Posts Tagged ‘soup’

In college, the cafeteria made a potato-leek soup.  It was terrible.  The flavors weren’t blended.  The leeks under cooked.  The broth very water.  Ick.  This recipe has none of those problems.  It’s great to have before a dinner, keeps well in the fridge, and makes a great lunch.

Again, this recipe hails from The America’s Test Kitchen.

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Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter
• 4 to 5 pounds of leeks, white and light green parts only (about 11 cups) and rinsed thoroughly
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 3/4 pounds red potatoes (5 medium), scrubbed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme or 1/4 teaspoon dried
• 2 bay leaves

Directions:

Trim the leeks and discard the root and the dark green leaves.  Slice the trimmed leeks in half length-wise, then cut into 1/2-inch pieces.  Rinse the cut leeks thoroughly in a bowl to remove dirt and sand.  Strain.

Melt the butter in a large Dutch oven over medium low heat.  Stir in the leeks and garlic.  Cover and cook until the leeks are tender, 15 to 20 minutes.  Stir in the broth, potatoes, thyme, bay leaves, and 1 teaspoon salt.  Bring to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

Smash some of the potatoes against the side of the pot to thicken the soup (this step really helps take the soup to the next level!) Discard the bay leave and season with salt and pepper to taste.

It has been hot. Brutally hot. The thought of standing over a hot stove or further heating the apartment with the oven is unbearable. In these dog days of summer, cool meals are critical. Enter cold cucumber soup. You don’t have to heat a thing and the stuff actually makes you feel cooler.

This recipe hails from The America’s Test Kitchen.

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Ingredients:

• 4 cucumbers (about 2 1/2 pounds), peeled, halved, and seeded–to seed run a small spoon inside each cucumber half to scooop out the seeds and surrounding liquid.
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh dill
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 3 cups buttermilk

Directions:

Cut one of the cucumber into 1/4 inch cubes and reserve.  Process the remaining three cucumbers, sour cream, dill, sugar, mustard, and garlic in a blender or food processor until smooth.  Transfer to a large bowl or container.  Stir in buttermilk and reserved cubed cucumber.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, about 30 minutes (or up to 6 hours).  Season again with salt and pepper to taste before serving.

Every once and a while, I take a mouthful of something I’ve cooked and think “damn, I can’t believe I made this.”  The food tastes better than I would expect from myself.  Hell, it tastes better than I expect from a restaurant. This happened to me a few weeks back when I took my first bite of my first homemade tomato soup.

When it comes to tomato soup, I’m used to the canned variety—usually Campbell’s or, if I’m feeling fancy, Progresso.  It’s been my lunch time meal at Heal and Hearty more times than I can count.  But the creamy tomato soup from the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook, fresh off the stove, blows these away.  The flavor is slightly sweet, savory, and full of umami.  A little fresh baked bread was the near perfect pairing (though some grilled cheese might be necessary).

The recipe advises the soup should take 50 minutes.  It was my first go at the recipe, I was baking bread, and distracted by the apartment’s new canine addition, so it took me a bit longer.  America’s Test Kitchen recommends that you can take the soup most of the way to completion (through step two), refrigerate or freeze, and complete with the cream when ready to serve.

Ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 2 (28-ounce) cans diced tomatoes drained, 3 cups juice reserved
• 1 onion, chopped fine
• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 1 tablesp0on tomato paste
• 2 tablesspoons all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 cup heavey cream

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat.  Add the drained tomatoes, onion, brown sugar, and tomato paste.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is softened and the tomatoes begin to caramelize, about 15 minutes.
2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.  Slowly stir in the broth and the reserve tomato juice, scraping up any brown bits.  Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for 10 minutes.  Puree the soup in a bleeder or food processor until smooth.  (You can also use an immersion blender, which doesn’t make for as smooth of a puree, which I actually prefer here.)
3. Return the pureed soup to the pot (if you didn’t use an immersion blender) and stir in the cream.  Bring to a brief simmer, then remove from heat.  Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste before serving.

A quick lunch with co-workers at Pescatore (Italian for fisherman).

The Smoked Salmon Sandwich was good.  Not amazing, not innovative, just the smoked salmon, red onions, arugula, capers, and a generous amount lemon dill mayo.  Simple and done right—enough for me to want another, to make me trust what they do, and to make me go back and try something new.

What got me excited though was the cucumber-yogurt soup.  Light, fresh, with a bit of that yogurt tart.  Some chives for a few fun spikes of flavor.  Perfect for a hot humid day.  I’m sure it’s a simple recipe; I’m going to have to hunt for one and make it for the next roommate dinner.

On a final note, the atmosphere at Pescatore is clam and pleasant.  And staff actually spoke Italian.  A server to two young Italian men at the table behind me and (shockingly) in the kitchen—there were actually people yelling at each other in Italian!

Pescatore
955 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10022
www.pescatorerestaurant.com

Chop that Cabbage

A week or two ago, the New York Times had an article about some cabbage  dishes that break the stinky stereotype.  Meg has been saying for months that she wants to cook more soups, so the cabbage soup recipe seemed like the perfect choice

[DDET The NYT recipe can be seen by clicking here.]

Bess Feigenbaum’s Cabbage Soup

Adapted from The National, Manhattan

Time: 3 hours

1. In a 6-quart pot over medium-low heat, heat olive oil and add garlic. Cover and cook until garlic is tender but not browned, about 2 minutes. Add onion, and sauté until translucent. Add 3 cups water, carrots, tomatoes and purée, tomato paste, ketchup, brown sugar and bay leaf. Simmer at a lively bubble for 10 minutes, then crush whole tomatoes with potato masher or fork. Continue to simmer until carrots are tender, about 10 minutes. Discard bay leaf.

