By complete coincidence, some friends and I recently stumbled upon a cozy little shop called Shanghai Lounge in Northwestern Washington, D.C. It is a joint apparently run by a few 20-30 year old Chinese folks and serves quite a few decently prepared foods you certainly would not find at a takeout place. Although the shop by appearances was hardly screaming Chinese authenticity, foods like cold seaweed salad and properly stir-fried spicy lamb and veggies dotted the menu. But what truly lit up their repertoire was the single item for which Shanghai is likely best known: Xiaolongbao (小笼包).
In English, it is called anything between Shanghai steamed buns, Shanghai soup buns, and Shanghai dumplings. Unfortunately, no truly adequate translations exist for this food, but mention any combination of "Shanghai," "bun," and "dumpling" to a foodie familiar with Southern Chinese foods and they will likely rejoice with vivid memories of mouth-watering flavor exploding on bite.
Seemingly smaller analogs of the more ubiquitous Chinese steamed buns, these little guys appear rather unpretentious. However, just as you would never judge a book by its cover, you would not want to underestimate the xiaolongbao. They are essentially a pork patty swimming in a hot fatty broth of complex flavors barely sealed inside a thin layer of flour wrapping smaller in circumference than a clementine. Because of their size, it is tempting to pop them into your mouth like an American happy hour appetizer. But this would be a painful two-fold mistake. Taking a Shanghai steamed bun in one bite would cause the hot soup within to scald your tongue even as it delivers ultimate pleasure to your taste buds. The steamed bun would leave you in pain yet strangely wanting more like a budding masochist only just coming to terms with new-found desires. The second part of the two-fold mistake would then be complete when you decide that the first time was worth it and you do it again.
A less painful way to eat these steamed buns is to bite a hole in one side and allow the soup to cool. Then it is typical to suck out the soup and dip the solid portion of the bun in black vinegar (to taste) before chowing down. I like to approach it a little differently, however. Instead of consuming the soup separately, I enjoy eating the entire morsel after the soup has cooled, sometimes dipping the bun in a little black vinegar or dolloping a little vinegar into the bun before partaking.
So how does Shanghai Lounge measure up? Given that I never expected to find this style of Chinese food outside of China, Los Angeles, or New York City, this was a pleasant surprise. With respect to flavor, it tasted great although I could not compare this to xiaolongbao I had in Shanghai three years ago because it has been too long. I will say that it was an excellent sign for the food at Shanghai Lounge that four additional customers who preferred to speak fluent Chinese were seated as I dined.
Visiting my family for the holidays, I was asked a week ago to find a tasty use for the the excess amount of strawberries and oranges which my mother had recently acquired. Not spending too much time on creative thought, I decided to fall back on what I know and love best, with a twist. This time, I would put an actual orange into a cheesecake.
Having never baked with fresh oranges as ingredients, the only question on my mind was: how exactly...? So I did a little research into the parts of oranges that typically make their way into prepared foods. I learned about orange zest and how orange juice can be used without irrevocably watering down a mixture. After some time on the Internet, I actually found just the idea I needed. So with a sharp paring knife and a hand-juicer, I got started extracting the useful bits from an orange. Zesting, it turns out, was tedious and fun at the same time, not like grating carrots (which was only tedious and no fun).
With this creation, I was actually lucky to have opportunities to put my product to the test with three groups of taste-testers in nearly back-to-back evenings. So, on vacation and with time to spare, I decided to reach for perfection. I think I got somewhat close for a journeyman baker. Read on about my three iterations of strawberry orange cheesecake, with shortbread crust, and topped with orange glaze!
First cake: I thought it looked like a Rorschach inkblot test. I was told by my first set of taste-testers, friends from high school, that it looked like bacon.
Second cake: Fixing the errors from the first cake, I put the strawberry puree in the center of the cake and cut down on sugar in the orange glaze. (No picture)
Third and final cake: Stepping things up to the next level, I asked my mother for help decorating the top of the cake with fresh cut strawberries in addition to using strawberry puree in the center. Having used less than half the orange glaze for the previous cakes, I added all of the glaze to this cake by carefully brushing it over the surface, covering the strawberries, and letting it seep into each nook and cranny.
Two months is how long I went on a blogging hiatus, and boy did that go by quickly. Toward the end of September, non-blog-related things generally called life got a little crazier; then friends from out of town visited; then I took part in my civic duty to vote in an informed way; and overall, I fell out of the habit of food blogging.
