In the chaotic kitchen of a recipe developer, you get a food blog called FoodMayhem.
I'm Jessica, an Asian-American, born and raised in NYC, and that's Lon, my Jewish, white husband. While professionally trained as a French culinary- and pastry chef, many of FoodMayhem recipes are my attempt to preserve and share authentic Chinese and Taiwanese recipes learned from my mom. We don't eat Chinese food every day, so you'll get a little bit of anything we find delicious enough to share: from our Eastern European side; recipes and techniques learned from my restaurant days; restaurant reviews, food travel tips; and a few other juicy bits along the way. Welcome to FoodMayhem!
This black bean soup benefits from being made a day ahead so that the flavors can really come together. It’s always great to have these kind of recipes around because sometimes you want to get some of the cooking out of the way early, so you don’t have to rush day of.
As a kid, I wasn’t into bitter vegetables, but I now I adore radicchio, arugula, and of course broccoli rabe. I’m still not into bitter melon but perhaps when I’m old, haha. (Sorry mom!)
I read in Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen, that she peels the stem of her broccoli rabe. I had never done that before, usually just chopping off the rough ends. It ends up being worth the effort to get these tender stems. Now I love broccoli rabe even more!
I’ve been waiting till the temperatures cooled a bit, before using the lentils (Lentejas) in our Despana Basket. The advantage of jarred lentils, over dried, is that you don’t have to rehydrate them. That’s why I call it a Quick Lentil Soup; it’s relatively faster and easier.
It’s taken us a while to go through all the fabulous meats in our basket, but we’re finally down to the last one, Slachichon, a dry cured sausage. It’s delicious eaten as is, similar to salami, just thinly slice it, and have a glass of wine, maybe some cheese, ahh…I decided to throw some into the soup for extra flavor.
Quick Lentil Soup
1. In a large dutch oven, heat the salchichon on high heat until it gives off fat, about 2 minutes.
2. Add leeks, carrots, onion, and stir until softened, about 5 minutes.
3. Add chicken broth and lentils and bring to a boil.
4. Turn down to a simmer and cook covered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
