restaurant.  we run a meat soup, a veg soup, and french onion everyday, so there's ample opportunities to make soups, but i always let the other guys handle it.  they just jump on it faster than i do.  but i also like making soups, and at my last job i was the soup guy.  so i've kinda been biding my time, waiting on the bench, so to speak, for my chance.  and i got it today.

i knew i had to make at least one soup today, so last night i was trying to come up with something different to make, something that's not too much like anything anybody else makes.  i initially thought of a thai peanut soup, but we don't have any peanuts or peanut butter.  but then i remembered we have tons of tahini on hand for making hummus, so i just changed it to a sesame chicken soup.  i had kind of mapped it out in my head last night, and then this morning i googled "sesame chicken soup" and got very few results, most of which were like "sesame oil, water, the end" and i knew i wanted to step it up a bit.  so, here ya go internet...a kick ass sesame chicken soup recipe.

all the measurements are estimates, cause i just kind of threw it together, but i'm way happy with the results.

MIKEY'S SESAME CHICKEN SOUP

saute 1 lb chicken breast in 1/4 cup good sesame oil, adding 4tbsp minced garlic and 2tbsp smashed ginger (i put mine thru my microplane) after the chicken cooks a bit, maybe three minutes.  cook for another couple minutes and add 2 cups of shredded carrot and 1 cup diced green onion (i did mine on the bias...fancy!).  season with salt and pepper and cook for another two minutes.  add 1 gal chicken stock, one 12oz (i think) jar of tahini, about 3/4 gal heavy cream, 3/4 c soy sauce, and a few good lashings of siracha.  then i toasted about a cup of sesame seeds until they smelled good and they started popping out of the pan, and blended that up with just enough stock to moisten, and added that back into the soup.  it tasted great but wasn't quite thick enough for me, so i made a roux with about a quarter pound butter and maybe an 1/8 of a cup of sesame oil to add some more sesame goodness, and after i added that and it came up to temp it was perfect.  makes...i dunno...maybe a couple of third pans?  didn't turn out to be as much as i wanted.  but i thought it was great.  i've never made it before, and according to google, nobody else has either.

i should probably dial it in and put it up somewhere.  but to you four people that still read my blog, you heard it here first!

1 comment:

Cornstarch in my crotch said...

I refuse to believe you haven't posted in over a month. Maybe you need another blog? Confessions of a Mets fan: dealing with high hopes and constant let down year after year