The last installment of Soup: The Trilogy will be along shortly. Between Gumbo research and the Holiday, I'm a little behind.
Rob
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Soup: The Trilogy / Part Two
AAAHHHHHH!!!!! Trying to get this post done has been interesting to say the least. Trying to work the 9-5, catering on the side, writing a bit......... It's all a bit much, but, if I didn't want it, I wouldn't have asked for it.
Oh, and just as a bit of an update: No one has contacted me about making this blog into a movie. Liv Tyler has said nothing about wanting to do the flick either. We'll get Part Three out of the way and start calling her agent or something. Kind of hard to imagine why she would want to do a movie about soup but.........
As promised, this episode finds our intrepid hero explaining the fun of Roux based soups. As you probably already know, a Roux is equal parts flour and fat (oil, butter, bacon fat....yeah.....bacon fat) heated to cook the raw flavor out of the flour and then used as a thickening agent when liquid is added. Its a long story about starches and gluten exploding and, to be honest, if you want all the gobble-dee-gook that goes along with the scientific angle of that, email me or watch Alton Brown on the Food Channel that's more of Reality TV than an actual channel...but I digress.
Without the scientific prose, there are a few things that you need to know about a roux. The first was mentioned above in that you need to cook it for at least a minute or two to take the raw flavor out of the flour. Feel free to try it without it and you will find that your cooking times increase and you will use alot of salt trying to cover the flavor which is a combination of bland and plain with a touch of nothing on the side. The next thing to keep on mind is the longer you cook the roux, the less thickening power it has. Keep this in mind as you watch the colors of the roux change. There will be a better explanation of this in Part Three, so stay tuned. For our current purposes we will stick to white or blonde roux's. Lastly, except for garlic, I prefer to put my spices in the roux as it cooks. I think we all know about garlic and what happens when it burns but the flavor of the spices have a chance to "bloom" and are in full effect when your soups come together.
A good ratio to start with is 1:1:2. 1 part flour, one part fat, two parts liquid. You will have to play with this to get the consistency you want from your soups but this is a good place to start. Once you have this together with the aromatics below (garlic, onions, and celery), it's just a matter of figuring out what type of soup you want. Lets start with......
Basic Potato Soup
1/2 pound bacon
4 tbsp flour
4 tbsp bacon fat
6 cups milk
2 cups light chicken broth
1/2-3/4 cups white onion, finely diced
1-2 stalks celery
1 clove garlic, finely diced
2-3 cups potatoes, medium diced (about 3/4" cubes)
1 sprig rosemary
1 bay leaf
Green onions sliced thin
Salt and Pepper to taste.
This goes fast and for good reason: This is NOT rocket science. Fry the bacon and finely chop, measure out required fat and mix with flour, salt, and pepper. Over medium high heat, cook flour and fat mixture until the color just starts to darken a bit. Make sure you keep stirring it. If the flour burns even a slight bit, it will leave a burnt flavor.
With the flour and fat still over medium-high heat add milk and chicken stock then whisk well making sure to scrape the bottom and sides of the pot very well to eliminate clumps.
Saute the onions, garlic, and celery then add to the roux, drop in the bay leaf and sprig of rosemary and let simmer for about 20 minutes. Depending on my mood, I'll remove the bay leaf and rosemary, add a couple of tablespoons of the bacon then blast it with the immersion blender. Add the potatoes and let simmer until cooked through. As an interesting little twist, I like to fry the potatoes until golden brown, let them cool a tad, and them add those to the soup. Top with bacon and green onions and have at it.
Taking the roux recipe above (roux, onion, garlic, and herbs) you have the base for a variety of soups.
Shrimp and Corn Chowder
Roux recipe from above exchanging vegetable broth for chicken broth
1 16oz. can whole corn
1 pound peeled and deveined shrimp
Very simply, saute corn over high heat in a bit of butter, salt, and pepper until the edges get slightly brown. Near the end, add shrimp for about one minute then add both to the roux Add to roux and let simmer for 20 minutes. Without the shrimp this recipe can be vegetarian but to make it vegan, use soy milk instead of dairy. The soy milk adds a great nutty flavor to the soup which is really tasty. I know this recipe sounds very simple but that's its intention. Just a simple, flavorful comfort food.
Smoked Chicken Chowder
I had gotten bored on a Sunday and made a potato soup and in the absence of bacon, I used smoked chicken. After a while, I added more and more chicken, threw a bit of the skin in to get more smoky flavor (remove it later). Add potatoes and, if you like, corn and enjoy.
