The RedMolly Picayune-Democrat

23. Ten-Minute Tomato Soup

I am stepping off the roller coaster. Done. Finito. Go bye-bye.

This week has taken more out of me than I think I knew I had. And that is enough whining; let us never speak of this week (or, hell, the rest of this month) again. Fortunately, in times of trouble there is always soup to the rescue.

It is astonishing how little time this particular soup takes to make. And astonishing how good it tastes once it's made.

A Meal Plan to accompany this soup:

1. Preheat oven to 425.
2. Make "baked" potatoes in the microwave, stopping the microwave before the potatoes are entirely done.
3. Take the potatoes out of the microwave. Put them in the oven.
4. Make the soup.
5. When the soup is done, take the potatoes out of the oven. They will be crispy on the outside, nummy on the inside and entirely unlike those sad little characters you think of when you think of microwaved "baked" potatoes.

Ten-Minute (Tops) Tomato Soup
Serves four, especially when accompanied with a split baked potato.

2 14.5-ounce cans diced tomatoes (or one standard diced tomatoes and one tomatoes w/chiles, which you all know I love)
1 cup heavy cream (I suppose you could use half-and-half, but it would be a little bit of a travesty)
2 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp dried oregano or mixed dried herbs (a.k.a. "Italian seasoning")
1/2 tsp salt
A wee dash of hot sauce
Fresh ground pepper
To garnish: chopped fresh parsley, crunchy croutons, crumbled white cheese (cotija or feta?), or whatever else your little heart desires

Puree the tomatoes until smooth in a blender or food processor.

Combine all ingredients (except, duh, the garnishes) in a saucepan. Heat through gently (!) over medium-low heat. Do not let it boil or the cream will become totally unacceptably curdly.

Taste to check seasoning; correct as needed. Serve forth, garnished or not. Enjoy. Collapse. Sleep well.

22. Mushrooms! Barley! And optional beef!

This is a vegetarian-option soup that I think might well be just as hearty, delicious and sustaining without the (optional) beef... but I had a scant pound of chuck roast waiting patiently in the fridge, so what was I to do?

At this point, I am starting to feel that I am developing some insights, however twee and insubstantial, into the Nature of Making a Good Soup. To that end, I would welcome your questions (e.g., "What if I want to cook a stock all day, then puree the vegetables and mix them back in? Will that make my soup better or worser?" ...or "Why are you so damn set on bouquets garnis, anyway?"). Please send 'em my way if you got 'em, and I will answer them to the best of my ability (or to the limits of the virtually limitless knowledge of Harold McGee or Shirley Corriher, anyway).

Mushroom, Barley (and Optional Beef) Soup
Serves six or thereabouts

FOR THE MEAT OPTION:
2 Tbsp olive oil
One-half to one-pound beef chuck or round roast, cut into small cubes
2 cups water
4 cups beef broth
1/3 cup barley

FOR THE VEG OPTION:
6 cups vegetable broth (plus maybe a little more water, if needed)
2/3 cups barley

FOR BOTH OPTIONS:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, diced small
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced small
1 pound (or thereabouts) fresh mushrooms, sliced
Generous pinch salt; a few grindings pepper; a sprinkle of chile flakes, if you like
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 14.5-oz can diced tomatoes OR (my preference) diced tomatoes with chiles
Bouquet garni: several parsley stems and a bay leaf, tied together with twine or cheesecloth
Salt & pepper

If making the meat option: Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil in a saucepan. Add beef and cook, turning occasionally, until browned on all sides. Drain well. Add water. Bring just to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, while preparing vegetables.

If making the veg option: Ignore the previous step.

Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil in a soup pot over medium-low heat. Add onion, celery, carrots and mushrooms. Cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent and mushrooms have given up their liquid, 7 to 10 minutes. Add garlic, salt, pepper and chile flakes; cook, stirring, 1 minute more.

Add contents of either meat option OR veg option, plus tomatoes and bouquet garni. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer until barley is tender, about 40 minutes.

Fish out bouquet garni; taste and correct seasoning as needed. Serve with bread or crackers for sopping up the broth.

21. Chicken Noodle Soup, sans noodles

I woke up from one of those soul-deadening early-evening naps that always leave one feeling more wrung out and exhausted than if one had never bothered napping.

"Self," I thought, "you need to haul your ass out of bed and go make soup."

This idea did not fill me with joy. I lay there in the darkness, contemplating the sparse contents of my refrigerator.

"Self," I thought, "you probably have the ingredients for chicken noodle soup."

A slight stir--not yet strong enough to propel me out of bed, but enough to open my eyes.

"Self," I thought, "chicken noodle soup would probably be pretty amazing with homemade egg noodles."

My feet hit the floor. I was up.

I researched (a fancy old-school word for "Googled") "homemade egg noodles."

I discovered that it would take about half an hour to make and roll out the noodles, and that then they would need to air-dry for two hours before cooking.

"Self," I thought, "screw that."

So here we have a chicken noodle soup, made without the noodles, but with a corresponding increase in the number of vegetables used. Still totally worth getting up from a nap for.

Chicken Noodle Soup, Sans Noodles
Serves six to eight

3 Tbsp olive oil or butter
1 medium to large onion, finely diced
2 medium to large carrots, finely diced
2 standard-ish celery ribs, finely diced
1 large red bell pepper, likewise finely diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
8 cups chicken stock or broth
1/2 tsp hot sauce (optional, but recommended)
1 bouquet garni, or if you can't find the mangy-looking bay leaves your husband brought home from WinCo a few days ago (as I couldn't), just a bunch of flat-leaf parsley stems tied together with a piece of ribbon (because you can't find the cheesecloth either)
2 cups chopped or shredded cooked chicken
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Heat olive oil or butter in a soup pot over medium-low heat. Add onions, carrots, celery and bell pepper; cook, stirring frequently, until everything is tender and glistening, about 7 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring, one minute more.

Add chicken stock, bouquet garni, chicken and 1 tsp salt. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes or thereabouts. (If you want to simmer it longer, that would be lovely, but don't add the chicken until half an hour or so before you're done or it will just fall apart and taste disappointing.)

Correct seasoning; stir in chopped parsley. Get fancy as we are tonight and serve it with Triscuits alongside. Classy as all get-out.

And the nutritional breakdown, 'cause why not?: Based on 6 servings, each serving has 260 calories, 12 grams fat, 16 grams carbohydrate (2 g fiber, 6 g sugars), 20 g protein, 114% Vitamin A, 100% Vitamin C, 27% Vitamin B6. Not too shabby for something that goes from refrigerator to table in under an hour.

Aashe Reshteh

via www.persian-recipes.com

This stew was featured on a show about traveling in Iran that the boys and I watched tonight. It immediately caught Rhys' eye and we had to Google the ingredients and figure out what it was as soon as the show was over. Now to track down some Reshteh noodles so we can make it ourselves!

Update: We did end up making it, just a few days later. Results here.

20. Comfort with a kick: Southwestern Corn Chowder

Have you been feeling a little calcium-deprived? Wishing you could find a way to pack more dairy products into your diet? