Pork Belly Soup

Is there anything so glorious as the pig?  OK, maybe not so glorious while they are running around as a pig can be quite contrary.  However, once they are converted into pork, they are indeed glorious.  The old saying that the only thing you can't use on a pig is the oink is very true.


Most people now days are only familiar with pork chops, ham, bacon, and maybe pork shoulder for pulled pork.  While fresh pork belly is gaining popularity with chefs most people are still not using it.  There is always a fair bit left after I square up the belly to cure for bacon.  That trim gets used to make some very flavorful meals. 


Yesterday was a dreary drookit day and the good wife was in a mood for soup to drive out the chill.  She'd had the fire going most of the day and even I was wishing I'd brought a heavier jacket when I left work.  Of course, good soup takes time and we had errands to run before it could be started but the pressure cooker made up for the late start.


I used pork broth from the freezer for this soup but I've never seen pork broth available commercially.  I think beef or chicken broth would work just fine with beef being slightly more preferred.  My broths are cooked down to be fairly strong so as to save freezer space since you can always add water.  I used about 3 cups worth of frozen pork broth and added 4 cups of water and still had a rich flavorful broth as the soup base.


One other item you won't have on hand is Uncle T's Pork and Poultry Seasoning.  A good substitute would be to make up some quatre épices to season the pork belly.

A good bowl of Pork Belly Soup

Pork Belly Soup


1 lb pork belly
6 - 8 cups broth
3 medium potatoes, 1/2 inch dice
1 1/2 cups carrots, chopped 1/2 inch
1 cup barley
1 - 2 Tbs salt
2 tsp pepper
1.5 tsp roasted ground cumin
1.5 Tbs Uncle T's Pork and Poultry Seasoning
3 bay leaves


Cut the pork belly into small bite size pieces and season with Uncle T's Pork and Poultry Seasoning, or with salt and quatre épices.  Brown the pork belly either in the pressure cooker or a skillet.  Put the broth, potatoes, and carrots in the pressure cooker.  Taste the broth and season to taste with salt, pepper, and roasted cumin.  Remember the potatoes will need a bit of seasoning.  Add the barley and browned pork belly to the pressure cooker and stir to thoroughly mix.  Drop in the bay leaves.  Put the lid on the pressure cooker and set the pressure cook timer for 15 minutes.  After the timer goes off, let it sit for 10 minutes before venting the pressure according to your cookers instructions.  It won't hurt to let the pressure to go down naturally.  Serve and enjoy.


I think this would have been even better with some fresh crusty bread but I didn't have time since we had those errands to run.  As it was, it was rich warm and definitely drove the chill away.


Give this recipe a try and let me know what you think.


Uncle T

Sprouted Rice and Quinoa Mushroom Soup

Soup is one of the things that the good wife could eat at any time.  So if I was ever at a loss for ideas of what to fix for supper I could always make a soup and she'd be happy.  Once the weather turns cooler I like to add more soups to the nightly meals.  Of course, the way we do it soup is the meal rather than a warm up for the main meal.  Using the pressure cooker helps speed things up when making soup, especially when incorporating dried beans.


We eat mushrooms frequently.  So much so that I've contemplated setting up a system to grow our own.  Sometime ago I was looking at recipe suggestions I'd gotten via email and came across a Wild Rice Mushroom Soup recipe.  That sounded like an excellent use of mushrooms so I started researching.  In the end I combined parts of several recipes and did my own thing.

A pot full of mushroom goodness

This recipe can be changed to suit your tastes and dietary preferences.  I added some diced Kassler, a German ham, since I wanted meat with it and used chicken broth for the liquid.  Leaving out the ham and using a vegetable broth would make this a good vegetarian soup.  You could also change the types of mushrooms used to change the flavor profile as well.  Another change for the vegetarians would be to substitute soy or almond milk for the heavy cream.  See, it doesn't take many changes to have a completely different soup.