Tomato Bisque
In our little town we have a small pizza joint that is part of a smaller, Southern chain. On a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon the family and I stopped in and decided to chill out with the college hippies that work there and have a bite. Knowing full well that one of the all time top comfort foods is Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup, I immediately gravitated toward the Tomato Bisque on the menu and.....Holy Cow! It was a cross between good, old fashioned Tomato Soup and Pizza Soup. The following weekend I got a few things together and this is what I came up with.
Roux from above (again, including onions and garlic)
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 12oz can tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1/4 cup fried bacon
10-12 slices of pepperoni, lightly sauteed
Add the heavy cream to the roux simmering of to the side, break tomatoes up in a bowl trying to eliminate as many seeds as possible. Add tomatoes, the liquid from the tomatoes, tomato paste, and the rest of the ingredients. Let simmer for just a bit and give it a whiz with the immersion blender until smooth.
This stands out as one of the best pots of soup I have ever made. It's perfect for rainy days or crisp fall afternoons on the back porch. Feel free to play with the herbs and, by all means, this soup can take more garlic and onions if you like...and I do.
With the roux as a solid base, the amount of soups and chowders that can be thought up are almost endless. Play with different broths and vegetables, try seafood, go completely vegetarian with it. Once you have the foundation, thick and hearty soups are at your disposal.
Next week, this Trilogy comes to a close. I will focus on one "Soup" and one alone: Gumbo. There are so many styles and types that I am sure to get a ton of email telling me how far off base I am. As I mentioned in part one, the good thing about Gumbo is, there's no real way to get it wrong. If it's what you like, then you nailed it. More next week.
Enjoy,
Rob
Oh, and just as a bit of an update: No one has contacted me about making this blog into a movie. Liv Tyler has said nothing about wanting to do the flick either. We'll get Part Three out of the way and start calling her agent or something. Kind of hard to imagine why she would want to do a movie about soup but.........
As promised, this episode finds our intrepid hero explaining the fun of Roux based soups. As you probably already know, a Roux is equal parts flour and fat (oil, butter, bacon fat....yeah.....bacon fat) heated to cook the raw flavor out of the flour and then used as a thickening agent when liquid is added. Its a long story about starches and gluten exploding and, to be honest, if you want all the gobble-dee-gook that goes along with the scientific angle of that, email me or watch Alton Brown on the Food Channel that's more of Reality TV than an actual channel...but I digress.
Without the scientific prose, there are a few things that you need to know about a roux. The first was mentioned above in that you need to cook it for at least a minute or two to take the raw flavor out of the flour. Feel free to try it without it and you will find that your cooking times increase and you will use alot of salt trying to cover the flavor which is a combination of bland and plain with a touch of nothing on the side. The next thing to keep on mind is the longer you cook the roux, the less thickening power it has. Keep this in mind as you watch the colors of the roux change. There will be a better explanation of this in Part Three, so stay tuned. For our current purposes we will stick to white or blonde roux's. Lastly, except for garlic, I prefer to put my spices in the roux as it cooks. I think we all know about garlic and what happens when it burns but the flavor of the spices have a chance to "bloom" and are in full effect when your soups come together.
A good ratio to start with is 1:1:2. 1 part flour, one part fat, two parts liquid. You will have to play with this to get the consistency you want from your soups but this is a good place to start. Once you have this together with the aromatics below (garlic, onions, and celery), it's just a matter of figuring out what type of soup you want. Lets start with......
Basic Potato Soup
1/2 pound bacon
4 tbsp flour
4 tbsp bacon fat
6 cups milk
2 cups light chicken broth
1/2-3/4 cups white onion, finely diced
1-2 stalks celery
1 clove garlic, finely diced
2-3 cups potatoes, medium diced (about 3/4" cubes)
1 sprig rosemary
1 bay leaf
Green onions sliced thin
Salt and Pepper to taste.
This goes fast and for good reason: This is NOT rocket science. Fry the bacon and finely chop, measure out required fat and mix with flour, salt, and pepper. Over medium high heat, cook flour and fat mixture until the color just starts to darken a bit. Make sure you keep stirring it. If the flour burns even a slight bit, it will leave a burnt flavor.
With the flour and fat still over medium-high heat add milk and chicken stock then whisk well making sure to scrape the bottom and sides of the pot very well to eliminate clumps.
