I usually don’t fall for viral food trends, but when Instagram started feeding me video after video of people making a most-intriguing “no-water chicken soup,” I stopped scrolling and started paying attention.

I learned that the simple, satisfying dish originated in China, where it’s often referred to as “healing soup.” Traditionally, a whole chicken is added to a large, heavy pot atop layers of chopped cabbage, onion, apple, carrot, ginger, and sometimes red dates or goji berries. There is not an ounce of added liquid, but after simmering the soup gently for between 90 minutes and two hours the result is a tender braised chicken and condensed broth that, because it’s undiluted with water, is particularly rich in flavor and nutrients.

How could I not give this a try? (Let’s acknowledge that while it’s almost mid-May, at least here in the Northeast it’s still very much soup season. Sigh.)

I thought about what I wanted my no-water soup to taste like and decided to forgo the apple and goji berries in favor of additional aromatics—scallions, garlic, and lemon. I also added turmeric—both for its anti-inflammatory properties and its glorious golden color.

In at least one video, the soup is served with ginger-scallion sauce, a common accompaniment to poached or braised chicken in Cantonese cooking, and since I adore this simple condiment, I whipped some up and I’m including the method below. (I’ve made a version of it for years to go with David Chang’s Momofuku Bo Ssam.)

Subscribe now

So how did it turn out?

I had a couple of worries going into this cooking project: One was that the veggies might burn a little at the bottom of the pot without the addition of liquid. And indeed, there was a little brown fond down there, though it didn’t lend a burnt taste and was fairly easy to clean off.

I also worried that braising the chicken for longer than an hour and a half would yield a “cottony” texture, meaning the meat might end up both super soft with a sort of dry mouthfeel. That didn’t happen, most likely due to the very slow braise.

I will say, the first time I tested this recipe I used a spectacular local chicken, and the second and third times I used organic birds from the supermarket, and there was definitely a difference in terms of texture and flavor. Farm-raised birds get more exercise than mass-market ones, so they build up more muscle and connective tissue, which breaks down beautifully with slow cooking leading to a more silky texture than a more sedentary bird. (By the same token, they can get a little tough when roasted.) The local bird also tasted more robustly of…chicken.

My last worry was the most obvious one: Would there actually be soup? The answer is yes…but… not all that much. (The amount of broth varied somewhat with each test.)

There’s a bit of a Goldilocks situation here in terms of cooking the chicken and veg “just right.” Too low a flame and it won’t cook properly in a reasonable amount of time. Too high, and you risk boiling away that nice liquid you’re trying to coax out of the vegetables. Starting low, then moving to a generous medium-low after the first 15 minutes or so should do the trick.

The result is a cozy meal that will easily serve four—especially if ladled over egg noodles or rice, and/or accompanied by a crusty bread and green salad—but there was only enough liquid for each person to have a few good slurps of broth. My friends and family suggested that it was more of a stew, and while I tend to think of stews as involving thicker liquid, in terms of the general look and feel of the dish, I’d agree that it was more “stewed chicken” than chicken soup.

Would I make it again (and again)? Absolutely.

No-waste/leftovers tip: If you don’t use up a whole head of Napa cabbage for the recipe, use the rest to make “Chinese” chicken salad with any leftover chicken, along with some carrot, maybe a red bell pepper, cilantro if you like, and dry roasted peanuts or cashews tossed in right before eating. For dressing, add some rice vinegar, lime juice, and a dash of honey to the leftover ginger-scallion sauce, or use your favorite Asian-style dressing.

Cozy No-Water Stewed Chicken

Resist the urge to uncover the pot periodically to check how it’s going—you don’t want to release all that nice steam. If, after an hour and 45 minutes, you open the pot and there’s very little liquid, the vegetables don’t look stewed, and/or the chicken isn’t very tender, your flame was probably too low. Don’t fret. Put the lid back on, raise the heat a little, and let it go another 20 minutes or so. (This happened to me once and it turned out great in the end.)

• 6 cups roughly chopped Napa cabbage (more if you have room in the pot)

• 1 large carrot, sliced into rounds

• 2 celery stalks with their leaves, chopped

• 1 medium onion (or a few shallots), sliced

• 3 scallions, chopped

• 6 garlic cloves, smashed

• 1 2-inch piece of ginger, sliced into rounds

• 1 4-inch piece of lemongrass, smashed with the butt of a chef’s knife (optional)

• ½ teaspoon ground turmeric, or an inch of grated fresh turmeric

• 1 teaspoon salt, plus more at the end if desired

• Freshly ground black pepper

• 1 4-ish pound chicken

• 1 small lemon

1. In a large, heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid (enameled cast iron is great here), layer the cabbage, carrot, celery, onion/shallots, scallions, garlic, and half the ginger. If you have fresh turmeric, grate it into the pot. If not, sprinkle the vegetables with ground turmeric, ½ teaspoon of the salt, and pepper. Top the veggies with the chicken, breast side up.

