A Brief Journey in Short Ribs

Spring is coming on fast, but there are still a few chilly days left that lend themselves to beefy braises and slow stews; just time to get in one more short rib dinner. Or three.


I kept it simple, to start. Rubbed the meat with a little kosher salt and olive oil, browned it well in a Dutch oven, deglazed with a cheap and cheerful Chilean carménère (Éstacion, $12, surprisingly drinkable), added a 400 ml tin of plain diced tomatoes with their juices and a half-cup of chicken stock. For seasoning, a sprig each of rosemary and thyme from the garden, 3 bay leaves, a few cloves of garlic (quartered lengthwise), and a dash of allspice. Once the dish was at a simmer, I put it in the oven, covered, at 300℉ for three hours. The last half-hour of waiting was pure agony, but the wait was worth it. Rich, meltingly tender, and with a deep, wonderful beefy flavour. Baked potato (since the oven was on anyway) and coleslaw rounded out the meal.I made extra, not that we'd have had the room for larger servings. No, the extra was for conversion purposes. I figure that any time I am waiting three hours for something to come out of the oven, I'm making it count. So, I cooked double the amount that we needed, and stored the leftovers in the braising liquid in the fridge.

The added bonus of advance preparation and chilling is that all of the lovely suet comes up to the surface, and an be quite easily lifted off (to feed the birds, or save for some other purpose), leaving a lean gel of braising liquid surrounding the still-on-the-bone meat.

So, what to do with the leftovers? Sandwiches, of course! I warmed up the meat and shredded it with a couple of forks (pulled pork style), and put it on toasted buns with a few pieces of the tomatoes from the braising liquid, topped the whole thing with a layer of edam cheese, and served with a spinach salad for super-fast dinner.


Since there was still a little shredded meat leftover that I couldn't cram onto the buns, and the rest of the braising liquid, I used the liquid as a base for a soup, adding a little extra broth, some carrot coins, corn, lima beans(!), and barley. At the end, the shredded meat went back into the pot to warm up. Embarassingly easy, and very delicious with a big hunk of bread to mop up the last bits.

Bring on spring. I'm feeling fortified.

Sweet Potato & Chicken Bisque

Quick, delicious, and a teensy bit unusual: perfect raining weather food.

Sweet Potato & Chicken Bisque
Adapted from Eating Well Magazine, October 2009

Serves 4 – 6
Total Time Prep & Cook: 45 minutes

2 large sweet potatoes (orange)
2 boneless chicken breast halves*
3 cups tomato juice
2 cups vegetable stock
1 tablespoon canola oil
½ cup unsalted peanut butter
1 habañero chile, julienned
1 heaping tablespoon grated ginger
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground allspice
Cilantro or green onion for garnish

Poke the sweet potatoes with a fork and microwave them until tender (approximately 10 minutes, together). Allow them to cool while you begin the rest of your prep.

Heat the canola oil in a large soup pot, and sauté the onion and garlic until translucent. Add the sliced chile, ginger, allspice and tomato juice, and allow to simmer gently for about 10 minutes.

Peel and dice the sweet potatoes. Place half of them in a blender or food processor along with the peanut butter and just enough of the stock to moisten. Process until smooth, gradually adding the rest of the stock until it becomes a smooth, thick liquid. It will look a bit like nacho cheese sauce in colour and consistency. Add the puree to the soup pot, and stir gently. Add the remaining diced sweet potatoes to the bisque, and stir though. Allow the soup to return to a bare simmer, stirring as needed to keep it from sticking to the bottom.

At this point, you can serve the soup as a lovely vegan dish. However, if you want a more robust meal, slice some raw chicken into bite-sized pieces (or cube up some extra firm tofu) and stir it into the soup. Allow the soup to continue to simmer very gently on the lowest setting for another ten minutes, or until chicken is cooked through.

Note: If you have leftover yams from dinner, you can save a step and some time.

Further Note: It is correct that no salt is added to the soup. The tomato juice and vegetable stock are salty enough. If you want more salt, add a pinch right at the end. But you probably won’t need to, and if you used salted peanut butter instead of unsalted, you definitely won’t need to.

* Or prawns. Try peeled, raw prawns in place of chicken, especially if you are going to be eating it all up instead of freezing leftovers.

For What Ails You (and Me): Chicken Alphabet Soup

Big surprise, it's soup again.

I am constitutionally averse to tossing out the bones of a roasted chicken. Even if I don't have any immediate need for soup or stock, I would feel too wretched about discarding good food to allow myself to simply bag them up and put them in the garbage. At the very least, if completely knackered, I'll wrap them well and toss them into the freezer for future efforts. I inherited this behaviour from my mother, whom I cheerfully blame for a lot of my culinary quirks.

In the throes of the latest rounds of cold and 'flu and other things that go "sneeze" in the night (as well as cough, *snork*, hack), I decided it was time to put some culinary prescriptions into play. After all, isn't scientific investigation itself proving the value of a good homemade vat of chicken soup? Is it called "Jewish Penicillin" for nothing?

Frankly, even if it contains no medicinal value whatsoever, it counts as fluids (always a plus for the ill and infirm), and is both warming and comforting. Really, there's no downside at all, other than that you have to feel well enough to actually make it.

Fortunately, it's not hard.

I bought a free-range, organic chicken from the market, and roasted it up for dinner. We ate the choicest selections with some creamy Parmesan orzo and some broccoli and when the chicken had cooled sufficiently after dinner, I pulled the remaining meat from the bones and set it aside in the fridge. I poured off the accumulated juices and fat from the cast iron frying pan (the vessel in which I always roast my chickens) into a container in the fridge, and then bundled up the skin and bones. I wasn't nearly well enough to begin stock making at that point.

