soup of the motherland

not really, but close enough. i did the biweekly grocery run to harvest and whole foods (today in a cold but not unpleasant rain) and bought some pork soup bones and raw shrimp, both deeply discounted. i had a large pile of shells after shelling and veining the shrimp, so i browned them in some oil with ginger and the scraps of pork from the bones until there was a haze of crustacean-scented smoke throughout the house, then added water to cover and simmered them for an hour. this made some really magnificent shrimp and pork stock that will lie in the freezer awaiting the rainy days that we're expecting next week.

there was a bunch of broccoli rabe in the fridge, the heart of a napa cabbage, and some mushrooms. rearranging the freezer, i also found four pieces of flash-frozen haddock and two tubs of broth from the giant fish head i got from new deal some weeks ago. i took one of the tubs of broth and added a cup of the shrimp and pork stock, then braised the cabbage for 10 minutes. after that, the mushrooms and rabe went in then, a minute later, the thinly-sliced fish and shrimp went in for a few seconds before everything got poured into a large bowl over a mound of chopped garlic, ginger, cilantro, and shaved red onion. you just cannot beat this stuff.