Sprouted Rice and Quinoa Mushroom Soup


2 cups sprouted rice and quinoa
1 box + 1 cup chicken broth
1 lb baby bella mushrooms, chopped with stems removed
1 oz dried shiitake mushrooms
1 leek, halved and thinly sliced
2 -3 Tbs butter
3 - 6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 Tbs tomato powder or tomato paste
1 cup dry/semi-dry white wine
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs flour
olive oil
fresh ground pepper
salt
8 - 10 oz ham, diced (optional)

If using an electric pressure cooker, put the two cups, using the rice measuring cup that came with the pressure cooker, of sprouted rice and quinoa in the pot and add the box of  chicken broth.  Set the timer for 10 - 12 minutes.  If using a regular pot, cook time will be according to package instructions using 1.5 cups of the sprouted rice and quinoa.  Place the shiitake mushrooms in a 2 cup measuring cup and cover with 1.5 cups of boiling water.  Once they are soft, pull the shiitakes out and dice them and reserve the water they were soaked in.   In a large skillet, melt the butter with the olive oil.  When hot, add the garlic, leek, chopped baby bella mushrooms, and tomato paste.  Once the mushrooms have released their liquid, add the chopped shiitake mushrooms.  Sprinkle the flour over everything and cook until the flour starts to brown and stick to the skillet.  Add the wine, 1 cup broth, reserved shiitake soaking liquid and stir until thickened.  Add the contents of the skillet to the pot with the sprouted rice and quinoa in broth and stir to combine.  Stir in the heavy cream and soy sauce then add salt and pepper to taste.  Let simmer for 30 minutes for all flavors to combine.  Optional, once the sprouted rice and quinoa are cooked, add the diced ham to the broth to heat or lightly brown it in a skillet before adding it.  Serves 4 - 6 people.

A nice bowl of Sprouted Rice and Quinoa Mushroom Soup

This soup is rich and thick with wonderful umami from the mushrooms.  The addition of the ham ups the flavor and satisfies those like Uncle T that think you have to have some meat with supper.  Best of all, using the pressure cooker it is quick to make.

Give this soup a try some cold evening and I think you'll be pleased.

Uncle T

Spicy Seafood Stew

One of the benefits of living in coastal Virginia is the availability of a wide array of fresh seafood.  Plus, if a particular seafood isn't available locally we are close enough to get it shipped fresh and still maintain a high quality.  This brings us to mussels.


The good wife and I got introduced to mussels while stationed in Germany.  After all, they weren't very common in Tennessee when we were growing up.  Once we got back to the states we found that we'd have to get fresh mussels and prepare them ourselves if we wanted them since their use is not common in most American restaurants.  That said, when we find mussels for a good price we snatch them up and indulge ourselves.


Normally, we do mussels in a white wine sauce with some good crusty bread.  However, the good price we found was for a 10 lb bag so I get to play around more.  Since it is getting cold soups and stews feature prominently in our menu so it was only natural to use the mussels in a soup or stew.  I looked around at various recipes and thought about what else I had available and came up with this recipe.

Harvest tag indicating where the mussels were harvested

Be sure to clean the mussels before you put them in the stew.  Cleaning mussels is fairly simple, make sure there is no loose sand on the shell and pull off the beards.  Also at this time discard any that are gaping open and won't close when handled.


2 lbs of mussels, cleaned and ready for the pot

1 lb each of cod and shrimp, ready for the pot

Spicy Seafood Stew


1 lb hot Italian sausage
1 lb cod or other firm white fish
1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails removed optional
2 lbs mussels
1 large onion, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, finely diced
2 Tbs tomato paste
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes, drained
1 cup dry white wine
6 cups fish broth
6 cups chicken broth, optional
3 Tbs fish sauce, optional