The next morning was Sunday, which meant that I could take my time. I simmered the bones with filtered water, bay leaves, a few sprigs of fresh thyme, a carrot, a bit of celery, a quartered onion, and some garlic. I didn't salt it, because there was already salt clinging to the skin, and you can always add more salt later. I brought the whole pot up to the barest of simmers, and let it carry on unmolested for a couple of hours, checking periodically to ensure that it wasn't boiling (which gives you a cloudy, opaque stock). Finally, I scraped away the chicken fat from the reserved drippings (reserve for later uses) and added the gelatinized dark goodness of the accumulated roast chicken juices into the stock.

When it was finished, I cooled it with the bones in the stock, then fished them out and strained the stock. One roasting chicken gave me about six cups of stock, but your mileage may vary depending on the size of your chicken.

From there, it was simple to assemble a classic comfort food. I still had some alphabet pasta left from my Alphabet Soup endeavor, so I went with that. The rest of the ingredients were, essentially, the same flavours that went into the soup. There's a reason for that - they are quite delicious. However, in the soup-making stage, they are cooked only until tender, not until exhausted. Simple soup-making: saute your aromatic vegetables and herbs in a little fat (the roast-rendered chicken fat, in this case), and once they are edging towards tender, add your stock. Add the pasta, bring it up to a gentle simmer, and once the pasta is cooked, add the reserved chicken meat, which you have chopped into soup-sized pieces.

Did I get better faster? Maybe. Did I feel better? Immediately!

Salmon Corn Chowder

As promised.

This is the first fish dish that I ever became delighted to make again. Fish and I, we have issues (if not whole subscriptions). I cobbled the recipe together out of other recipes when I was still in University, and always on the lookout for affordable food with a big flavour payoff.

Living in Vancouver, salmon is probably more affordable to me than to folks further inland, so it might not be such a budget stretcher for people in, oh, say, the prairies. The recipe works best with a freshly steamed salmon fillet - even - a small one will do, but you can also used good quality pouch salmon, or Indian-style smoked salmon (as opposed to, say, lox, which wouldn't work so well). You don't need a lot of salmon to make a big, tasty pot of soup, though. The photo above does not show the tarragon, because I am an idiot who forgot to pick some up on my way home from work, and therefore did without. It was still tasty, by my gods, the tarragon adds something good. I added a big sprig of fresh thyme instead, which was pretty good.

Salmon Corn Chowder

Total Prep and Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Serves: 4 to 6

1 large onion, diced medium
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 leek, chopped (or a rib of celery will do)
1 14 oz./400 ml can of creamed corn
1 to 1 1/2 cups corn kernels, frozen or fresh-cut
2 diced waxy potatoes (such as red bliss)
2 medium carrots, diced
1 small salmon fillet, steamed and flaked into chunks
1 14 oz./400 ml can of evaporated milk
1 cup water
salt
pepper
1 bayleaf
fresh tarragon to taste (go easy, it's strong)
olive oil for sauteing

If you're a soup-maker, you probably don't need more than the list above, to work it out. If not, try these directions:

In a large soup pot, heat a little olive oil and saute the onion, garlic, carrot, and leek/celery until barely translucent. Toss in the bayleaf, a small pinch of salt, a little pepper, and the corn kernels and stir about. Add the creamed corn, the potatoes and the evaporated milk, and stir gently but thoroughly. Add water to get to the consistency you like - around a cup to start. Bring the soup to a gentle simmer, and allow to cook gently, uncovered, for about ten or fifteen minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed - I like white pepper for making the soup itself, and black pepper as a serving garnish, but suit yourself.

As the potatoes cook through, they will release a little starch and thicken the chowder slightly. It is important to use a waxy potato, because the floury, baking kind will become mealy-textured in the finished soup. If you decide to make this with all fresh corn, you may want to puree some of it before adding to the soup, to get the texture and level of, er, "corniness" correct.

When the vegetables are tender and just cooked through, add the small chunks of salmon, and a tablespoon or two of fresh, finely chopped tarragon leaves. Let the soup continue to cook gently for another five minutes, taste for salt, and serve with crackers (the classic pairing) or hot biscuits (my favourite). Contemplate other chowders you could make...bacon and scallops? Chicken and chorizo? The many faces of clam chowder (New England, Rhode Island, Manhattan)? Potato and cheese? Start making a list.

Soup for the New Year (Simple Tomato Soup)

It's official: I'm on a soup jag.

Today's soup is Alphabet Vegetable. It is the product of my Simple Tomato Soup (expired link removed - see recipe in comments section below) merged with extra chopped vegetables (this version includes finely chopped celery, carrot, red bell pepper, and corn kernels) and alphabet pasta, along with extra water to be absorbed by the pasta. I showered the bowls with chopped parsley, after the photo was taken, because I though all of the green bits would obscure the actual pasta.

The alphabet pasta was found at Granville Island, after a long, futile search in the supermarkets of Vancouver (well, I found some vegetable-dyed whole wheat alphabets, but they looked vile; I am not a fan of whole wheat pasta), and turns out to be alphanumeric, actually. I don't know if this is standard or not, since I never had alphabet soup growing up, but the numbers are a bonus, I think.

Adding stuff to my soup increased the cooking time by about ten minutes - the extras were all added post original recipe - which meant that the veggies still had some texture. Essentially, it is the variation for Tomato Vegetable that is listed at the end of the recipe, plus a half-cup of alphabet pasta and an extra cup of water. If you like the granular mushiness of canned vegetable soup, you might want to add another fifteen minutes (or more) to obtain the level of mush you desire. You may, of course, use any vegetables you want, including potato, parsnip, peas, lima beans...

We had this for dinner last night with toasted cheese sandwiches (i.e. not grilled, per se), and extra crusty bread for mopping the bowls clean.

Soup is such comforting food, and really lovely for the vertical weather we've been experiencing. So many of them also keep well for second days, lunches, or freezer-treasure. Next soup I've set my sights on? Salmon Corn Chowder. Stay tuned.