2. Cut the lemon in half crosswise and slice one half into thin rounds. Squeeze the unsliced half over the chicken and vegetables and place it inside the cavity of the chicken. Season the chicken with remaining ½ teaspoon of salt and more pepper. Arrange lemon slices on top of the chicken, along with the other half of the ginger slices.

3. Cover the pot and cook over low heat for 15 minutes or so, then (without opening the pot) increase heat to medium-low and cook for another hour and a half. If you notice a lot of steam coming out from beneath the lid at any point, lower the heat. It should be simmering gently, not boiling.

4. Check for doneness: If the chicken is very tender and the vegetables are sitting in a nice pool of broth, it’s done. Remove chicken to a platter, first being sure to hold it over the pot so any liquid runs out of the cavity. Taste broth for seasoning and add additional salt and pepper as desired. Use two forks or a fork and knife to take meat from bones and shred it into bite-size pieces. At this point you can stir it back into the pot or arrange some of it in bowls, top with vegetables and broth, and serve with ginger scallion sauce if desired.

Ginger-Scallion Sauce

Called jiāng cōng jiàng in Chinese, this sauce is usually made with hot oil, which brings out the flavor of the ginger and scallions, but it can be made without heating the oil if you prefer to skip that step. You’ll still have a flavorful sauce.

• ½ cup neutral oil such as safflower or grapeseed,

• ½ cup thinly sliced scallions (about 4 thin scallions), white and light green parts, finely chopped

• ¼ cup grated or finely chopped ginger (from an ounce/about a 2 inch-piece)

• 2 teaspoon soy sauce

• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

1. Heat the oil in a small pot over medium-low heat for about 3 minutes—turn it off if you hear a crackling sound. Test it for doneness by adding a small piece of scallion or ginger. If it sizzles, the oil is ready.

2. Meanwhile, put scallions and ginger in a heat-proof bowl or measuring cup. Add the hot oil, soy sauce, and sesame oil and stir. Let sit while the chicken cooks so the flavors have time to bloom. Taste for seasoning and add additional soy sauce if desired. Serve with the chicken, and store any leftover sauce in the refrigerator (once it’s cooled).

Share Life, Death & Dinner

Welcome, and happy May! It’s always a celebration when my friend Adeena Sussman is back in the States from her adopted home of Tel Aviv—but when she’s here for the launch of a new cookbook, it feels like a national holiday.

There was such a palpable buzz of excitement the other night when she took the stage at the Streicker Cultural Center at Temple Emanu-El—a large venue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side (that she sold out)—for a fun, relaxed, engaging conversation with Top Chef judge Gail Simmons about her new book, Zariz.

Subscribe now

Zariz means “speedy” in Hebrew, and as Adeena explained to Gail and her audience—as she does in the book’s introduction—the concept sprang from a decision she made after the publication of her last two books, Sababa and Shabbat, to find a “simpler, smoother way of cooking” in the face of the intense drama playing out beyond the walls of her kitchen.

“When the going gets tough,” she writes in the intro, “the cooking gets easy.”

That doesn’t mean five-minute/three-ingredient recipes, she notes—the book is for anyone who enjoys the act of cooking and simply wants maximum flavor without maximum effort. Zariz is full of mouth-watering recipes containing a dozen or fewer ingredients.1

As we entered the auditorium, each of us was handed a copy of the book along with a colorful cardboard box that contained three dips, spiced pita chips, and a Bamba peanut-butter marshmallow treat—all from the book and all delish. One of the dips—which can also be used as salad dressing—tasted delightfully familiar, while at the same time clearly Adeena-enhanced. It was Carrot-Tahini-Ginger Dressing/Dip, and it was the first thing I made when I returned to my own kitchen.

All of Adeena’s recipes are bright—bright with vibrant colors and contrasting flavors and textures—and like this one, they tend to seem at once surprising and comfortably familiar.

After making the dip, which I loved, I asked Adeena what she loved about it.

It’s very ‘Adeena coded,’ she told me. “It’s something you’re familiar with—that ‘drinkable’ Japanese-restaurant dressing, but with a twist of tahini, which makes sense for the recipe and for an ‘Adeena recipe’—it adds more depth, more creaminess. And instead of using more oil (most of those dressings have quite a bit of a neutral oil), the tahini is the emulsifier, and that makes it really, really good.”