2. Using an immersion blender, or working in batches with a stand blender, process mixture until it is coarse, not puréed. Return sauce to pot and add lemon juice, cabbage ribbons and 3 cups water. Place over medium-high heat and cook at a lively simmer until cabbage is cooked to taste, from al dente to meltingly soft, 1 to 2 hours. Add 3 to 6 cups water, to thin to desired consistency. Ten minutes before serving, stir in raisins and a few twists of black pepper. If desired, garnish each serving with a dollop of sour cream.

Yield: 8 servings.

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I’m pretty sure that I’ve never cooked with cabbage where it takes center stage, as in this soup.  Embarking on this new frontier, Meg and I decided to closely adhere to  the recipe.  I was excited to use this opportunity to test my eye-balling skills, figuring out how to accurately judge whole ingredients’ measurements.  For example, I was a little surprised to see that only about one and a quarter small onion was needed to make a cup of diced onion.

The recipe was, all in all, fairly easy.  Basically, just cut things and put them in pot and let it all cook for a while.

So…. how did it taste?  Meg and I both agreed that it was WAY too sweet.  Edibile, but too sweet.  (Which maybe shouldn’t be a surprise given that the article the recipe comes from is Cabbage’s Sweet Side.)  The recipe calls for brown sugar, ketchup, raisins, and a full cup of tomato paste–all adding to the high level of sweetness.

The soup might work better as a small part of a larger dinner, but when taking center stage, Meg and I agreed that the sweet needs to be take down a notch or two.  We we next try, we are going to definitely cut the brown sugar and the ketchup.  Meg also had the idea of adding in some India or Middle Easter spices.  (I’m so proud of her improvisational thinking!!!)  I think that with Meg’s spices this dish might be great served over rice–but only more cooking will tell!

It might not have been the best idea for the middle-of-July heat, but one day Meg woke up with what I still think was a brilliant idea: bread bowls. (Yeah, this post is being written a little after the actual events, but don’t think about it as me being lazy, think about it as an exciting time machine!) The whole summer Meg had been turning out amazing fresh breads. Her idea this day was simple: make two half-sized peasant breads, cut off the top, pull out some of the bread, insert soup, and eat.

I was excited until she told me she wanted to use canned tomato soup. Not only is it fundamentally and morally wrong to serve tomato soup without grilled cheese, but I knew we could do better. Si se puede!

My idea: beer cheese soup. Sure it was about 95 degrees out, but if people can do Christmas in July I didn’t see why we couldn’t do beer cheese soup in July.

I found two recipes online at www.foodtv.com. Each recipe had its own good things going on: The first was nice and creamy, calling for a good deal of milk. The second didn’t have the milk but it had kielbasa sausage and a roux to thicken things up (Both recipes are included below). Not wanting to miss either the creamy or the meaty, I decided to combine the deliciousness into one recipe:

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The Creamy-Meaty Beer Cheese Soup

Ingredients
• 1/2 pound kielbasa sausage, finely chopped or processed until crumbly
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup minced onions
• 1/4 cup minced celery
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 tablespoons minced garlic
• 4 ounces butter
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 (12-ounce) bottle light beer
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3 cups grated Cheddar (about 12 ounces)
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh chives, for garnish

Cook the kielbasa in the olive oil in a large, heavy soup pot over high heat until golden brown, 5 to 6 minutes. Add the onions, celery, salt, pepper, and bay leaves and cook, stirring, until the onions are slightly caramelized, 12 to 15 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. While the onions cook, in another large saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter and stir in the flour and cook, stirring constantly for 4 minutes to make a blond roux. When both the roux and kielbasa mix are ready, pour the roux into the kielbasa mixture. Gradually whisk in the stock and the beer.  Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 45 minutes.  Gradually add the milk.  Continue to cook for 10 minutes. Add the cheese a little at a time, stirring until nearly completely melted after each addition. Remove from heat and ladle into the bread bowls (When I make it again I might try to add just a bit of sherry with the beer).

The result might be one of the most densely caloric meals I’ve ever had, which was great, even in the heat of summer.  But, as we approach the fall, this will become an even better choice!

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[DDET See the Creamy Beer Cheese Soup Recipe]

Creamy Beer Cheese Soup

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Ingredients

4 ounces butter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup minced onions
1/4 cup minced celery
Salt
Cayenne
1 (12-ounce) bottle light beer
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups whole milk
1 pound sharp cheddar, grated
Dash hot red pepper sauce
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley leaves

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Directions

In a large saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring constantly for 4 minutes to make a blond roux. Add the onions and celery. Season with salt and pepper. Continue to cook for 2 minutes or until the vegetables are wilted. Stir in the beer and stock. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes. Stir in the milk and cheese. Continue to cook for 10 minutes. Season with salt and hot sauce. Reduce the heat and keep warm.

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[DDET See the Meaty Beer Cheese Soup Recipe]

Meaty Beer Cheese Soup

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Ingredients

1/2 pound kielbasa sausage, finely chopped or processed until crumbly
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups chopped yellow onions
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 bay leaves
3 tablespoons minced garlic
8 tablespoons all-purpose flour
6 cups chicken stock
2 cups lager beer, preferably amber
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped thyme
3 cups grated Cheddar (about 12 ounces)
2 tablespoons minced fresh chives, for garnish

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Directions

Cook the kielbasa in the olive oil in a large, heavy soup pot over high heat until golden brown, 5 to 6 minutes. Add the onions, salt, pepper, and bay leaves and cook, stirring, until the onions are slightly caramelized, 12 to 15 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Sprinkle the flour over the onions and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Gradually whisk in the stock and the beer. Add the thyme and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour. Add the cheese a little at a time, stirring until nearly completely melted after each addition. Remove from the heat, taste, and adjust seasoning if necessary.

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