Soup for the Holidays

I am supposed to be in Mexico, right now. However, despite heroic attempts by friend and stranger alike, my holiday in the Yucatan has been canceled. The weather did us in. We managed to get as far as on the plane in Seattle, only to be told that they were out of de-icer and the flight was delayed (which soon became canceled). Most flights were canceled from Sea-Tac airport that day, and many more the next. The list of people awaiting standby opportunities was staggering and, with the knowledge that we couldn't possibly get a new flight for a week, we gave up on the whole trip.

So, shivering in our warm-weather clothes, we struggled home to Canada on a bus, where we have not prepared for Christmas, at all.

The amount of snow around these parts is quite shocking. We're accustomed to mild winters, and despite the occasional Big Dump of Snow, it usually melts quickly and returns us to our regularly scheduled program of wet slush, damp puddles, and snarled traffic.

So, what better way to warm up than soup? And, what better soup to warm up with than one that takes so very few ingredients to make such a comforting dish? We darted out into the snow to secure a few essential provisions, and the soup practically made itself when we returned.

Split Pea Soup

400 g. dried green split peas, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 medium onion, diced small
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 stalk of celery, diced small
6 cups water
1 teaspoon vegetable stock concentrate
1 large carrot, diced small
2 cups diced ham
dash kosher salt
white pepper to taste
1 bay leaf
dash dry white vermouth
dash Tabasco sauce

In a large soup-making pot, heat the olive oil and add the onion, garlic, celery, bay leaf and a dash of salt. Allow the veggies to sweat a little, and turn translucent. Add a good dash of white pepper, a splash of vermouth (or water) to free them up from sticking. Add the washed split peas, and the water. Bring to a simmer, and add the concentrate (optional, really, or you could use veggie stock instead of some of the water). Bring to a simmer and let cook at a gentle bubble, for about an hour or until the peas are starting to fall apart.

Remove the bay leaf, and use an immersion blender to mostly-smooth out the soup. Add the diced carrots and the ham, and return soup to a gentle simmer for about twenty minutes (or until carrot pieces are tender and ham is warmed through. Add a dash of Tabasco sauce (or sherry vinegar, if you prefer, just a tiny bit, for brightness), stir through, and serve with a big old crusty bread and maybe some good cheese.

If you have leftovers, like most hearty soups, this one freezes really well. You can double the carrots and leave the ham out if you want a vegan version (although, I would recommend adding a drop or two of liquid smoke, if that's the case). Do resist the temptation to add all kinds of crazy herbs and spices. This soup just doesn't need them.

A Soup For All Seasons: Borscht

I had just about given up on summer. Before this glorious September sneaked up on us, I was frantically soaking up as much sunshine and warmth as I could, trying to store it up for the depths of December, when I would most miss it. I started, as the weather started to turn to wet, to make soup.

Borscht is one of those dishes that engenders strong opinions in its adherents. Should it be beets alone, or with cabbage? Should there be meat stock, or should it be vegetarian? Carrots? Do you add wine, or just vinegar? Should it be hearty, a meal in itself, or a starter for cabbage rolls, pyrohy, and sausage? Should it be hot or cold? Chunky, or smooth? Truth is, you can serve it any way you like. Cold and pureed in the summer, hot and chunky in the autumn and winter, clear, spare and delicate in the spring. There isn't a season that doesn't have its borscht.

The funny thing is, most folks who acknowledge their love of a good bowl of borscht like the variations just fine...they simply may not consider them to be proper. You know, the grail borscht, the standard from which all others are merely delicious anomalies.

My favourite version comes from Diane Forley's lovely work Anatomy of a Dish which is required reading for the botanically inclined cook. I haven't altered it much at all, going with the full cup of red wine and full cup of red wine vinegar, but I've cut the sugar down to a lean 1 tablespoon, whilst she allows (gasp!) as much as 2/3 of a cup, which I think is the short train to crazyville. Beets, especially roasted ones, are quite sweet enough. However, she gets my big seal of approval for eliminating much of the tedium of borscht making - she doesn't grate or chop the raw beets. She roasts them, skin and all, and when they are done you can simply slip the skins right off. If you have roasted them a little more al dente, so to speak, you may need to grasp the roasted (and cooled) beet in a clean cloth, such as a washable jaycloth, and briskly rub to remove the skins. I do so under running cool water, which minimizes any potential mess. It is marvelously easy - and has less waste than using a vegetable peeler.

I also note that Forley suggests that this recipe serves 8. What she doesn't mention, is that this would be eight starving farmhands. If you're simply serving it as a generous appetizer, it would easily serve 20. It's a lot of soup. My freezer is now full of it, in fact. But, really, there's no sense in making a tiny pot of borscht. Go big, and dine off it for a couple of months.

Borscht
adapted from Anatomy of A Dish, by Diane Forley

Serves 8 (farmhands).

1½ lbs. baby beets, roasted, peeled and diced
2 onions, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
2 carrots, diced
¼ head red cabbage, sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups chicken stock
4 cups water
1 cup red wine
1 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cinnamon stick
2 cloves
1 bay leaf
1 sprig of fresh thyme
1 waxy potato, diced (Forley recommends a russet, but I find them too mealy)

To roast the beets, seal them in a foil pouch with a spritz of olive oil, and roast at 400° F for approximately 1 hour, or until a knife slides easily into one. Remove, allow to cool for fifteen minutes, and rub the skins off under cool water. Dice and set aside.

In a large Dutch oven, sauté the onion, carrot, celery and cabbage in the olive oil with a little salt and pepper until vegetables soften and become translucent. Add the diced beets, stock, water, spices/seasonings, sugar, wine and wine vinegar. Bring to a gentle simmer and allow to cook for 15 minutes. Add the potato and allow to cook for another 15 minutes. Taste, re-season as necessary, and serve. If you're a fan of dill, sprinkle some over each bowl, but it certainly doesn't need it.