One of the reasons I chose to make the dip is that I had all the ingredients on hand. “Everyone has a carrot in their larder,” Adeena agreed, “and in general, all those ingredients are so easy to have at home.”

Another reason I chose to make it is that it felt very springy—though clearly it’s a recipe for any time of year.

Since I can’t reproduce it here (copyrights and all that), I decided to give you a recipe of mine—a perfectly seasonal sauce that can be tossed with pasta, dolloped on roasted or grilled meats and vegetables, or spread on sandwiches and bruschetta. Like the recipes in Zariz, it’s a quick and easy crowd-pleaser.

Ramp, Basil & Almond Pesto

A note on ramps: I developed this recipe years ago, before ramps were over-harvested. They’re now at risk of becoming endangered in parts of the country (including New York), because they’re very slow growing and people go crazy for them this time of year. If you see them at the greenmarket you might talk to the growers about whether they’re using sustainable practices. If you find them in the wild, make sure to take only the tops, allowing the bulbs to remain in the ground.

Yields ¾ cup 

• 2 cups basil leaves

• 1 cup ramp leaves

• ¼ cup roasted almonds (if you have raw ones, toast them in a hot dry pan until just fragrant, and let cool)

• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan

• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

• ½ teaspoon salt

• Freshly grated black pepper

1. Blanch the basil and ramp leaves by dropping into boiling water for no more than a few seconds, fishing them out with a slotted spoon, and plunging them into a bowl filled with cold water and a few ice cubes.

2. In the bowl of a food processor or blender, add drained basil and ramp leaves and the rest of the ingredients. Process until almost smooth, scraping down the sides as necessary.

3. Serve as a sauce for anything you can think of.

Share

I was laid low last week after an old back injury flared up out of nowhere. For a few days the only comfortable position was horizontal, so I had no choice but to lie around under the influence of muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatories, and Epsom salts.

After a few days of self-imposed hibernation, napping, and Netflix, I was delighted when Dale turned u…

Read more

When I began dreaming up today’s recipe, nighttime temps were still in the 30s and a sudden hail storm had just left a crunchy white blanket of icy orbs glistening on the ground. Soup seemed like a swell idea—especially one that involved the o…

Read more

Read more

If Claudia Roden’s Orange and Almond Cake and Niloufer Ichaporia King’s Cardamom Cake had a baby—who inherited none of its parents’ cardamom or orange genes, but instead shined bright with lemon—it would look like this zingy, fragrant flourless dessert.

Subscribe now

So how is this baby related to its progenitors? Well, I borrowed Roden’s technique of boili…

Read more

I ran around NYC last week having all kinds of fun: Finally saw Oh, Mary!—such a hoot!—and celebrated a dear friend’s birthday with not one but three culinary adventures (to be revisited in another newsletter). What I did…

Read more

Beets, like the month of March, can lean winter or spring. Simmered in hot, vinegar-spiked borscht with shredded cabbage and tender chunks of beef they become the ultimate snow-storm fare. Blended smooth with sour cream and served chilled as cold borscht, they’re as refreshing as it gets on a steamy day.

Beet salads bridge the gap. Tossed with bracing w…

Read more

I’m launching something new this week: a semi-regular roundup of items that recently struck my fancy. From elevated pantry staples to sustainable solutions; from out-of-the-way eateries to unusual culinary experie…

Read more

This vibrant, cohesive little meal is so good I’m putting some form of it into weekly rotation. It looks like there are lots of elements, but it’s truly fast and easy—simple enough to make for yourself on a weeknight, but elevated and delicious enough for a special dinner. And it doesn’t get more nutritious than this.

It’s also adaptable. This time I us…

Read more

Tuesday ushers in the year of the Horse—and not just any horse, but the bold, rowdy, once-in-60-years Fire Horse. So after shedding whatever no longer served us during the year of the snake, we’re on the precipice of a period of rapid transformation, intense energy, and, hopefully, groundbreaking progress.

Gotta love a zodiac sign so powerful that the bi…

Read more

It was three below when I (quickly) took the dog out this morning, and the weather app tells me it’s 2° now. I’ve found myself capturing screenshots of my early-morning temperature readings, perhaps imagining that I won’t believe this later—that I may need to remind myself, in an …

Read more

I’ve been watching the news out of Minneapolis with the same sense of anguish, anger, and incredulity that you may be feeling. I also watched with interest and empathy this week as so many folks in my community shared their struggles trying to balance political, professional, and personal responsibilities.