Well, Thanksgiving is coming up, so what better time to get back into writing about food than the best possible holiday for an American foodie (for a moment, hand-wave away the religious, historical, and social contexts of Thanksgiving).
This time, I want to focus on home-made soups. I am talking about everything made from scratch, nothing from a glass/metal/plastic container except the seasonings. Certainly none of that over-salted, preservative-laden canned soup or Chicken stock "stuff" sold in supermarkets. And I am talking about a perennial contender that brews its way into my parents' home every winter. It does not have a name, but who needs a name when it is a simple family recipe and it tastes amazing.
As with any soup or stew, you start off with your stock. In my case, Whole Foods was selling really cheap packs of beef bones with marrow, although my parents usually use lamb shanks. I stewed two pounds of that for two hours and let the soup cool down all the way in the refrigerator in order to remove all of the solidified fat. Believe me if you do not remember from biology class, marrow is FATTY...notice the fine oily layer floating on top of the stock after the one centimeter thick layer of solidified fat was removed:
And yes, those are dark chunks of marrow from inside the bone floating around in the stock (what restaurants who make their own stock do not show you). At that point, I stewed the bones for another four hours with hearty chunks of skinned ginger. The best part about making soup stock like this is that it naturally lends itself toward multitasking: as long as you are mindful that your stove is on and you replenish the water, you will probably not burn down your home. If dried scallops or tiny prawns are available from the Asian store, chuck a handful of those into the stock for taste. Since I had neither, I used Asian fermented fish sauce.
Afterward, I removed the bones and then boiled potatoes, tomatoes, and cabbage in the soup for an hour, and that was all. If serving guests not accustomed to ethnic foods, remove the bits of solid bone marrow and add some garnish on top to disguise relatively "weird" ingredients and to make the soup look prettier.
All that said, I am really looking forward to Thanksgiving. Thursday night, I will be fine wining and dining at my parents' home with family friends. No promises on pictures being taken before the food mysteriously disappears.
In Chinese cuisine, 涼拌, or liang ban (lee-AHNG bahn), is kind of an interesting concept that, to my knowledge, does not have a decent English translation. Hence, the odd title.
The basics of liang ban sauce, as I grew up knowing it, involve soy sauce, some type of aromatic oil, a bit of vinegar, raw minced garlic, and raw chopped green onions. Optional items can include, but are not limited to, sugar, minced ginger, and chili pepper. Hailing from Southern regions of China, such a dish usually involves preparing the main component separately (usually boiled in water or a very light broth), and then mixing the main component together with all of the aforementioned fresh ingredients, cold or at room temperature.
The name literally comes from this particular style of preparation, not necessarily the ingredients involved or the type of food being consumed; therefore its various incarnations tend to have different translations in English. For instance, you can prepare a cold dish with chunks of cucumber in this sauce, called 涼拌黃瓜, and it could be considered akin to pickled cucumbers. Prepare a dish with noodles and various complementary ingredients in this sauce, and you would have yourself something like 涼拌面, or cold noodle salad. The most frequent translations mention the ideas of pickling and salads (photos from the Internet below, for reference). So how do you translate chicken drumsticks prepared this way? Beats me, really.
Drumsticks were on sale at the grocery store recently, so I purchased two packs for the week before deciding how to make them. Being a weeknight, I wanted to dedicate as little time as possible to cooking activities. So I prepared it liang ban because this method is relatively quick. For the uninitiated, the best analogy off the top of my head would be putting together a sandwich for yourself. Quick, efficient, and tasty is the essence of this dish.
First, I boiled the drumsticks on high heat with two large chunks of ginger in somewhat salty water (about 30 minutes). While I waited, I minced the garlic and slant-chopped the green onions. The idea behind chopping the green onions in a "slanted" fashion is to preserve the somewhat grassy, vegetal feel of the plant when sinking your teeth into it.
When the drumsticks were just about ready (the meat was fall-off-the-bone tender), I moved them from the boiling water to the mixing bowl I prepared with garlic and green onions. I poured soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil to taste and mixed everything together. Five minutes later, the drumsticks were ready to eat. Come to think of it, a peanut oil might complement the sauce very nicely and give it a somewhat Southeast Asian dimension. Maybe next time.
A year ago, my long-time fascination with vegetables and fruits directly incorporated into bread culminated in making my first banana bread. Then last month, I spent an hour grating three cups worth of carrots to be baked into carrot cake. Grating the carrots was so time-consuming, I swore to myself I would not grate vegetables for any baked goods in the near future.
Fast forward a month, and it looks like I am at it again. At a friend's recommendation, I tried making chocolate zucchini bread. To be more exact, it was a double chocolate spiced zucchini bread. Honestly, I had my reservations because I am somewhat "choosy" when it comes to chocolate. I typically like chocolate in only three forms: bars, candies, and melted (e.g. fudge on a sundae or chocolate chip cookies straight from the oven). So you can probably imagine that I am not partial to certain American classics like chocolate ice cream or chocolate cake or chocolate milk (the first two I will tolerate, the last one I avoid at all costs).
But man oh man, this bread blew my reservations out the door (even if it does not look extremely appetizing). It was moist with firm texture, and also pleasing to bite. The chocolate incorporated into the bread was actually a welcome addition taste-wise, possibly because the flavor was more conservative than expected. I was worried that the extra chocolate chips would be overpowering, but instead they added gooey splotches to parts of the bread, making it that much more pleasing to chew. Since I had mint dark chocolate chips to get rid of, I used those for this bread. I am never a fan of mint chocolate (bought it for an experiment a while back), but I must say it worked out.
When I brought some slices into the office, one coworker with a particularly good intuition for food suggested I try a fruity parsnip bread, i.e. apple ginger parsnip bread or peach ginger parsnip bread. Parsnips seem a little weird to me, but I am told they are basically a white carrot. Given my borderline obsession with vegetables in bread, it looks like the path leading to my next baked creation has been laid out before me.
Sapporo is the capital and largest city of Hokkaido, the (huge) northern island of Japan. According to Wikipedia, Sapporo is known to non-Japanese folks for having hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics, but I did not know that. What I know about the region is that local specialty seafood is supposedly a bragging point even for an "islands" nation. As for ramen, Sapporo has named their own style.
Enter Ren's Ramen, a shop in Wheaton, MD supposedly owned by Taiwanese folks. I cannot speak for how true to Sapporo style Ren's makes their bowl since I have only taken a two-week vacation in central Japan. If I may digress a bit: I can hardly claim that I know ramen, let alone recognize local specialties throughout the entire country. For perspective, consider the innate expertise with which an American foodie, having grown up eating burgers, might dissect the intricacies of a "bun and patty" (dissect by eating, of course). I want to be able to examine a bowl of ramen at least as capably as I can examine a burger (again, examine by eating).
Nevertheless, having finished a bowl at Ren's, what I can speak to is my approval for their broth. Of the three broths Ren's offers (miso, tonshio, shoyu), I ordered miso, which is the specialty of Hokkaido ramen. When Ren's describes the complicated broth preparation in my bowl, boasting of "depth and body," they do not exaggerate. The broth was exceptional among those found at ramen shops I have visited in the Metropolitan DC region.
As for other aspects of my meal:
The noodles were a pleasing consistency, although quite different from my favorite ramen-variety noodles at Daikaya (which also serves Sapporo style).
The bean sprouts were a nice addition, but they are more of a Southeast Asian food item. Think Vietnam, Thailand, Southern China, Taiwan, etc. I am not sure bean sprouts fit in a ramen bowl hailing from a region at least 1,200 miles (2,000 km) north of Southeastern Asia. Still, I offer that observation up for a second, more knowledgeable opinion.
The soft-boiled eggs were prepared just right, and the single slice of roast pork was tasty. I would have ordered extra slices of cha siu or their stewed fatty pork, but I was short on cash...
And that is a really key point: they only accept cash and they do not have an ATM handy! With a standard compliment of add-ons as is the way of ramen shops in America, expect to pay up to $20 including tax and tip. $25 if you plan to splurge, and that does not include drinks (I am a cheap Asian...I am there for the food, not the drinks).
Overall, I highly recommend Ren's Ramen, although it is about a 30-minute trek on I-495 North for those in Northern Virginia. Happy slurping!
In college, it became almost customary to celebrate a Chinese holiday by making food with friends. In those days, dumplings were often the edible of choice because of their relative simplicity and cost-effectiveness. Since I have been making dumplings for dinner on a semi-regular basis, I decided to step it up this year for the Mid-Autumn Festival. I stretched my horizons into the land of hand-pulled noodles.
Okay, the imagery I tried to use in that last sentence does not work out perfectly. And although this experiment was not without mishaps along the way, the final bowl of noodles turned out to be pretty tasty.