A note on dicing: beets do not shrink down, so dice them to the size you want to find in your spoon, when you are eating.

Soup Weather (Brown Lentil & Tomato Soup)

Winter, particularly its snowy, rainy, and slushy bits, is the weather for enjoying a good steaming bowl or mug of soup. I like soup. I especially like soup that has an identity. While I grew up with the ever-evolving (mutating?) pot of "Heirloom Soup", which served a terrific purpose and was generally tasty, there is certainly something to be said for creating a soup that will dependably turn out to be exactly what you are craving.

Lentil soups are often on the uninteresting side - serviceable, but not truly delicious. Oh, there are exceptions, of course, and much depends on the nature of the type of lentil being used. For a hearty yet basic brown-lentil soup that is full of vegetables, I have been developing this particular recipe for a few months now, and have come to the conclusion that it overtakes all others in terms of a go-to, dependable, delicious winter lentil soup. Its foundation is European, somewhat along the lines of an Italian soup, but I've never really tasted one quite like it. The addition of red wine vinegar at the end perks up the flavours remarkably, and contributes substantially to the overall depth of flavour.

It is much more handsome if you add a cup of finely chopped parsley (or indeed, a fine chiffonade of spinach) and stir it in right at the end, and the fresh, scarcely cooked greenery adds a certain brightness of flavour that is very pleasing, too. However, if you are planning to freeze the soup for future lunches and dinners, you may wish to leave those out, and add them upon re-heating. The soup in the photo is greenery free, because I forgot that I was out of both parsley and spinach when I started making it. It was still very tasty.

I have yet to try this as a purely vegetarian (or indeed, as it would be, vegan) soup, which would entail exchanging the beef stock for vegetable, but I am confident that this particular recipe would be delicious either way. Next time I plan to try it as a vegetarian version, with the added spinach as suggested above, and (possibly) with a little hit of cumin.

Brown Lentil & Tomato Soup

Makes about 8 cups

1 cup dry brown lentils, rinsed and drained
1 stalk of celery, strung and diced small
1 medium onion, diced small
1 1/2 cups small-diced carrots
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups beef stock (I use Better Than Bouillon)
2 cups water
2 bayleaves
1 14 oz./398 ml. crushed tomatoes (I prefer no salt added)
1/2 teaspoon oregano leaves (less, if powdered)
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 to 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar (to taste - start small)
1 cup finely chopped parsley (or spinach)

In a large soup pot, heat the olive oil and saute the onion, celery and carrots until the onions are tender and a little translucent. Season with white pepper, bay leaves, oregano, and add the garlic. Stir through. Add the drained lentils, the beef broth, the crushed tomatoes, and the water. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat, and let cook at a low temperature (bubbles just barely breaking the surface of the soup) with the lid on, until the lentils are tender - 30 to 35 minutes. Taste, and add salt if needed. If the soup is thicker than you like, stir in a little more water. Stir in vinegar, parsley (or spinach). Taste, and add more vinegar if you like.

If you like the look of the perfectly round little carrot pieces, use "baby" carrots, and simply slice them into coins. Otherwise, dice as you like. I think that a sort of evenness of size makes a soup like this the most attractive but, certainly, feel free to to adapt as the spirit moves you.

A Light Soup for Spring

I seem to go through phases of hitting the Cooking Light recipes pretty hard...usually when one of the collections comes out. This time, in honour of the slightly less-crappy weather we've been having, I thought I would coax Spring along with a light soup: Red Lentil Mulligatawny with Apple-Celery Salsa. It certainly is light...as in, it had better not be all you're having for dinner. It would, however make a splendid appetizer, or part of a lunch with a nice, big, freshly made sandwich on the side. I'm thinking grilled cheese, but I'd also allow myself to be talked into a BLT, or even a ATC (Avocado, Tomato & Cheese on toasted Squirrelly bread).

The thing that really makes this soup pleasantly different is the apple-celery salsa. If I weren't so bone-lazy, I would have chopped the ingredients a little more finely, but it was delicious even so. After taking the picture, I stirred the salsa throughout the soup, which added a fantastic crunchy texture, but perhaps cooled the soup off a little faster than I had intended. If I had used room-temperature ingredients for the salsa, that would not have happened, though, so, live and learn.

As I often find, I had to bump up the spices in this recipe. Mulligatawny should be at least feisty, if not downright fierce, and this soup was, as written, entirely too mild. Fortunately, my kitchen is pretty well stocked with hot sauces, fresh chiles, and a variety of spices to boost the tingle-factor. The shockingly lack of any chiles at all in this recipe had to be remedied, but I also increased the cumin (one of my favourite spices), and that did the trick quite nicely.

It may not be an entire meal unto itself, but I'd definitely make it again, especially if I needed it as a light appetizer for an Indian dinner. Exchange the chicken broth for veggie broth, and you've got a vegetarian - actually, vegan - version, without substantial loss of flavour. I may give that a try next time, since I do enjoy an Indian vegetarian feast now and then.

Soup, glorious soup!

I'm a big fan of citrus in savory recipes, so I was really pleased to see the current issue of Eating Well magazine hit the stands (as an aside, how unfortunate, that a magazine with such consistently good recipes abbreviates to "EW"). As I strolled through the pages of the magazine, plenty of recipes jumped out at me, but the one that demanded immediate attention was this one: Yucatan Lemon Soup. Bright flavours, simple construction, and the promise of a sunny lift in dreary February more than spurred me to the market for the requisite ingredients.

The recipe calls for Meyer lemons, which I had never used before, but which I had noticed were available at Capers Market recently. I followed the recipe pretty closely, and I have to tell you that it was fabulous! This will be made again and again, in our household.

