Our version of stone soup

One weekend, while wandering through Chinatown, FI and I were chatting about what we wanted to do for dinner. We bought some bok choy and decided to make a meatball-tofu-bok choy soup. We had ground turkey, tofu, and vermecelli all in our kitchen, so we cobbled ingredients together for a stone soup.

First we made the meatballs. We chopped up garlic, ginger, and scallions (the Chinese version of the holy trinity, more on that here and here). As I've mentioned before, these 3 (especially garlic) are staples in all of our Asian-influenced cooking.


Then I mashed up about a fourth of a block of tofu, which would be our binding agent.


The rest of the tofu was cut into small cubes.


The ground turkey was mixed in, along with soy sauce and rice wine.


We sauteed the bok choy with dried mini shrimp and garlic.


Then we added water to make the soup.


While we waited for the water to come to a boil, we made all the little turkey meatballs.


Then we threw the meatballs and tofu into the pot and let it cook away.


We let everything cook for about 30 minutes to an hour to really get the flavors going. Then about 10 minutes before we ate, we threw in the vermecelli. The dried noodles had been soaking in a bowl of warm water the whole time.


Ready to eat!


We made a TON of soup. I think I had that soup for three lunches the next week. The broth was very light and not salty at all. The meatballs were also very light. I think a lot of the flavor leeched out during the cooking process. Both FI and I don't like super salty stuff, so this turned out okay. The bok choy was super soft and almost mushy and the tofu and vermecelli also soaked up some of the meatball flavor. Overall, it was a light and filling dish without a super strong flavor. Which worked, since we didn't have any rice to eat it with.

Using other parts of the cow

In January, FI and I were down in Chinatown for lunch and then went shopping for groceries. We wandered into one of the crazy grocery stores with a huge meat section and were intrigued by the frozen ox-tails. We bought a pack and debated on whether we should make a Chinese or American version of an oxtail soup.

We decided on American and picked up a bunch of veggies as well. Then we spent a leisurely evening stewing the oxtail.

Here are the unfrozen ox-tails, ready for cooking.


We chopped up celery, carrots, and red potatoes. I purposely chopped everything up really small so they would cook faster.


We first browned some onions for flavor.


Then threw in the oxtail so it would sear and have a nice crust.


Then we threw in a couple of cans of tomatoes.


Then added all of the vegetables and let it stew.


For bread, I sliced up wheat "man to" (Chinese buns).


Then fried them so they would be hot and crispy. My mom used to deep fry them when we were little, but the panfry would be a little healthier. This batch was a little burnt.


Crispy wheat manto toast!


We tried the stew at the 1:30 mark and while the veggies were deliciously soft and cooked, the oxtail was still tough. So we first had a bowl of just veggie stew and let the oxtail continue cooking. Around the 3:30 mark, everything was finally done, so we sat down to eat.


My version of bruschetta - oxtail soup veggies on top of a fried wheat manto toast.


The soup came out so well. We didn't use any salt or spices and all the flavors just came from the vegetables we stewed with the stew. There was plenty of leftovers so we were able to have it for dinner the next day and I had enough for 2 lunches the next week.

Stews are really easy. It just takes a long time to make. And you really just need lots and lots of good veggies.