A Deceptively Beautiful Bowl of Soup
Olive Tapenade/Feta Appetizers
Immediately you're wondering why it's called "jittery chicken soup." That's answered simply enough: because the chicken was prepared in the same manner as "Shaking Beef." Heat the wok until you smoke up the apartment, and then add the chicken. Sear the chicken - you shake the wok so the chicken jitters. Jittery chicken. So that's out of the way.
I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that I was a bit disappointed in the soup and it's all my fault. I didn't want to make a soup that was specific to any cuisine, but I wanted to stir fry everything because that method lends depth of flavor to almost anything. For example, stir frying does wonders for otherwise unremarkable tofu. Similarly, celery becomes an entirely different vegetable after it's stir fried, like it's almost not a vegetable anymore.
I figured the stir frying would provide the chief flavor element, so I consciously limited the number of ingredients that went into the soup, partly to make the cooking easier, but also as an experiment. I did spend an inordinate amount of time with prep because I wanted the soup to look nice. I julienned zucchini, celery, carrots, and onions. I also shredded at least a half-head of cabbage with the attention usually reserved for shredding compromising government documents. "Selling arms to Iran? What the fuck are you talking about selling arms to Iran?" Salt and pepper, a package of button mushrooms, three cloves of garlic, a generous sploomp of sriracha, four goddamn cans of chicken broth, a quartered chunk of parmesan cheese, and water rounded out the soup.
The soup was still pretty bland. Not bad, but definitely lacking. I suspect that I got too ambitious with the cabbage given the amount of broth we had. We had close to a half-gallon of broth, which should have been more than enough, but it didn't nearly cover everything once it was added to the pot. I added two broth cans of water, which surely diluted everything. I quartered two lemons and squeezed in some of their juice, which usually helps to ramp up whatever latent flavors are there; still, the soup had that "I did the best I could with water, salt, and a bag of cotton balls, and I think I did a damn nice job" aspect about it. In summation: pretty good, but ultimately unremarkable. We won't crave this soup a week from now. We won't look forward to eating the leftovers, but they'll make a filling enough lunch.
The olive tapenade appetizers, however. These require some back story. I've become a real sample prick. I don't really do it because I want something for nothing, like I'm entitled to free samples because I'm shopping at the store or something; instead, I do it to get dinner ideas. Good example: last night, we ate this really simple to make chicken casserole. I'd craved it since I tried it at HEB, and wanted to eat it again. The dish consisted of a rotisserie chicken (shredded), cheese, tomatillo/chile sauce, and corn tortillas. Layer it, throw it in the oven, watch the news, eat. Shit on a shingle, essentially, but astonishingly, undeniably delicious.
We'd sampled the olive tapenade appetizers at HEB, too, and I couldn't get them out of my head. These were brain dead simple to make: melt butter, add olive oil to butter, spread on ciabatta, and put in the oven. Mix olive tapenade and feta cheese (plaudits again to Phoenicia - best feta I've ever eaten). Allow bread to brown, take it out of the oven, let it cool, spread olive/feta schmeer on it, devour lustily. Mercedes made these, and honest-to-Joe they were the business. Ciabatta, olives, feta - someone in Greece is making ranch on this combination as I write. I could, and maybe should, have eaten just these for dinner.
There's still a Glad bowlful of the chicken/cabbage combination in the fridge. I'm not sure I want to make soup out of the leftovers, but they'll make some fuggin' good egg rolls maybe. How about I make some egg rolls out of that chicken/cabbage mix in the fridge? Yeah!?!? Okey-doke.
We should finish the soup first?
Shit.
Is there any of that bread left?
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