Two things, in addition to the basic goodness of the recipe, contributed to my overall success: One, I had a pot of fresh, homemade chicken stock made from an organic, free range chicken, and two, I didn't shortcut the shrimp. By which I mean to say, I started with raw, shell-on shrimp, and peeled the little darlings before tumbling them into the finished broth.

The results were so outstanding, that I think I will make this again before the month is out - while Meyer lemons are still in season, at least. I suppose in the Yucatan, such soup would really be made with lime juice, and I'm game to try that, too. However, the beautifully mild sweetness of the Meyer, offset with the earthy cinnamon stick and the brightness of the cilantro were a truly winning combination.

Serves four, indeed! Not in this household.

Meatball Minestrone

I love soup. I cannot think of a culture that does not have some sort of soup. It can be an eloquent, evocative way to capture a sense of a particular cuisine, or a memory of a place. It can also be a tasty repository for things lurking in the refrigerator, slowly measuring their last useful gasps of usability until metamorphosis turns them into - if neglected, well, sludge, but if lovingly tended - a warming, welcoming breakfast (think menudo), lunch, or dinner.

As someone who grew up with "heirloom soup" in the winter, an ever-evolving pot of plenty into which most leftovers eventually found their way, I've always thought as soup as a somewhat ambiguous term, and was amused by people who made "mushroom soup" or "barley soup" because at any given time there might be mushrooms or barley or both in the heirloom soup. Even a soup that started off quite specific - chicken noodle, or oxtail, perhaps - would mutate quickly and, I thought, inevitably. As I grew older, I began to have an appreciation for the carefully thought out soups that highlighted a particular item. I've always had a fondness for minestrone, which somewhat bridges the gulf between the two philosophies of soup.

People will tell you that there are very particular things that one needs to put in (or omit from) a "true" minestrone, but these things vary by region and are often contradictory. Many minestrones are vegetarian, using plain water as the cooking medium instead of stock, and deepning the overall flavour with a rind of parmesan, and others will start with pancetta or bacon, and move on to a chicken broth. To achieve this particular minestrone, I went with a fairly classic approach, chose from the "acceptable" vegetables (since I had them on hand) and then spoiled it all by adding beef meatballs at the end. I'm not a bit sorry - the whole thing turned out just as I wanted.

Meatball Minestrone

2 tablespoons olive oil (or duck fat)
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 fennel bulb, diced medium-small
2 carrots, diced
1 small zucchini, diced (about 1 1/2 cups)
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1 cup of small cauliflower florets
8 cups water or vegetable stock
1 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes
1 15 oz. can of cannellini beans, with liquid
1/4 cup tripolini or other small soup pasta
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried basil leaves
white pepper
salt to taste
small, cooked meatballs from 1 pound of ground meat (I bake mine in the oven for 25 minutes, rather than frying them)

In a large soup pot or dutch oven, heat your olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, fennel, carrots and celery, and stir well. Season with a little salt and white pepper, and stir for a few minutes until the vegetables begin to go translucent.

Stir in the water/stock, tomatoes (with their juices), zucchini, cauliflower, and herbs to taste. bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer gently, covered, for about 30 minutes.

Stir in the cannelini beans with their liquid, and the pasta. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes or until the pasta is al dente and beans are heated through. Add meatballs and stir through. Adjust for salt and pepper to taste before serving, and garnish each bowl with some fresh basil or a a dollop of basil pesto.

Cinco de Mayo (Red Adobo of Pork and also Black Bean Soup)

Last year, I had a Cinco de Mayo party; this year, I am not so organized. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the victory of the drastically outnumbered Mexicans over the Napoleonic army at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. Although it is primarily a regional holiday in the state of Puebla, it has some recognition throughout Mexico, and in many American cities, too. It is not Mexico's Independence Day (September 16), but it is a celebration in a similar spirit.

While it may not be Mexico's Independence Day, it holds great significance in the establishment of a national identity for many Mexicans, and as such is perfectly in keeping with my interest in the food of cultural celebrations.

While I may not have managed any particular arrangments for this year, I have been cooking a lot of Mexican food lately, including Mayan-style black bean soup and these adorable little tostadas made of Mexican adobo of pork shoulder, some awesome spinach tortillas made by a local factory (you can actually taste the spinach!), a some feisty green salsa using Brandon's recipe (of Orangette-fame). The pork shoulder took an impressive three hours of simmering in first water and then a brick-coloured adobo sauce made with pureed ancho chiles, onions, garlic, and surprisingly minimal dried spices, such as cumin and oregano. This is all about the chiles, but it is not a particularly hot dish. Anchos are, as Bobby Flay likes to say, "like spicy raisins." There's an underlying sweetness that sets off the mild heat of the pepper, and contrasts beautifully in this recipe against the vinegar-edge of the adobo.

I'm already on the record as saying that miniature = cute, and these are no exception. The first night I served them, we left the tortillas soft (but warm) and adorned them with sliced peppers and a smear of refried beans, and the second night, I crisped the tortillas in a cast iron frying pan until blistered with gold and served them with just the salsa and a little cilantro. The tortillas are about a finger's-length in diameter, making these just a few quick bites each. You could make even tinier ones, just one bite each, and I probably would if I were serving them as party snacks. In fact, I might just have to have a party so that I can do so!

Red Adobo of Pork
(Adobo Rojo de Cerdo)
adapted from the excellent New Complete Book of Mexican Cooking by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz

7 ancho chilies, toasted, de-stemmed and de-seeded, torn into pieces and covered with warm water
3 lbs. boneless pork shoulder, cut into one-inch cubes
1 onion, peeled, halved, and stuck with 2 cloves
1 onion, peeled and diced
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
black pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
398 ml./14 0z. canned, diced tomatoes
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 tablespoon lard, bacon drippings or corn oil
Salt
Black pepper

Start with the pork. In a heavy dutch oven, place the pork and the clove-stuck onion with enough lightly salted water to just cover. Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat to a very gentle heat, and cook (covered) for 2 hours. The meat will be very tender. In the final hour of the meat simmering, start the prep for the sauce.