Saute the onions, garlic, and celery then add to the roux, drop in the bay leaf and sprig of rosemary and let simmer for about 20 minutes. Depending on my mood, I'll remove the bay leaf and rosemary, add a couple of tablespoons of the bacon then blast it with the immersion blender. Add the potatoes and let simmer until cooked through. As an interesting little twist, I like to fry the potatoes until golden brown, let them cool a tad, and them add those to the soup. Top with bacon and green onions and have at it.
Taking the roux recipe above (roux, onion, garlic, and herbs) you have the base for a variety of soups.
Shrimp and Corn Chowder
Roux recipe from above exchanging vegetable broth for chicken broth
1 16oz. can whole corn
1 pound peeled and deveined shrimp
Very simply, saute corn over high heat in a bit of butter, salt, and pepper until the edges get slightly brown. Near the end, add shrimp for about one minute then add both to the roux Add to roux and let simmer for 20 minutes. Without the shrimp this recipe can be vegetarian but to make it vegan, use soy milk instead of dairy. The soy milk adds a great nutty flavor to the soup which is really tasty. I know this recipe sounds very simple but that's its intention. Just a simple, flavorful comfort food.
Smoked Chicken Chowder
I had gotten bored on a Sunday and made a potato soup and in the absence of bacon, I used smoked chicken. After a while, I added more and more chicken, threw a bit of the skin in to get more smoky flavor (remove it later). Add potatoes and, if you like, corn and enjoy.
Tomato Bisque
In our little town we have a small pizza joint that is part of a smaller, Southern chain. On a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon the family and I stopped in and decided to chill out with the college hippies that work there and have a bite. Knowing full well that one of the all time top comfort foods is Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup, I immediately gravitated toward the Tomato Bisque on the menu and.....Holy Cow! It was a cross between good, old fashioned Tomato Soup and Pizza Soup. The following weekend I got a few things together and this is what I came up with.
Roux from above (again, including onions and garlic)
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 12oz can tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1/4 cup fried bacon
10-12 slices of pepperoni, lightly sauteed
Add the heavy cream to the roux simmering of to the side, break tomatoes up in a bowl trying to eliminate as many seeds as possible. Add tomatoes, the liquid from the tomatoes, tomato paste, and the rest of the ingredients. Let simmer for just a bit and give it a whiz with the immersion blender until smooth.
This stands out as one of the best pots of soup I have ever made. It's perfect for rainy days or crisp fall afternoons on the back porch. Feel free to play with the herbs and, by all means, this soup can take more garlic and onions if you like...and I do.
With the roux as a solid base, the amount of soups and chowders that can be thought up are almost endless. Play with different broths and vegetables, try seafood, go completely vegetarian with it. Once you have the foundation, thick and hearty soups are at your disposal.
Next week, this Trilogy comes to a close. I will focus on one "Soup" and one alone: Gumbo. There are so many styles and types that I am sure to get a ton of email telling me how far off base I am. As I mentioned in part one, the good thing about Gumbo is, there's no real way to get it wrong. If it's what you like, then you nailed it. More next week.
Enjoy,
Rob
Friday, November 5, 2010
Soup: The Trilogy/Part One
Welcome to Episode One of Soup: The Trilogy. Although there are no Hobbits, Dwarfs, Ents, and the like, there is and shall be a ton of good recipes and knowledge for future soup use. I would like it to be known, however, that if this Trilogy ever gets made into a movie, I want Liv Tyler in it somewhere. I mean, what the Hell, she got naked in Empire Records, right?
Also, this is a long one. You may want to read a bit and get back to it after while. Even better, read long enough to get one of the recipes, go try it, eat, then come back and read some more. Oh, and Vegetarians go scroll straight to the bottom as there is one Hell of a good recipe waiting there for you.
If Spring is the time that turns a young mans fancy to love then Fall is, without a doubt, the time when an older mans thoughts turn to soup. The cool weather, the falling leaves, the fact that its getting to cold to go outside and work and that you would rather sit inside and drink beer and hot toddies, get lazy, and end up not having the ambition to actually cook something.
I imagine the history of soup was someone either being short on food and having some left over stuff or just being lazy and chucking said stuff in a clay pot with some water, boil it up for a bit a there you have it. After a bit, I would guess that they learned about some herbs, tree barks, blood, whatever. To be honest, I do have a good idea of what early man ate (its kind of a hobby of mine) although I really don't know much about Soup Anthropology. However, could it be much more complicated than that? I mean, what is more simple than throwing a few things in a pot and letting them simmer for a bit......
