Warm, delicious, rich, perfect texture on the noodles, silky sauce... the meatiness and creaminess and punch from the parmesan all working in perfect concert. Absolutely exactly what my fever-addled body was wanting on a cold night.
And how did I repay this debt of gratitude? Well, I went ahead and gave E my flu, didn't I? Yep. I watched her travel the exact same timeline that I had been on - sore throat, chills, sneezing giving way to coughing, watery eyes and runny nose, aches and fever. Lovely.
Well, when someone I love gets sick, I for some reason find my inner Asian grandma - I want to make soup... with lots of ginger and vegetables and warming broth. Knowing I had a duck defrosting in the fridge helped me down this path too... and so Tuesday evening, I hit the grocery store for the last couple of ingredients I would need to make my Sick Wife Noodle Soup. That almost sounds like a description you'd see on a Chinese menu, doesn't it? Sure it does. Work with me here.
It's funny - when I cook Western cuisine, I tend to stick pretty closely to one or another. If the dish is Italian, I'm not putting a bunch of butter and tarragon in the mix. If it's Spanish, you can bet that I'm using smoked paprika and orange and garlic more than I'm using, say, oregano and hot chilies. For whatever reason though, when I'm riffing on Asian stuff I borrow from lots of places. Unless I'm very specifically making something like a Thai curry or Korean Bo Ssam, I tend to take a little from Japan, a little from Vietnam, a little from China. Take this soup, for instance. Duck-based (Chinese), with ginger and lemongrass (Vietnamese/Thai), star anise and Szechuan peppercorn (Chinese), and buckwheat noodles (Japanese). Convoluted? Perhaps. Delicious? Absofuckinlutely.
Anywho, back to the soup. Like I said - this was a Tuesday evening. I got home around 5:15 with nothing prepared ahead of time, including a whole duck. How to get soup on the table for a sick, bleary-eyed wife and a prattling, wound-up 4 year old before it was time to put said 4 year old to bed? Surely I must be crazy - more of a hindrance than a help, trying to make a fancy meal when all E wanted to do was eat and go to bed... how, indeed, would I get it done in time?? Well, dear reader, several years ago, in the first iteration of this blog, I sang the praises of a Christmas present E had gotten me... a magical item that allowed for sumptuous braised dishes on a weeknight... stock from scratch in an hour... stewed beans from dry in 20 minutes. What is this magical cauldron of which I speak?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the pressure cooker. I don't own a microwave, or a fancy toaster, or really anything else that cuts corners time-wise in the kitchen. I tend to eschew modern technology for the tried and true. Well, pressure cookers have been around a long time... and, actually, have been improved by modern technology so that they are safer and easier to use than the ones our grandmas had way back when. At any rate, I knew I had this on my side going in... which made my task a good deal less daunting. Onward and upward... and let these healing hands do their work!
So - I had a whole duck, some vegetables, some noodles, and some duck stock. Time to get to work. I set about defrosting the 2 quarts of duck stock I had in the freezer, and cut it with one quart of water. I busted down the duck to legs, breasts, and carcass, reserving the wing tips and the neck. I then seared the legs hard in the base of the pressure cooker, getting the skin nice and crispy and well browned. In the resultant rendered fat, I sweated thinly sliced ginger (a knob about 4 inches long - I wanted lots of ginger in the broth), 2 stalks of lemon grass, a couple pods of star anise, some pickled thai chili, and some Szechuan peppercorn. Then I added back the legs, neck, and wing tips, and covered with the aforementioned stock, a splash of fish sauce and a squirt of hoisin. Lock the lid, turn up the heat, set a timer for 15 minutes, and when that timer went off, I was left with beautiful, fork-tender braised duck legs:
as well as some heady, fat-and-collagen-enriched, dare I say Asian-esque broth - redolent of the anise and ginger, a touch of acid from the lemongrass, some heat from chilies and some sweetness and funk from hoisin and fish sauce. E perked up from the couch and said "it smells *really* good in here." Even in her stuffed-up state, she was right:
So, in case you can't tell, I removed the legs after letting them rest a bit, and then strained off all the aromatics and duck parts from the broth, leaving behind the aforementioned nectar.
In it, I simmered more paper thin slices of ginger as well as the stalks from some gai lan, or chinese broccoli, as well as the shredded meat from the braised duck legs. Once that was bubbling lazily away, I put a pot of water onto boil, as well as got a pan going to sear the duck breasts. Now we were at 45 minutes or so from scratch and raw ingredients... still making pretty good time. Seared the breasts so they were a juicy medium rare with crackling crisp skin, and set them aside to rest. Fired the noodles, which took exactly four minutes to cook. Drained the noodles, and in the bowl, set a pile of noodles, the leaves from the gai lan, some shredded napa cabbage, and some chopped scallion. Ladled the broth with some duck meat and gai lan stalks and ginger over that loveliness, and arranged sliced crispy breast over that. Top with a sprinkle of bean sprouts, a splash of fish sauce, and because all lilies need gilding, a couple spoonfuls of rendered duck fat from cooking the breasts. Actually, if if I had wanted to go full bore, I'd have put a soft-cooked egg in there like Sapporo-style ramen, but E doesn't like eggs that much and this was for her... so I'll have to let my vivid imagination go to work on that one... but at any rate, the finished product looked like this:
Asian grandma, y'all. Like I said. This was freakin gorgeous. Crispy salty duck skin playing off the soft fork tender leg meat... umami from fish sauce, salt, sweet, just enough tooth to the veggies. Ginger to clear the sinuses, but not so hot that it burned your throat. Noodles holding up beautifully in the broth. Meaty, rich, and warm... yet fresh and light and crispy from the veg. Really, really damn good.
So, did it ward off the onset of the flu for poor E? Well, no, sadly. But she polished off her whole bowl, and the bleary watery eyes got a little brighter, and there was even a trace of a smile as she wiped her mouth when she was done. I say mission accomplished. Oh, and dinner time? 6:35. Under 2 hours start to finish, including braising duck legs... not bad, y'all. Here's where you can find that pressure cooker if you, too, want to leap weeknight braised meals in a single bound...
WHAT I DRANK:
I was torn between German Riesling and Pinot Noir, and went with the latter because it was cold outside and I wanted red. I chose the Debiase Russian River Pinot 2010. I've met Thomas, the owner and winemaker, through work and I was really impressed with his commitment to making wines with balance and elegance as the chief priority. This has a lovely core of bright red fruit wrapped in a warm box of lifted spicebox, mineral and floral character. The acid played off the richness of the soup, and the fruit paired well with all the umami goodness going on. Really pretty.
IF YOU WANT THE RECIPE:
email me at winegeek819@gmail.com. When it's all written out, it's long, so I don't want to put it on here now. But happy to share! (or, you can sorta follow my process and do quantities by feel based on what I wrote above)
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