Let the peppers rest in their warm bath for 20 - 30 minutes, until thoroughly soft. Remove the peppers from their water and place them in a food processor, along with the chopped onion, garlic, cumin, oregano, sugar and tomatoes. Process until you have a fairly smooth, heavy puree. In a heavy skillet, heat the lard, and add the puree. Saute the mixture over a lowheat, stirring constantly, for about five minutes.

When the pork has finished simmering, remove the pork pieces from the liquid, which has become a lovely pork-stock. Strain the stock, and reserve one cup. Freeze the rest for the next time you want to make black bean soup.

Thin the ancho mixture with the reserved pork stock, and transfer the mixture to your now-empty dutch oven. Add the pork back to the pot, add the vinegar, and stir well. Simmer uncovered over low to medium-low heat. The sauce will finish cooking and become quite thick. Taste the sauce, and add salt and black pepper as needed.

Serves 6. Leftovers make awesome burritos with beans, grated cheese, and salsa.

A Sudden Surge of Greek

My neighbourhood is quite well known for its Greek community - restaurants, banks, poolhalls, specialty import stores - often these are Greek-owned-and-run. I have my favourites, of course, whether it's a place to hang out or a place I might go for one specific dish.

I keep kalamata olives on hand, most of the time. I'm very fond of feta cheese. I never want to run out of oregano. I really dig lamb. I'm growing surpisingly fond of spinach, even. It shouldn't be a surprise to me, then, that I occasionally suffer from a sudden surge of Greek cooking.

I am not Greek. Not even a little bit, and lord knows, I'm a little bit of a lot of things. I do, however, often get mistaken for Greek or (insert other Mediterranean culture). It's the dark hair and vigorously growing eyebrows, I think; an illusion. However, if you were to walk past my house and smell the unmistakable aroma of lamb simmering with tomatoes, onions, cinnamon and allspice as I layer my way, brow furrowed, through making a Pastitsio, you'd be excused for the mistake.The wonderfully complex-tasting seasoning of Pastitsio is a delicious hallmark of Greek cookery: the bold use of a number of spices that are often thought of as more sweet flavours, for baking, are mixed into a familiar blend of red meat and tomatoes to make a highly aromatic (yet not "spicy") flavour, completely unlike either an Italian pasta dish or an Indian curry.

This marks my first attempt at Avgolemono, a soup I have long enjoyed at restaurants, but never bothered to make. At its heart, it is really a Greek variation on good ol' chicken noodle soup. Chicken broth, a few minimal vegetables, and some orzo pasta. Where it departs from the standard is the generous addition of lemon juice and, in my case, lemon zest, too, and the use of egg. Avgolemono is a dairy-free soup, its subtle and creamy texture coming from beaten egg that is stirred carefully into the soup to create a texture more like crushed velvet than the rags of an Italian Stracciatella. After examining a number of recipes, I decided to go it alone based on the common principles of all the recipes I had seen, plus all the avgolemonos I've eaten.

It was shockingly easy. It was very tasty. And, the next day, for lunch, it was even better (and a teensy bit thicker).


Avgolemono

Serves 4

2 teaspoons rendered chicken fat or canola oil
4 cups strong chicken stock
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into quarter-slices
1/2 teaspoon oregano leaves
1 bayleaf
1/2 cup orzo
juice of one lemon
3 wide strips of lemon zest
salt & pepper to taste
1 egg, beaten
1 cooked chicken breast, diced

Melt the chicken fat in a medium soup-pot. Add the onion, garlic and carrot, and cook and stir until the onion becomes a little translucent. Add the oregano and bayleaf, and stir. Add the chicken stock and orzo and simmer, stirring, for about 6 minutes, or until the orzo begins to get tender. Add the cooked chicken breast and reduce the heat slightly.

Remove about a cup of hot broth (avoiding any chunks) from the soup pot and add it slowly to the beaten egg in a small bowl, beating well (an immersion blender is great for this). Add the lemon juice and zest to the soup, lower the flame under the soup to very low, and add the beaten egg/broth mixture. Cook and stir over the low flame until mixture thickens, but do not let it boil, or you will have a raggedy look to the soup's texture. Taste and adjust for salt.

Beef Barley Soup

It's a fortifying soup. Rich without being fatty, filling thanks to the chunks of tender beef and the plump grains of barley, not to mention the slightly exotic and ever-so-suggestively boozy shiitake mushrooms. This, my tongue informs me, is what soup is supposed to taste like. It isn't just a catch-all of leftovers shunted into a pot full of water or stock, it's a precision-strike in the kitchen, each ingredient calibrated to bring a specific characteristic to the party.

I am gradually shifting most of my eating patterns towards foods with a lower glycemic index - loosely, this means foods with "staying power" - that don't instantly get converted into glucose the moment they hit my stomach. I should note that I am not categorically shunning any food or category of food, but that I am making an effort to eat thoughtfully in such a way that my blood glucose levels achieve a kind of Tao - an even-keel instead of the sugar spikes and crashes that can be problematic with my particular health concerns. This means that I am increasing my use of the foods that achieve the slower digestion that will benefit me. One of the big players is barley.

I confess that it has been a while since I made anything with barley. I don't have anything against it, in fact I quite like the flavour, but to me it has never been anything other than soup or stew. I had a risotto made from barley and lamb broth at a restaurant in Scotland, and it was quite delicious - really almost more of a stew, but isn't that what risotto is? A kind of particularly creamy, luscious rice stew?

