Thursday Night Dinner. Part Two. Crispy Rice Soup.

Years ago, when Mr. Hawthorne and I lived in Danville, Virginia, my favorite place to eat was Mei Long Tui's Long River Restaurant. Whenever we went there, I never bothered looking at a menu. I just told the waitperson to tell Mei Long that Rosie was here and just fix me something. And I was never disappointed. A friend of ours used to have his birthday parties there. And tray after tray of unbelievably delicious dishes would be paraded out of the kitchen. Most of these dishes weren't even on the menu. It was a banquet like I've never had before or since. Sadly, Mei Long sold the restaurant a few years back and I haven't been to it since then. One of my all time favorite dishes there was his Crispy Rice Soup. The soup tasted phenomenal, and his presentation was impressive. The soup would be brought to the table in a silver tureen with a lid on it. Then they'd have a plate with a silver dome which housed the crispy rice. With great flourish, the hot rice would be added to the hot soup and there would be much crackling, spitting, and steam everywhere. Then our waitperson would ladle the soup into our bowls. Like I said, the presentation was impressive. I've never even seen it on the menus of other Chinese restaurants but, thanks to the powers of Google, I found a recipe yesterday for Crispy Rice Soup. So here I go, with apologies to Mei Long.

First the rice. I cooked 1 cup of Uncle Ben's long grain rice. Then got out the leftover sticky rice for sushi I'd cooked the other night. I spread both rices out on a baking sheet and baked for about 60 minutes at 300 degrees. The lighter sticky rice is on the left. The darker Uncle Ben's is on the right.

I had this pork tenderloin hiding in the freezer, which I took out and let thaw just a bit.

I scraped thin slices from the outside of the tenderloin, then wrapped the rest of the frozen loin back up and returned it to the freezer.

My last 2 quarts of chicken consomme go into the pan. Now, I'm going to have to search through my cluttered freezer to find chicken carcasses to make some more. I know they're in there somewhere.

Mr. Hawthorne sliced some bamboo shoots.

I had a few egg roll sheets left over from my potstickers so I decided to slice and fry them.

These are looking good.

Drain on paper towels.

My mise en place: On the cutting boards: Sliced bamboo shoots Frozen green peas Sliced pork Dried straw mushrooms soaking in water Button mushrooms Sliced green onions Sliced celery Shrimp 2 little pieces of ginger Some sad little snow peas out of my garden And in the back:

salt and pepper

Sesame oil Sherry Soy sauce

Here are my little shrooms soaking.

I added the mushroom water to the consomme.

Mr. Hawthorne kindly sliced the shrooms.

Then the mushrooms went in the pot.

I let the shrooms cook for a few minutes.

Then I added the bamboo shoots.

Pork, shrimp, and celery waiting for their turn.

First the pork went in.

Action shot!

Then I added the shrimp.

Action shot!

Ginger joos.

A few tablespoons of soy sauce.

Then a few tablespoons of sherry.

A teaspoon or two of sesame oil.

And the celery goes in.

Too bad you can't smell this.

Finally the peas went in, just to heat through.

Now did you forget this was crispy rice soup? The rice goes into hot oil in my wok.

Fry until lightly browned.

Here's a video of my rice crisping up. And whoot! Crispy Rice Soup!

There are my little snow peas from my garden.

Add in a few fried wonton strips for crunch.

Well, I did it. It was delicious. OK, maybe not Mei Long's, but then I didn't have the tableside presentation. I needed the silver tureen and silver dome. That would have been perfection. But this was darn close.