Brown sausage in a deep pot and break it up to desired size.  If you get sausage in casings remove the casings.  Remove the browned sausage from the pot.  Put the onion and garlic in the sausage grease and sauté until translucent.  Add the tomato paste and stir together.  Cook until the tomato paste has darkened a bit then add the diced tomatoes.  Cook until the tomatoes start to simmer then add the wine and fish broth.  Bring to a simmer.  If you don't have or can't find fish broth you can use chicken broth and the fish sauce to make a substitute.  Once the liquid is simmering return the sausage to the pot.  Stir to mix and return to a simmer.  Add the cod, cut into 1 inch pieces, and cook for 1 - 2 minutes.  Add the mussels and gently stir and cook for 1 - 2 minutes.  Add the shrimp and gently stir then cook until the shrimp are done.  The shrimp should be done in about 3 minutes.  Ladle into a bowl and serve with crusty bread.  This makes 4 - 6 servings.

A nice bowl of spicy seafood stew

This stew ends up being nicely spiced but not so much that the seafood is over shadowed.  The broth is excellent sopped up with the bread.  I think an excellent substitution would be using Spanish chorizo in place of the hot Italian sausage.  You would just need to add some olive oil to the pot so you'd be able to sauté the onions.


The next time you're wanting a good stew then give this one a try.  Too many stores have decent fish markets now not to try it.  If you do try it let me know how it turns out.


Uncle T

Pressure Cooker Sausage and Kale Soup

Have I mentioned that I really like my electric pressure cooker?  While there are some things that a long slow cook is to be preferred, some meals are just as good when using this quick method.  Dried beans come to mind as something that is just as good when pressure cooked.  Soups turn out very well also.  To that end, I've been thinking about soups to try in the pressure cooker.

Sausage and Kale Soup ready to serve

I was searching soups recipes and came across a list of soups that had pasta and one of them was sausage and kale.  The picture looked good so I started looking at sausage and kale soup recipes.  Seems most of them call for potatoes rather than pasta but I wanted to include pasta.  That was as much for the pasta as it was the chance to cook pasta in the pressure cooker.  Another change from other recipes was the use of dried beans instead of opening a can or two.  I also noticed that most recipes called for sweet Italian sausage and the rest for some sort of smoked sausage.  I used some of my home made hot Italian sausage.


The soup was cooked in two sessions with the two sessions totaling only 25 minutes.  Making the meat balls was the longest bit of prep work for this meal.  I used my small portion scoop, a #70 scoop,  to make the meat balls a consistent size.  After the meat balls were made they were lightly browned using the sear function on the pressure cooker.  Nothing like only having one pot to clean up after supper.


 Sausage and Kale Soup (Changes listed after the instructions)


1 lb hot Italian sausage
8 oz Rigatoni
1.5 cups dried great northern beans
4 - 6 cups chopped Kale, stems removed
2 quarts chicken broth
2 Tbs Italian seasoning
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp salt


Make meat balls out of the sausage, approximately 1/2 oz each.  Lightly brown in the pressure cooker.  Pour in the chicken broth, dried beans, and pasta.  Add the salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning and stir to mix.  Put the lid on, making sure the valve is set to pressure cook, and set timer for 15 minutes.  After timer goes off, release the steam.  Add the kale to the cooker and stir to fully incorporate.  Put lid back on and pressure cook for another 10 minutes.  When done, manually release steam again and serve.

A bowl full of goodness

Changes I'll make next time I make this include upping the amount of chicken broth to 3 quarts, waiting to put in the pasta, and just letting the hot soup wilt the kale rather than pressure cooking it.  It needs more chicken broth because I underestimated how much would be soaked up by the beans and pasta as they cooked.  I would do the meat, broth, and beans for 15 minutes, then add the pasta for the final 10 minutes.


Doing the dried beans this way yielded beans that were fully cooked but were still firm.  For something like this you don't want them cooked to mush like you would if you were just cooking a pot of white beans to eat with sausage and cornbread.


If you have the time to make it, some fresh hot crusty bread would go good with this soup.  It is not necessary though.