I thought I would start of small, though. A nice pot of the good old beef barley soup, perfect in the iffy weather of not-quite-spring. My mother made a lovely version using leftover roast beef, but since she was "cooking from her head" there was never any recipe written down. I decided to turn to the experts - Cook's Illustrated. I plugged the words Beef Barley Soup into their search engine, and it spat out the issue that contained the recipe - February 1998. From there, it was an easy saunter over to the bookshelf to extract the right slim volume (I am very proud to own every single issue of Cooks Illustrated magazine) and turn to the right page.


Here is my version of their recipe - although I used the considerable shortcut of the entirely servicable Pacific brand beef broth. I only made a half-recipe, since I only had one litre of broth, but next time I make this I will make at least a whole recipe - gosh, maybe even a double! It's that good, people. I tweaked the recipe here and there for other reasons, too, but as you can tell I'm very happy with the result. The following recipe is for the quantity that I made:

Beef Barley Soup
Adapted from Cooks Illustrated

1 lb. bottom blade steak, cubed into stew-sized pieces, lightly salted
1/2 cup white vermouth
1 litre beef broth (I used Pacific brand, and was quite happy with it)
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 stalk celery, de-strung and finely diced
1 med onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, peeled and cut into quarter-coins
6 large shiitake mushrooms, stem removed, sliced into half-slices
1/4 tsp powdered thyme
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 cup pearl barley
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
salt
pepper
2 tablespoons dry sherry to finish

Preheat oven to 350 F. Preheat cast iron skillet on stove top.

In a dry, preheated cast iron skillet, sear the beef in batches until all pieces have a good, dark golden brown on at least two sides. Do not cook all the way through. Remove each piece as it is ready to your empty soup pot. Deglaze the skillet with the vermouth, and pour over the beef pieces. Add all of the beef broth, and place soup pot, covered, in the oven. Let the meat and broth stew together for an hour and a half. Toward the end of the stewing time, start prepping the rest.

In your skillet, heat the oil and saute the onion, celery, carrots, and mushrooms. If the mixture is too dry, deglaze slightly with a little water or vermouth. Continue to saute until onions are translucent and celery is tender. Add the garlic, thyme, and tomato paste, again with a little water if necessary to prevent sticking.

Remove soup pot from oven, and scoop out the pieces of beef to a cutting board. Chop the beef to soup-sized pieces and return to soup pot, along with vegetable mixture and barley. Simmer on the stovetop for about 40 minutes, or until barley is fully cooked and tender. Adjust for salt and pepper, add the chopped parsley and stir through. Remove from heat and stir in dry sherry. Serve with a nice hearty bread for a surprisingly filling dinner.

Serves 2 - 4, depending on what else you're serving and how greedy/hungry people are.

Simple Fancy (Fennel Soup)

There is always something that seems a little on the fancy side, when it comes to creamy soups - ones that didn't come from a can, that is. They tend to be loaded with butter and cream, and have a silky texture that is both comforting and lulling. They make me think of French restaurants, and indeed, that is often where I have them.

Every once in a while, though, I bother to make my own. It isn't difficult, and it only takes about an hour of lazy-work, and there aren't that many ingredients required. Ever since I picked up a fennel bulb recently - to make a roasted fennel and Italian sausage pizza (no pictures, I'm afraid) - I've been thinking about the pile of plump, round, white and brightly green fennel in my local greengrocer. Coincidentally enough, I've also had a recipe for fennel soup beckoning me from a cookbook that I've had for some years. It does call for a modest amount of butter, but needs only plain milk rather than cream, and uses not only the flesh of the fennel bulb, but also the roasted seeds and the fronds from the top as a garnish.

Today, since breakfast was light and dinner will be late, we decided to make lunch - a rarity on the weekend. A quick trip up the street to pick up some fennel, and then back to the stove to begin the magical transformation into soup.
I won't lie to you - there is a little chopping involved. Fennel, happily, is very easy to chop. You simply remove the heavy, stringy, outer layer, cut in half pole-to-pole, and then slice half-moon pieces as easily as cutting an onion. With a little practice, even that doesn't take long, and you're practically done at that point.

Fennel Soup
Adapted from the Australian Women's Weekly Fruit & Vegetable Cookbook.
Serves 4

2 tablespoons butter
2 medium bulbs of fennel, trimmed and sliced
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
1 medium apple, peeled, cored, and diced
1 clove of garlic, crushed
3 cups of light chicken stock
1 cup of milk
2 teaspoons of fennel seeds, toasted

Remove the stalks from the fennel and reserve for another use or discard. Save some of the fronds for garnish - set them aside.

In a medium-large pot, melt the butter. Add the sliced fennel, the onion and apple, and stir and cook until the onion starts to turn translucent and the volume of vegetable matter reduces in the pot (softens enough to compact). Add the stock, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes, or until the chunkiest bit of fennel is tender to the tip of a knife. Allow to cool slightly while you pour two teaspoons of fennel seeds into a small frying pan, and toast over a medium heat until they start to turn colour and smell fragrant. Be careful not to burn them.

When the fennel is tender, puree the soup in batches (add the toasted fennel seed to the first batch) - be careful when pureeing hot soup - never fill your blender more than half-way up. If you have an immersion blender, that would also work. Once all of the soup is pureed, return it to the pot on the stove. Add the milk and stir well. Taste the soup to see if you need to add any salt. The chicken stock may have added enough, but if not you can add a little pinch of salt now, and stir it through. Heat the soup gently until it is warmed through, but be careful not to let it boil. Top individual bowls with a good pinch of chopped fennel fronds, and a grinding of black pepper. Serve with bread to mop up every last bit of soup from your bowl.

So simple. Yet still, it feels a little fancy.

Taking Stock

...and, resultantly, making stock.

I have a pretty good freezer attached to my fridge. Unlike its immediate predecessor, it keeps ice cream frozen solid (very solid, in fact) without creating that partially melted and refrozen, crystaline sludge that looks like part of the set from the ice caves of Hoth. The freezer also has a rack, which is eminently sensible and makes searching for things much less precarious than it otherwise would be.