The Noodles
Hand-pulled noodles, or lamian (拉面), purportedly originated in Lanzhou, the capital city of a Central-Northwestern province of China. Since then, it has been adapted to different regional specialties as it spread throughout Asia. Within China, the Beijing style is also somewhat recognized. Additionally, if you say "lamian" out loud, you may notice very striking linguistic similarities to a certain type of Japanese noodle soup: ramen. This is no coincidence, because the Japanese may have borrowed the basic principles of lamian and proceeded to mold and evolve the dish into what is known as ramen today. Certainly, the two bowls of noodles are so different today, they can no longer be compared apples-to-apples. While the culinary link between lamian and ramen is still debated, it is certain that they share an etymological link.
I began by making the dough using ingredients pictured below, including 150 mL (approximate) water warmed in the microwave for 10-15 seconds and high-gluten flour (高筋粉), an ingredient entirely new to me.
The dough combined about two cups high gluten flour, 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (6:1 ratio) and a sprinkling of salt and baking soda. I added just enough water to allow for the formation of gluten bonds. The hard dough was then kneaded for 20 minutes straight. Adding strength training to my workouts a few months ago paid off, because I have no bread machine!
I wrapped the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for an hour. Afterward, I proceeded to flex the dough as the masters do it (skip to 1:16 and 5:19):
Well, I tried to anyway. My dough was not as elastic as it needed to be. No matter how much flexing and twisting I performed, the dough would end up breaking mid-stretch. (Tensile strength profiles, anybody?) In many videos found during my research, the chef would undulate his pelvis (undulate, because it was not forceful enough to be considered thrusting) while flexing and twisting the dough. Thinking something was wrong with my form, I gave that a try--ultimately to no avail.
To save my failure, I combined both sets of dough, rolled it flat, and sliced out thin strips of noodles. Of course, I found out that was the wrong way to go, because even the longest strips broke down in boiling water to around three inches on average. For the scientifically literate, imagine a slightly left-skewed Gaussian distribution between 2 inches and 5 inches, and that was probably close to how my noodles turned out.
The Broth
But I would not be deterred, because the beef shank broth used for Taiwanese-inspired beef noodle soup turned out to be really tasty.
I briefly browned chunks of beef shank in oil infused with generous amounts of fresh minced garlic, ginger, and green onion whites, pictured above. (The green onion greens were used later for garnish.) Two pieces of star anise was also used in the infusion. Then I added 1/4 cup soy sauce, two tablespoons Lao Gan Ma (老干妈) crispy chili pepper oil, and let the beef cook on both sides. To be honest, after working so hard on the noodles only to fail, the beef shank was looking tasty enough to eat on the spot.
But as they say...eye on the prize. After letting the beef cook in soy sauce for around five minutes, I added carrots, tomatoes, rice wine, sugar and topped it off with water. The pot simmered on low heat for four hours to produce a minimally rich broth. This also allowed enough time for the beef to cook until it was "fall-apart" tender. When needed, I replenished the water content.
Dinner is Served
Here is the final product, topped with blanched bok choy and chopped green onion greens set aside earlier for garnish. Yes, Big Bird bowl is back. I borrowed my rendition from Jennifer's recipe at Tiny Urban Kitchen. Incidentally, Jennifer's recipe was adapted from another adaptation, which makes this at least the third adaptation.
Summary critique:
Noodles need major work. Who knows if I will ever get there unless I become a noodle chef.
The soup was very tasty but it was missing something...MSG. Yeah, no thanks.
Decorating a bowl of Asian noodle soup needs improvement.
On this holiday, Chinese people traditionally eat the pastry, pictured above, known as mooncake (月饼). There are many, many varieties of mooncake with various combinations of filling and crust ranging from the traditional to the contemporary. The most common cakes use a standard chewy crust with lotus seed paste, red bean paste, or a mixture of crushed nuts and seeds (for the closest American analogy, think trail mix mixed with a very crunchy and loose rice krispies treat).
My favorite is lotus seed paste with egg yolk. Traditionally speaking, ask any Chinese person and they will likely tell you that the most desirable part of the cake is the salted duck egg yolk (the round, golden-orange segments), which I do not expect non-Asians to grasp quite frankly. Out of politeness, my non-Asian friends usually control their disgust when they discover what the golden-orange section is. And that is okay--more for me. Actually, it would seem that love for egg yolk has gone so overboard in recent years that cakes are now sold with three entire egg yolks in a single cake, as was the case for the batch I purchased. In fact, you will be hard-pressed to find a lotus seed paste mooncake without yolk today. Contrast that with the options a decade ago, when supposedly, buyers chose between single yolk or none at all. I, for one, welcome the egg yolk fanaticism, which turns out to be awesome for my gluttony and terrible for my arteries.
With modern technology and Pan-Asian culture mixing and evolving, contemporary mooncakes make use of mochi crusts and ice cream fillings to name a few innovations. These new options can be quite tasty, although the traditionalist in me still prefers a good lotus seed paste. For further exploration of the different types of mooncake that can be found today, check out the Wikipedia page on mooncakes.
As with many Chinese holidays, the Mid-Autumn Festival is connected with a legend steeped in mythology and ancient Chinese customs. However, this celebration is not exclusive to China. Many analogous observances are held in other Asian countries including Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. I am not that interested in discussing this topic on a deep level, but I do think it is worth mentioning that the ancient Chinese practically worshiped the moon. So what is the connection, even if tenuous, between this cake and the moon? Look no further than the duck egg yolk, which, when sliced in half within the cake, carries the shape of a full moon placed against the backdrop of a night sky. Use your imagination.
As a foodie with no particular travel plans this past Labor Day weekend, I partook in a few events involving much food. There was the dinner at Sakedokoro Makoto (which I reviewed and posted food porn for in my previous post), a cookout co-hosted by my friend from My uMai and yours truly, and some simple Chinese dishes to fill in the gaps.
The cookout, I must say, was a fantastic 5-hour bash incorporating food (all home-made, mostly by Mai), drinks (beer, wine, sake), and games, both indoors and outdoors. I hung out with friends and made some new ones, an activity that good drinks are likely to facilitate. My friend Mai wrote a nice summary of our cookout on her blog, so I encourage you to check out her thoughts for the delectable menu and more.
In preparation for a weekend of eating, I snacked fairly regularly on fresh fruit, yogurt cups, and other simple edibles. Contrary to misconceptions, starving oneself does not increase eating capacity; however, eating regularly does.
And so one of the simple dishes I found myself making late Saturday morning was Chives Stir-Fried with Eggs (韭菜炒鸡蛋). Those familiar with Chinese home cooking paradigms will likely know this one. On the other hand, those not familiar will probably start to see a trend: there are a lot of ways to stir-fry eggs. In fact, one might consider an analogy between all the different stir-fry preparations of eggs and American yogurt. For your scrambled eggs with tomatoes, there's peach yogurt; for your chives stir-fried with eggs, consider strawberry yogurt; and for the sake of completion, let's compare green onion stir-fried with eggs to blueberry yogurt. The point is, it is not so foreign an idea to enhance stir-fried eggs (pretty much scrambled eggs) with other natural ingredients.
This particular dish comes in many varieties, including an omelette-like form, a scrambled eggs type of preparation, and a more loose type of stir-fry where the chives are completely separated from the eggs. At my parents' home, the omelette-like preparation is most common; I elected to prepare this dish similar to scrambled eggs.
After finely dicing slightly less than 2 cups of chives, I sprinkled some salt to taste and added two eggs. I beat the eggs and then poured the mixture into a pre-heated skillet. Stir-frying and scrambling the eggs did not take long. Since this preparation of eggs tends to brown easily, it is important to keep on stirring and flipping (until just the moment when there are no longer any runny components). After around 5 minutes on the stove, the finished product emerged:
On a final note (if you have read this far), the Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated in many parts of Asia, is coming up on Monday, September 8th. I am planning to do something somewhat challenging, and hopefully very rewarding if I get it right. Stay tuned for the results!
Yes, for the knowledgeable folks out there, the title of this blog post is an amalgamation (or blasphemy) of Japanese and French using American idiomatic syntax. But this post is about food porn, so please just salivate over the pictures and feel free to extend some liberties on the title.
One month ago, I made reservations with friends at Sakedokoro Makoto, an upscale establishment owned by chef Gene Itoh specializing in omakase style dining. With roots in Japanese culture, omakase is a less formal type of traditional dining that has also been adapted in America to take on the characteristic of a chef's tasting menu, European style. Purists might actually tell you that likening omakase to a chef's tasting menu is entirely missing the point. Whereas a tasting menu is used to showcase a chef's artistic skills, seasonal ingredients, regional specialties, and so on, omakase dining exists on a deeper relational level. This is certainly an opportunity for a chef of Japanese cuisine to show off his or her art; however, omakase is about the chef's real-time relationship with patron(s) and the trust placed in the hands of the chef. This style of dining is intimate such that the chef is expected to gauge the patrons' reactions from one course and adjust for the next, thereby maximizing dining pleasure. And although I am no expert on Japanese culture, old or new, I daresay omakase is a deep concept with origins in old Japan. It applies generally to many forms of vendor-customer relationships, not just those in the restaurant industry.