Small-businesses, including lots of local resta…

Read more

This soup is so simple, I didn’t think it was going to be a hit with anyone but me. But when I made it for the family as a “hundred-year” hurricane approached, everyone was mad for it. (Read “Hurricane’s Make Me Hungry” here.)

The soup gets so much flavor from the Parmesan rind, I really encourage you to use one. Never throw them out—just stow them in th…

Read more

Sandy unleashes her fury.

That’s what I heard on TV, in a teaser for the 11 o’clock news, as Mark and I watched the Detroit Tigers play the San Francisco Giants in Game Three of the World Series on October 27, 2012.

My mother’s name was Sandy. And hurricanes were always a big thing for our family, since we had that vulnerable little stucco cottage on an ever-eroding spit of seashore.

One of my clearest early-childhood memories is of waking up at the beach one morning and coming downstairs to witness my father on the other side of the window wearing a pair of faded blue swim trunks, hammering planks over the glass as the wind whipped around him.

I always had a bit of extreme-weather anxiety, which got worse for a time when Rex was a baby. By my mid 40s, though, that had subsided, and I tended to hope for a storm that would be dramatic enough to keep the kids home from school—board games, anyone?—and uneventful enough to cause at most minimal damage.

There must be a primitive instinct in times of stress or danger to add an extra layer of fat for protection against a potentially less abundant future. It had to be primitive instinct that compelled me, as the storm gained strength over the Atlantic, to lay in a food supply for the four of us that included three pounds of stew meat and a veritable ton of sauerkraut, smoked pork chops, and sausages for choucroute garnie. That night, not yet in full-blown bunker mode, we’d had big bowls of Italian chickpea soup with cabbage, which I served with hearty chunks of toasted bread.

But back to Sandy.

“Do you think she’s still that pissed?” I texted my sister while watching the weather report between innings.

“No shit!” Karen wrote back.

After our mother died two years earlier, my sister and I had done our best, selling Mom’s apartment through a respected friend of the family and her Connecticut cottage to the next-door neighbor who clearly had the most love for the place and its charming-if-eroding waterfront surroundings. Still, we wondered and worried about whether she would have approved.

Mom had not been ready to go. She was mad. When Hurricane Irene struck after she died, soon after we’d sold the beach house, it sent a tall tree crashing down onto the house’s roof. Coincidence? Perhaps.

Now as “Perfect-Storm Sandy,” as the meteorologists were calling it, approached the coast from both east and west, and the full moon threatened to swell tides to their highest point in history, I wanted to imagine that our Sandy was looking down thinking, “Good job, girls.” But honestly, given our mother’s—shall-we-say—opinionated tendencies, there was no way to be sure.

What I did know was that if she’d still been around, she would have wanted nothing more than to hunker down in her house, fierce and fearless as always, taunting Karen and me for not being there with her while slurping glasses of prosecco and a bowl of something fortifying, like my Italian chickpea soup.

On that late October night in 2012, watching baseball with Mark while the kids slept upstairs and Hurricane Sandy set a path for Atlantic City, I still liked to think that nothing really bad could happen, as long as I’d laid in a supply of the good stuff.

Get the recipe here.

Share

You know that scene in Season 2 of the Bear where Sydney makes an omelet for stressed-out, pregnant Sugar? I know I’m not the only one who, the next time I hit the market, grabbed a box of Boursin, a bag of Ruffles, and a bunch of chives so I could make …

Read more

Tomato soup is the coziest soup.

Now before you scroll down to the comments to register your dissent, hear me out: Every soup has its own relevancy. Chicken soup is deeply curative and nostalgic. Add matzo balls and it feels ancestral; even ceremonial. Beef-barley is soul-satisfyingly hearty. Ramen is gr…

Read more

Hanukkah and Christmas are behind us, and as I write—gazing out my windows at a blanket of deep, freshly fallen snow—the 7-day celebration of Kwanzaa is leading us brightly toward the new year.

I hope your holidays have been filled with joyful gatherings—and of course lots of delicious things to eat and drink—and that if this time came with emotional or…

Read more

I imagine that like many of you, during this week of Hanukkah and horror I don’t feel much like celebrating. The losses have felt unbearable and relentless.

What’s undeniable, though, is the need to gather with family and friends, to hold them close while maintaining precious tradit…

Read more

When my childhood chums Ellen and Jen asked if I would contribute a lentil recipe to their Substack, , the first one that popped to mind was mujadara. A simple, satisfying dish that originated in the Levantine region of the Middle East…

Read more