Um....Yeah. Ask the Mrs., I don't do anything simple.
I began writing this section and got a good ways into it and then I realized: Unless I'm willing to sit here for a day just outlining the every different base, and I really am not, then I better make it simple. There are stocks and broths, both meat and vegetable, there are flour bases such as roux and bechemel, there are vegetable juice bases such a tomato for gazpacho, and so on. Each has its uses and qualities and, when they are sometimes combined, can result is some mind blowing flavors. For this episode, stocks and broths will do fine and what could be a better primer than a good, old fashioned Chicken Soup.
Chicken Soup
In an 18 qt stock pot, place the following:
1 really good farm raised organic chicken (the taste explains why)
2 white onions cut into large pieces
7-8 cloves of garlic
1 medium Bouquet Garni (traditional includes parsley, thyme, rosemary, and a bay leaf. I add a little dill.)
1/4 cup dry white wine (optional)
This next ingredient is optional but you will notice the difference when you use them:
6 chicken feet, cleaned with the claws removed (see below for the explanation).
2-4 Tbsp kosher or good quality sea salt
Pepper to taste
2 stalks woth of finely chopped celery
1 cup thinly sliced carrots
Noodles, Matzo Balls, Rice, whatever....
Wrap the Bouquet Garni in cheese cloth (which I prefer) or bind with string so that you're not chasing pieces of plants around later. Throw everything in the pot and cover with water by about an inch. Cover with a heavy lid and bring to a boil then reduce to a slow simmer. Let this go until the chicken of falling off the bone and is easily shredded. Remove the meat and return the bones for another hour or so. Uncover and boil down to a consistency/flavor that you like. You may now remove the Chicken Feet.
Important!!! After about 30 minutes or so, start skimming the Brown Clouds from the top. This is the excess blood and can add flavors but more important, if left in, it makes the broth cloudy. To me, there isn't much thats more appealing than a clear, golden chicken broth.
At this point, chop or shred the meat finely making sure to get all of the little bones and fragments out, add the celery and carrots and simmer for 20 minutes. Now you can add noodles, Matzo Balls (Marietta Diner in Marietta, GA makes the best Matzo Ball Soup and I mean EVER!), rice or what ever you like.
Ok, about the Chicken Feet. It is all over TV and in the food magazines about eating the leftovers of an animal as the ancients did and many rural cultures still do. Brains, Balls, Blood, and Bile are all the rage with Foodies now. The fact of the matter is a good, Jewish chicken soup has contained chicken feet for centuries, if not millenia. The feet contain alot of Calogen and Gelatin which makes for a much richer flavor and feeling when you eat it. If you make alot of Chicken Soup from scratch, you have to at least try this, and when you do, you will be happy.
This basic stock recipe is easily converted to beef, pork, lamb, whatever. In the case of Bovine, Ovine, and Porcine stocks, cut meat into cubes and brown so that you have more browned surface area, add some bones, replace the white wine with red, and go. Now the question is: How much work do you want to do?
Back Porch Harvest Soup
4 cups Beef Broth
2 cups Lamb Broth
1-2 pounds Chuck Roast, large diced
1/2 pound Leg of Lamb, small diced
1 large White Onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely minced or pressed
1-2 cups White Cap Mushrooms, quartered
1/2 cup Cabernet Sauvignon
1/2 cup Dry Barley
3/4 cup cut green beans (fresh, of course)
3/4 cup Carrots, thinly sliced
1/2 cup diced Celery
3-4 Potatoes cut into large chunks
1 Tbsp tomato paste (optional)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Get the broth up to a simmer and immediately add the mushrooms and let them simmer. Salt and pepper the meats and brown them over medium-high heat in olive oil. When brown, add the onions and garlic and suate all ofthem together for just a few minutes being careful not to burn the garlic. With all ingredients in the pan, deglaze with the Cabernet Sauvignon and let it reduce by half. Pour everything into the broth.
Add the barley and cook until about half finished. Add vegetables and potatoes. By the time the potatoes and veggies are done the barley will be as well. When I was growing up, The Old Man usually had tomatoes of some form in vegetable soup. Some don't care for it but if you do, this is the time to add the tomoto paste and stir it in well.
For those that don't do the whole meat thing, thats cool. You can get al kinds of happy with this vegetable stock:
Olive or Vegetable oil
2 large onions
10 cloves of garlic
4 stalks celery
4 carrots
1 Bouquet Garni
Salt and Pepper to taste
About 3-4 quarts of water
Chop vegetables to a medium small dice. In a large stock pot, add oil and cook vegetables over high heat for about ten minutes. Add Bouquet Grani (loose and unwrapped for this recipe) salt and pepper and water. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a slow simmer. After about an hour turn off heat and let in cool over 30 minutes or so. Strain and throw the veggies out. Bada Bing-Bada Boom...Vegetable Stock.
Now...What to do with it...?
Morrocan Pumpkin Soup
1 cups Chickpeas, cooked
3 tablespoons Olive or Vegetable oil
2 Leeks (white and light green part only), chopped
4 cups Vegetable Stock
4 cups Pumpkin Puree
1/2 teaspoon ground Cumin
2 teaspoons Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Allspice
2 teaspoons Salt
Dash of Hot Sauce
ground pepper to taste
Saute leeks in oil until translucent, add to stock. Add pumpkin, spices, hot sauce and puree with immersion blender to a very smooth consistency. Add chick peas, salt, and pepper let the chick peas come to temperature and enjoy. For an added bit of taste, add a dollop of heavy plain yogurt.
Without a doubt, some of my favorite winter soups are variations of squash or pumpkin soups. Even more so since they are very simple and quick to prepare.
Whew! Well, there it is. One heck of a long post and the first installment of Soup: The Trilogy. Next week I will be writing about my favoite soups that come from a Roux base. They are mainly chowders but you will be very happy with what you read.
I will give you an advance on Episode Three: Gumbo. There are so many versions of everyones favorite gumbo recipe that no one is the definative. However, I will take you back to the beginnings of my Gumbo Journey that, I am glad to say, has no end. If I knew I had tried every version of Gumbo the World would be a much sadder place to be.
Enjoy!
Rob
Also, this is a long one. You may want to read a bit and get back to it after while. Even better, read long enough to get one of the recipes, go try it, eat, then come back and read some more. Oh, and Vegetarians go scroll straight to the bottom as there is one Hell of a good recipe waiting there for you.
If Spring is the time that turns a young mans fancy to love then Fall is, without a doubt, the time when an older mans thoughts turn to soup. The cool weather, the falling leaves, the fact that its getting to cold to go outside and work and that you would rather sit inside and drink beer and hot toddies, get lazy, and end up not having the ambition to actually cook something.
I imagine the history of soup was someone either being short on food and having some left over stuff or just being lazy and chucking said stuff in a clay pot with some water, boil it up for a bit a there you have it. After a bit, I would guess that they learned about some herbs, tree barks, blood, whatever. To be honest, I do have a good idea of what early man ate (its kind of a hobby of mine) although I really don't know much about Soup Anthropology. However, could it be much more complicated than that? I mean, what is more simple than throwing a few things in a pot and letting them simmer for a bit......
Um....Yeah. Ask the Mrs., I don't do anything simple.
I began writing this section and got a good ways into it and then I realized: Unless I'm willing to sit here for a day just outlining the every different base, and I really am not, then I better make it simple. There are stocks and broths, both meat and vegetable, there are flour bases such as roux and bechemel, there are vegetable juice bases such a tomato for gazpacho, and so on. Each has its uses and qualities and, when they are sometimes combined, can result is some mind blowing flavors. For this episode, stocks and broths will do fine and what could be a better primer than a good, old fashioned Chicken Soup.
Chicken Soup
In an 18 qt stock pot, place the following:
1 really good farm raised organic chicken (the taste explains why)
2 white onions cut into large pieces
7-8 cloves of garlic
1 medium Bouquet Garni (traditional includes parsley, thyme, rosemary, and a bay leaf. I add a little dill.)
1/4 cup dry white wine (optional)
This next ingredient is optional but you will notice the difference when you use them:
6 chicken feet, cleaned with the claws removed (see below for the explanation).
2-4 Tbsp kosher or good quality sea salt
Pepper to taste
2 stalks woth of finely chopped celery
1 cup thinly sliced carrots
Noodles, Matzo Balls, Rice, whatever....
Wrap the Bouquet Garni in cheese cloth (which I prefer) or bind with string so that you're not chasing pieces of plants around later. Throw everything in the pot and cover with water by about an inch. Cover with a heavy lid and bring to a boil then reduce to a slow simmer. Let this go until the chicken of falling off the bone and is easily shredded. Remove the meat and return the bones for another hour or so. Uncover and boil down to a consistency/flavor that you like. You may now remove the Chicken Feet.