Based on the purists' definition of omakase dining and my experience at Makoto, I would say that Chef Itoh definitely takes liberties on this dining style. There was a defined menu for the night, and while the small restaurant space was cozy, intimate, and traditional, we had no contact with any of the chefs. That is not to say the menu did not impress--most of it did. Tack onto that eight out of nine courses being paired with a specific variety of sake from the earthy to the smooth to even the sparkling, and I would say it was a successful meal. For the pictures below, hover over for English descriptions..
And before I present the food porn, I want to give a shout out to my friend Toby for hauling ass back from New York City to share a great meal.
Course One: Owanmono. Robusuta no Tosazu Jure' Sarada.
Course Two: Kobachi. Yaki Hotate, Uni no Kuriimu Sauce. Uzura no Oriibu Oiruae. Hokkeigai Nuttaae. Masu no Kobujime, Tobikokake.
Course Three: Kuchigawari. Tenaga Ebi no Oriibu Fuumi, Burande Frambei.
Course Eight: Dessert. Budo no Grand Marnier Fuumi Shabeto.
Still reading? I am impressed! Here are the highlights, the "good," and the "not impressed":
Highlights:
Course One contained ample lobster meat but kept balance with other flavors.
Part of Course Two, the seared sea scallop with sea urchin cream sauce and topped with flying fish roe. Divine.
Also part of Course Two, the salmon topped with wasabi flying fish roe was very tasty.
Course Five was soft-shelled crab. I love soft-shelled crab, and the tasting salts were great.
The Japanese style seared beef was a slice of heaven.
Good Stuff:
Course Three scampi tasted great and was artistically prepared.
The amber jack sashimi in Course Four was tasty, but not really worth a $35 upgrade.
Course Six orange roughy was prepared how it should be.
Not Impressed:
Soba sushi. Interesting, but not what I wanted to pay for.
Western pastries were sub-par. Makoto should stick with their guns and make Japanese sweets. Although there were small Western style bakeries all over urban Japan that made really good pastries.
I feel bad about this one, but the sorbet was lost on me.
Years ago, before I formed any prejudices carried into adulthood, before I came to love science and food and learning, before I had any well-defined hobbies at all, there was a transformative glass of mint tea. Those days were filled with exploring the landlady's backyard. I wrecked flower beds and made 75 percent imaginary stick forts to ward off opponents unseen. I tried to catch squirrels and rabbits and groundhogs all the while avoiding the graveyard behind the landlady's property. Up until that point, tea was a hot, bitter, acidic concoction that my giant of a father drank while reading a book. Or a newspaper. He was always reading.
I remember there was a patch of garden I was particularly fond of behind a white wooden shed with green window frames and roofing. In that patch grew tall stalks of mint. Actually, those stalks were probably not that tall , but I was a very short child. I enjoyed going to that patch to bruise a leaf and take a strong whiff of mint. I was fascinated that the scent exhaled by this plant matched the taste of those red and white starlight mints. What a curious plant, I thought.
A few months later, the landlady invited me to her home. And it was there that I had my first glass of home brewed mint tea. It was surprisingly good, with notes of mint that were prominent but not overpowering like those in chewing gum and candies. I also remember that the tea was a striking green color, and I did not make the connection to my favorite playing-plants until the landlady showed me the used leaves and stalks. How fascinating that was. A pleasant tasting tea brewed directly from plants that were alive just moments ago. Nothing like the dark loose-leaf brew that left stains on my father's white mugs.
Come to think of it, the tea was probably not that noteworthy, but it made an impression on me such that it has occupied a node in my memories for the last eighteen years. So it is with fondness that I brewed my own mint tea with leaves that I bought for another dessert (which I incidentally botched). Given that it is summer, I let the tea cool and made iced tea.
1 bundle fresh stalks of mint, rinsed
1 pitcher of water
10-15 drops of lemon (or lime) juice
2 tablespoons honey, or to taste
Boil the pitcher of water in a pot and then immediately shut off the heat.
Set aside a few (4 to 5) stalks of mint. Bruise the remaining stalks by rubbing the bundle between your palms and steep the stalks in hot water for 15+ minutes. Fresh mint tea will not become bitter even if you steep for a very long time.
Remove the used mint leaves and add lemon (or lime) juice. Stir in honey while the tea is hot.
Allow the tea to cool to approximately room temperature and pour into the pitcher. Add remaining stalks of mint set aside earlier and refrigerate the tea.