I generally try to put bags of "stash" items in the narrow, below-the-rack space, which fits perfectly a re-sealable tortilla bag crammed with burritos, a couple of ziploc bags of gyoza, and currently some adorable little scoops of baked falafel. The above-the-rack space is larger, and allows me to stack containers of frozen soup, cooked beans in their liquid, leftover curry, and all manner of yummy things that I might need - applesauce, frozen corn, leftover pasta sauce, IQF shrimp.

In and around the towers of freezer cartons, are an assortment of bags containing things that no one in their right mind would consider food in their current state: chicken carcasses that were picked almost clean, and meaty ham bones. These things are something of a secret weapon in good home cooking, because they make delicious stock that has a multitude of uses.

When I get a bonus day off, such as today, without too long a chore list of things that I need to do outside of the house, I like to round up some of the bones from the fridge and put them to use.

Right now, I am simmering a ham bone with bay leaves, brown mustard seed, a few slices of onion, some parsley sprigs, and a clove of garlic that has been sliced almost-through in about six places. There was a certain amount of meat scraps still clinging to the bone from where I wearied of divesting it before chucking it into the freezer, but that's okay because it now can give its all to the stock.

Ham stock is quite gelatinous by nature, and also can be very fatty. You don't want to be making it the same day you are using it, because it benefits immeasurably from standing around for a while so that the fat can rise to the surface, solidify in the fridge, and be scraped off and either a) discarded or b) made into some dish that requires pork fat. I generally choose option a because I don't do a lot of cooking with pork fat, and the amount rendered in the soup process is significant in terms of stock, but not in terms of what would be needed for a lot of southern cooking. I suppose, if I were truly living up to my pioneer stock ancestors, I would simply scrape it into another container and save it to make biscuits, but mostly I can't be bothered. Besides, I already have mugs of goose fat and chicken schmalz in the freezer.

It doesn't take long to make a good ham stock. It mostly minds itself while you take care of other things, simmering gently on the stove for an hour or two, filling the house with its hammy scent. It makes me want to make split-pea soup right now, but I have other things planned for the afternoon and I am looking forward to having a supply of ham stock waiting for me in my freezer the next time I make Jambalaya or a simple risotto.

Today, it's ham stock. If I get the rest of my day sorted out and am still feeling ambitious, I might drag out the two sets of chicken bones, and make chicken stock, too.

Fennel is the next big thing

In my kitchen, anyway. I enjoy the odd food jag, and I’ve been between frenzies of late. It started with Molly’s recipe on Orangette for Carrot & Fennel Soup. Not only was the soup delicious (and easy to make), it froze well and reheated fabulously for a lazy Sunday lunch when you dare not brave the Mother's Day frenzy of brunch.

When I was shopping for the ingredients for the soup, I noticed how lovely the fennel bulbs in the store looked. Smooth and white, clean and fresh – begging to be shaved raw into a salad, braised and whirred into a puree, or sliced and roasted and tossed with linguini, fennel seed, chile flakes, halved cherry tomatoes, and cubes of fontina.

That last one, the pasta dish, may very well be dinner tonight. I haven’t made it in ages, but it was very popular the few times that I did. If I remember correctly, the original dish called for some sort of bacon or prosciutto, but I’ve got some ham to use up, so tiny cubes of sautéed ham it will be. There’s also a few black olives languishing from the Cinco de Mayo potluck, and they might go in, too. A little crushed garlic, a little good quality olive oil… dinner’s looking pretty easy, and pretty tasty.

I’m also eyeing a purely fennel soup recipe from one of the Australian Women’s Weekly collections (I think it’s the Fruit & Vegetables cookbook). I suspect it will freeze well, and I’m leaning favourably toward Sunday lunches like yesterday’s – a little soup from the freezer, some good bread, various cheeses and pickles. It feels so very much like home.

Many Food Blogs and Two-Lentil Soup

There are an awful lot of food blogs out there. I didn't really look for them, before I started my own, so I had no idea the amount of information smog I was contributing to. I knew that blogging had become awfully popular, but I didn't realize how many amateur food writers there are out there. They range from the fascinating to the tedious to the downright ugly. Incoherent gibbering about restaurants to sly, sophisticated observations on cultural foibles. I've got my eye on a few of them, and may put up a link section in the future.

I made lentil soup for dinner tonight, as threatened. Most soups made with brown/green lentils suffer a little texturally, being a little too thin unless you purée at least half the finished amount. Since my decision to make soup was at least partially predicated on laziness, that sort of pre-empted any notions that would dirty up the food processor or blender. (Perhaps I need an immersion blender). I decided to go with two different lentil types, instead. Brown lentils and red lentils, to be precise.

I usually use red lentils to make Bengali Red Lentils a dish which is simmered for long enough that the lentils dissolve into a creamy mass. I decided that their tendency to self-purée could be put to good use in soup, as well, and I was right. I had mentally prepared myself for needing to get in there with the potato masher to squash them into compliance, if necessary, but it wasn't.

I was originally planning a very simple soup, just lentils and fresh vegetables, but one look in the fridge while fetching the carrots, celery and leek suggested otherwise. Countless little containers of things like mashed potato, diced ham, and a peeled yam (not to mention the red bell pepper that was languishing) and even a little leftover pizza sauce resulted in a thick, hearty but still healthy soup in the fine tradition of Heirloom Soup. Only enough leftover for lunch tomorrow, however.

I contemplated making biscuits to go with the soup, since they would be a fine match, and we were out of any other type of bread, but eventually decided on focaccia. Basically, I just used the herbed version of my pizza dough recipe, and allowed it to rise in the pan a little before spritzing with oil, sprinkling with salt, and baking for about 10 minutes. Dead easy, and healthier than the biscuits would have been.