Recipe - Crackling Rice Vegetable Soup

2 cup Cooked rice
1 cup Deepfrying oil
1 cup Dried soybeans
8 Nami black mushrooms
1 md Onion, quartered
10 cup Cold water
2 teaspoon Thin soy
2 tablespoon Sherry
1 teaspoon Sesame oil
One fourth teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Sugar
One fourth teaspoon MSG (opt)
1 Clove garlic
10 Fresh snowpeas
1 lg Carrot

Rice Cakes: Work with cooked leftover rice that is slightly moist and
sticky. If too dry, reheat with sprinkling of water until sticky. Spread
rice in frying pan or pie tin, 1/2" thick. Pack rice into firm cake: this
is important to make sure rice holds together. Place in oven on low heat,
and dry to slightly brittle texture; break into pieces. Ten minutes before
combining with soup, deepfry rice pieces until lightly brown. Strain,
place in soup tureen, and keep hot in oven. Avoid holding fried pieces more
than 10 minutes, as they tend to acquire a rancid taste and become overly
dry.

Vegetarian Soup: Wash, then soak soybeans overnight in enough water to
cover. Wash and soak Nami mushrooms in 1 cup warm water for 1 hour. When
mushrooms are soft, separate caps from stems. In large soup pot, combine
water, beans, mushrooms (and stems), onion and garlic. Bring to boil, lower
heat, and simmer 2 hours. Strain and reserve stock until ready to finish.
Save mushroom caps and One half of beans for soup.

To finish soup, thinly slice mushroom caps, combine with strained stock,
cooked soybeans, soy sauce, sherry, sesame oil, salt and sugar. Peel carrot
and make thin flower slices (or use flower cutter); add to soup. Bring soup
to just under the boil. Add MSG and snowpeas. Cook for 2 minutes.

To serve, seat your diners, place soup tureen of freshly fried, hot rice
pieces on table and pour hot soup over them. If rice and soup are very hot,
rice will sizzle and crackle to everyone's joy and amusement!

Posted by Fred Peters.

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini