I accidentally made what is probably the best soup I have ever achieved. As usual it looks like a muddy pond in the picture, but the taste! Oh, the taste.
One of the local supermarkets sells these packs of chicken offcuts - wing tips, head, backbone etc - but it seems the butcher there is a bit heavy handed at the chopping and the selection also includes quite a lot of good meat. I occasionally buy a pack specifically for making stock.
Yesterday, I did that and stuck the chicken in a slow cooker with ginger and a couple of goji berries. I had a container of some dried cèpe soaking liquid, so I used that instead of water to cover. Left it all day (because I forgot about it). Today, I soaked some dried shiitake and then added their liquid to the drained stock from yesterday (all the meat and ginger/goji mash were discarded).
I had some pork tenderloin which I cut into slivers. Ditto some Jinhua ham. Sliced the rehydrated shiitake and also some fresh shiitake, some wild rice stems (Zizania latifolia) and chopped onion. A load of ground white pepper and the secret ingredient* which brought it all together.
*juice of half a lemon.
Darn, it was good if I say so myself.
Followed by simple, fishy fried rice using the leftover sea bass from yesterday's dinner (above), with yellow bell pepper, red chili and asparagus
