Category — Recipes

I grew up in the Detroit area and heard much made of Stroh’s “fire-brewed” beer. Now that I make my own beer, I realize that this claim was far less exotic than it seemed, but ever since I got the woodstove, I’ve wanted to attempt a batch of beer on it. Last Sunday afternoon the weather was beautiful, and brewing seemed like the perfect excuse to stay outside. I had *most* of the ingredients for this recipe, but I figured since this was an experimental batch anyway a bit of careful variation would be tolerated.

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To be very upfront: our Egg Foo Young is probably not a very authentic recipe. Then again, I don’t know that Egg Foo Young really counts as an authentic Chinese dish.

All that aside, Egg Foo Young, as we’ve come to make it, is a delicious, handy, easy and healthy meal. We like it best without the gravy or sauce that sometimes accompanies it.

Our Egg Foo Young starts with a jar full of homegrown mung bean sprouts. When the jar is filled, it’s time to make Egg Foo Young.

Slice and saute a large onion until soft and golden.

Wash and chop your sprouts into 2 or 3 inch lengths.

In a bowl, combine 1 cup egg whites with 3 whole eggs.

Add the cooked onions and the chopped bean sprouts to the bowl and stir well to combine.

If you are making vegetarian Egg Foo Young, ignore the lovely shrimp in the picture and skip the next step.

We don’t skip it usually. We like a bit of meat with our meals so we add leftover cooked chicken, pork, or beef.

Or, if it’s your lucky day, you could add 1/2 of raw peeled shrimp. Shrimp are great in this dish because they have about the same cooking time as the rest of the dish — most notably the egg– so they come out just perfect. These were simply frozen shell-on shrimp from the big grocery store bought on sale. They aren’t fancy but they contribute a festive touch to this dish.

Once all your ingredients are combined, get your non-stick pan nice and hot over a medium-high heat. This is another spot where we part company with some Chinese restaurants; we pan fry the patties in minimum oil so they come out light and not greasy. We use a little cooking spray and a touch of oil in the pan.

Stir your egg mixture and, using a ladle, scoop out 1/3 cup and add to your hot pan. I use a rubber heat-tolerant spatula to “tame” the egg and keep the structure patty-like as it cooks.

Watch for the egg to cook and, in this case, for the shrimp to turn slightly pink. Then it’s time to flip, for which I use the other kind of spatula, AKA the pancake turner.

Let the patties cook just a couple minutes more, until the egg is set and the shrimp are cooked. The plate up and enjoy!

Variations on Egg Foo Young ingredients are limited only by your imagination and the content of your refrigerator. From the vegetable realm, you could add celery, peppers, peas, finely chopped or shredded carrots, spinach, or green onions. If you have them on hand, water chestnuts or bamboo shoots would work. Tofu would also be great addition.

Egg Foo Young doesn’t have to be delivered to your door or be a fried gravy-covered health hazard. Minimal effort results in a delicious and not-bad-for-you meal. Leftover patties are great for satisfying snacks or are a portable surprise in a packed lunch. It’s an easy dish that can help you both use up some leftovers and get dinner on the table in a hurry.

The Boy has helped me brew on several occasions but this was “his” batch. Last summer we went to visit the local brewing sage, Mike O’Brien and the Boy bought the ingredients for a batch of stout, his favorite style. He’s had to work two part-time jobs to make ends meet so we haven’t found time to brew this batch until yesterday.

In case anyone is following along at home, this is a rough approximation of the recipe we used. The bags of specialty grains were unmarked.

11.5 oz Crystal Malt
8.5 oz Chocolate Malt
7.5 oz Black Patent
9 lbs of Maris Otter
2 oz of Amarillo hops
Danstar – Windsor dry yeast

We typed this all into our BSOC (Brewing Software Of Choice – in my case it happens to be BeerAlchemy, a nifty Mac-based application) just to make sure we weren’t totally out of whack. Ideally, this is on track to be an American Stout.

We brewed indoors because my propane tank is empty… and because I didn’t relish sitting outside. The “big” burner on our new stove threw off a stunning amount of heat, nearly as much as the outside burner so the brew day wasn’t noticeably longer than usual. Cooling was a bit of a drag but as, 20MintueJan’s photo yesterday showed, it’s amazing what a pile of snow accomplishes.

Original gravity was 1.052 which wasn’t bad especially given that we batch sparged and that we had a bit of a calculation error with mashing temperatures. By bedtime, the carboy was gurgling happily and this morning we found the lid had been popped.

The great thing about brewing with friends or family is that there are stretches of time when nothing particularly is happening (during the mash, during the boil…) when it’s a natural, low-pressure time to chat. It was great to catch up a bit with the Boy and I hope this turns into a habit, an activity we can do together.

Last summer, I read somewhere that in medieval times, people ate hop sprouts in the early spring. Sometimes called “hop asparagus,” the tender young hop shoots were steamed or sauteed. (I thought I’d read that on Wikipedia, which is the source of most of my random knowledge, but I can’t find the reference there now.) I could imagine that in the Dark Ages, after months of cold-cellared root vegetables, a little bit of fresh green would be an amazing treat. Jim is usually game for culinary experimentation so I thought we’d like to try eating hops too. By mid-summer, however, our hop vines were no longer at the sprout stage, but more at what Jim calls the “Jack and the Beanstalk” stage so I tucked away the thought of cooking and eating hops until this spring.

So on Sunday, I snipped what seemed like a pile of hop shoots about 5 to 6 inches long with kitchen sheers. (We have let our hops grow a bit too enthusiastically in years past, I’m afraid; a friend says he thins his hops to only one or two vines so I knew we could spare meal’s worth.) In the kitchen, I washed the hop shoots and trimmed off a few of the longer stems.

Then I sauteed them in butter. The cooking time was only a few minutes, maybe 2 or 3. The shoots are quite delicate, as you can see, and they do look more than a little like miniature asparagus.

They made for an interesting, though not necessarily filling, side dish. They are quite pleasant and do taste very similar to a mild sort of asparagus.

Other people enjoy eating hops too, as I found here and here and here. Some of their recipes are much fancier and have fancier accompaniments than mine.

I can put “eat hops” on my Done That List. My curiosity has been satisfied: I’ve eaten hops. And I think I’ll do it again next spring.

In our family’s tradition, whenever you have scraps of dough left over from making pie, you make RolyPoly. Other people call them tuzzie muzzies, pinwheels, or gobblies, but in my family growing up, my grandmother called them RolyPoly. These little treats are popular with children and grown-ups alike. I remember with great delight when I was old enough to help make the RolyPoly. When kids are involved in the process, their even more delicious creations will be served with pride. [Read more →]