Almond Milk

What an exciting adventure we’ll have with what, until now, has been a cherished secret recipe. It is a beverage that is a wonderful way (because it is utterly delicious) to treat a whooping cough, but like absinth, is tinged with drama and danger.

Now, to make it sound truly magical… here are the three vital ingredients: xin ren or apricot kernels, water, and time. Xin ren is the name for almonds in Chinese and it is strange that they are NOT almonds, but instead, are apricot kernels. Regardless of this nominal confusion, it does smell sweetly like strong almonds and, as an aside, I suspect that Gabriel Garcia Marquez was referring to bei xin ren when he wrote about bitter almonds in Love in the Time of Cholera.



In Chinese traditional medicine, xin ren is used as a tonic for the lungs ~ it has warming properties (yang principle), soothes the lungs, relieves dry cough, and lubricates the large intestines. There are two kinds, which must be used in tandem, to make your potion potent. There is the bei xin ren (literally, northern apricot kernels or bitter almonds, which is the smaller bag on the right) and the nan xin ren (literally, southern apricot kernels or sweet almonds, which is the larger bag on the left).

Here is the dark, mysterious part. Be careful when using bei xin ren. It contains (deep breath!) cyanide(!) and may be mildly toxic, even when cooked properly, which you should, at all cost. As a precautionary rule, I do not give this to children or pregnant women, but I have found it generally safe for the consumption of courageous gourmands like myself.

While it simmers, the perfume of xin ren will waft out of the pot, drift from your kitchen to fill your entire home with an incredibly sweet scent, much to the envy of the excluded kids and women with child. I add a little rice powder to thicken the milk and just a tad of sugar to mildly sweeten it.



Almond Milk

100g Bei xin ren (northern apricot kernels or bitter almonds)
200g Nan xin ren (southern apricot kernels or sweet almonds)
1.5 L Water plus extra for rinsing
½ to 1/3 c. Sugar
1/3 c. Rice flour (NOT glutinous / sticky rice flour) dissolved in 2/3 c. Water

Rinse the apricot kernels to make sure they are clean. Soak the rinsed apricot kernels in 2 cups of water overnight. With a powerful blender or grinder, grind the apricot kernels and some of the soaking water to a smooth, fine paste. Put this paste, along with the soaking water and 1 L. of water, into a saucepan. Bring this to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for 1 to 1.5 hours. Add sugar, to taste. While stirring the pot continuously, pour in the rice flour solution. Keep on stirring the almond milk over the heat until it thickens like a cream soup. Serve hot to preserve its efficacy.

Rice Soup with Shitake and Coriander-Fish Dumplings

Over the Lenten season, I have tried to replicate the miracle of feeding the multitude with a few grams of fish and a handful of rice (in place of loaves of bread). A miracle, indeed, for a big pot of hearty chowder poured forth into eagerly waiting bowls. Anyway, aside from being unbeatably frugal, it was quite a tasty comforting dish, esp. for those of you who are experiencing cooler temperatures in the upcoming months.

A caveat: What does not necessitate expense will have to be attended to with patience. Your efforts will be well rewarded, though, considering the meager investment of resources. Roughly, here is what you need…

Rice Soup with Shitake and Coriander-Fish Dumplings

To make the Fish Dumplings, throw the following into a food processor:

300 Grams of any White Fish Fillet (skinned, de-boned, and cut up into the size of ice cubes)
1 Onion (chopped up)
1 Tablespoon of Cooking Sherry
2 Teaspoons each of Salt, White Pepper, and Baking Powder
2 Heaped Tablespoons Flour
2 Eggs
Dash of Sesame Oil

When everything's a homogeneous goo, mix in a handful of roughly chopped Coriander.

Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil. Using two spoons, shape the fish paste into quenelles. Drop each quenelle into the rapidly boiling pot of water. As the quenelles float up, retrieve them with a slotted spoon and set aside in a clean dish.

Cooking the Rice Soup …

Depending on how much water is left in the pot where you boiled your fish quenelles, you may top up your pot with more water until you have about 1.5 litres. Add the following aromatics:

1 Teaspoon of grated Ginger

1 Teaspoon of minced Garlic
1/2 Cup of Sliced Shitake Mushrooms (I use the sliced dehydrated kind without reconstituting them in water)
1 Cup of leftover Cooked Rice or 1/2 Cup of Raw Rice.

Bring the pot to a boil. Lower the heat, and simmer gently while stirring once in a while to make sure that the starch doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot.

After about 20 minutes, when the soup has achieved the consistency of chowder, add approximately 2 cups of water and put the fish quenelles back into the pot. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for about 10 more minutes. Season the soup with salt and white pepper to taste.

* The fish quenelles will puff up to about 3X their size at some point (they will deflate back to their original size when they're tired), so make sure you are using an adequate-sized pot.