Important!!! After about 30 minutes or so, start skimming the Brown Clouds from the top. This is the excess blood and can add flavors but more important, if left in, it makes the broth cloudy. To me, there isn't much thats more appealing than a clear, golden chicken broth.
At this point, chop or shred the meat finely making sure to get all of the little bones and fragments out, add the celery and carrots and simmer for 20 minutes. Now you can add noodles, Matzo Balls (Marietta Diner in Marietta, GA makes the best Matzo Ball Soup and I mean EVER!), rice or what ever you like.
Ok, about the Chicken Feet. It is all over TV and in the food magazines about eating the leftovers of an animal as the ancients did and many rural cultures still do. Brains, Balls, Blood, and Bile are all the rage with Foodies now. The fact of the matter is a good, Jewish chicken soup has contained chicken feet for centuries, if not millenia. The feet contain alot of Calogen and Gelatin which makes for a much richer flavor and feeling when you eat it. If you make alot of Chicken Soup from scratch, you have to at least try this, and when you do, you will be happy.
This basic stock recipe is easily converted to beef, pork, lamb, whatever. In the case of Bovine, Ovine, and Porcine stocks, cut meat into cubes and brown so that you have more browned surface area, add some bones, replace the white wine with red, and go. Now the question is: How much work do you want to do?
Back Porch Harvest Soup
4 cups Beef Broth
2 cups Lamb Broth
1-2 pounds Chuck Roast, large diced
1/2 pound Leg of Lamb, small diced
1 large White Onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely minced or pressed
1-2 cups White Cap Mushrooms, quartered
1/2 cup Cabernet Sauvignon
1/2 cup Dry Barley
3/4 cup cut green beans (fresh, of course)
3/4 cup Carrots, thinly sliced
1/2 cup diced Celery
3-4 Potatoes cut into large chunks
1 Tbsp tomato paste (optional)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Get the broth up to a simmer and immediately add the mushrooms and let them simmer. Salt and pepper the meats and brown them over medium-high heat in olive oil. When brown, add the onions and garlic and suate all ofthem together for just a few minutes being careful not to burn the garlic. With all ingredients in the pan, deglaze with the Cabernet Sauvignon and let it reduce by half. Pour everything into the broth.
Add the barley and cook until about half finished. Add vegetables and potatoes. By the time the potatoes and veggies are done the barley will be as well. When I was growing up, The Old Man usually had tomatoes of some form in vegetable soup. Some don't care for it but if you do, this is the time to add the tomoto paste and stir it in well.
For those that don't do the whole meat thing, thats cool. You can get al kinds of happy with this vegetable stock:
Olive or Vegetable oil
2 large onions
10 cloves of garlic
4 stalks celery
4 carrots
1 Bouquet Garni
Salt and Pepper to taste
About 3-4 quarts of water
Chop vegetables to a medium small dice. In a large stock pot, add oil and cook vegetables over high heat for about ten minutes. Add Bouquet Grani (loose and unwrapped for this recipe) salt and pepper and water. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a slow simmer. After about an hour turn off heat and let in cool over 30 minutes or so. Strain and throw the veggies out. Bada Bing-Bada Boom...Vegetable Stock.
Now...What to do with it...?
Morrocan Pumpkin Soup
1 cups Chickpeas, cooked
3 tablespoons Olive or Vegetable oil
2 Leeks (white and light green part only), chopped
4 cups Vegetable Stock
4 cups Pumpkin Puree
1/2 teaspoon ground Cumin
2 teaspoons Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Allspice
2 teaspoons Salt
Dash of Hot Sauce
ground pepper to taste
Saute leeks in oil until translucent, add to stock. Add pumpkin, spices, hot sauce and puree with immersion blender to a very smooth consistency. Add chick peas, salt, and pepper let the chick peas come to temperature and enjoy. For an added bit of taste, add a dollop of heavy plain yogurt.
Without a doubt, some of my favorite winter soups are variations of squash or pumpkin soups. Even more so since they are very simple and quick to prepare.
Whew! Well, there it is. One heck of a long post and the first installment of Soup: The Trilogy. Next week I will be writing about my favoite soups that come from a Roux base. They are mainly chowders but you will be very happy with what you read.
I will give you an advance on Episode Three: Gumbo. There are so many versions of everyones favorite gumbo recipe that no one is the definative. However, I will take you back to the beginnings of my Gumbo Journey that, I am glad to say, has no end. If I knew I had tried every version of Gumbo the World would be a much sadder place to be.
Enjoy!
Rob
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