Simply Ming Pressure Cooker Review

For some time I'd been thinking about getting an electric pressure cooker.  After all, pressure cooking speeds the cooking process and that can be a good thing.  The hold up on getting one came down to a couple of things, one being that most didn't seem versatile enough and the second being I didn't like the controls being on the side.

We had gotten a new slow cooker and found we didn't like it because the sides got too hot.  Then, while channel surfing I saw Chef Ming on HSN.  I do like watching the chefs on the shopping networks for some reason and Chef Ming was talking about his electric pressure cooker so I decided to watch.  I called the good wife into the room to check it out.  In the end, I went online and ordered it from HSN.  It is no longer on HSN's web site but it can be found on Amazon.  My good wife's sister recently bought one through Amazon.

The Simply Ming Pressure Cooker has several functions and I've used them all.  Best of all, the control panel is at the bottom and faces up so it is easy to see and use.  You can use it as a pressure cooker, slow cooker, a steamer, keep food warm until ready to eat, and it has a sear function.  It comes with a measuring cup for rice and a rice scoop for after it is done.  When I placed the order it also came with 50 recipe cards.  While some of them sound good, many have ingredients that even I don't keep around and the preparation instructions are lacking in completeness and are not for the pressure cooker.

The pressure cooker function was the first one I tried.  I used it to make hot wings.  Our usual way of making them had been putting them in the oven to cook then toss them in my home made buffalo style sauce.  From frozen, it takes 45 minutes to cook the wings this way.  With the pressure cooker, they are done in 20 minutes once it gets to temperature.  The pressure does make them a bit soft, so I do a quick toss in flour and fry them then toss in the sauce.  I also end up with a cup or so of chicken broth that gets frozen for later use in soups.

18 frozen chicken wings ready to go.

The second use of the pressure cooker was for rice.  I had some sushi rice for making kimbop so I used that since Minute Rice was the only other rice we had on hand.  Now, I just buy any long grain rice.  To pressure cook rice, use the included measuring cup then add water to the line marked on the cooker that corresponds with the number of cups of rice you put in.  Rice is done with 6 minutes on the timer.

The next function tested was the slow cooker and delay setting.  To test that, I made my version of stuffed cabbage leaves in a tomato sauce.  That was written about here, Cabbage Rolls.  I made them up the evening before and set the pot in the refrigerator.  I put it in the cooker in the morning before I left for work and set the delay to start the cooking a little before I got home.  It was cooking merrily away when I got home and it finished when I expected.

Stuffed Cabbage ready to cook

The sear function was done in conjunction with another slow cooker meal.  I made venison rouladon for supper.  The rouladon were seared in batches then stacked in the pot and slow cooked.  Being able to sear in the pressure cooker meant one less thing to wash after supper.  That recipe was written about here, Venison Rouladen.

The only function that hasn't been used repeatedly is the steamer function.  The reason being that we don't steam vegetables very often.  Contrary to my Southern roots I don't cook my vegetables to death and we're not afraid of a bit oil or butter to help carry seasonings on the vegetables.  The pressure cooker comes with a small rack to keep what you are steaming above the liquid.

Another benefit of the pressure cooker has come in the form of broths.  I processed 8 bone in pork butts for sausage and as usual saved the shoulder blades to cook for broth.  I fit all 8 in the pressure cooker, added a coffee cup worth of water, then pressure cooked them for 40 minutes.  The bits of meat were soft and tasteless after that time so all the goodness had been squeezed out to make the broth.  The resulting broth was used to make Pork Belly Soup.  It was a far cry from the old way of covering the bones with water and slowly simmering to get the same effect then having to reduce the water to concentrate the flavor.


A quick word about clean up, it's fast and easy.  The non-stick coating is amazing.  We've not found anything that couldn't be cleaned up simply by wiping with a paper towel.  We still use soap and water to be safe but the inside is clean when we do it.



I am quite pleased with my Simply Ming Pressure Cooker and would recommend it for anyone that was looking to get an electric pressure cooker.  At 6 quarts capacity it can handle most anything you want to cook.

Uncle T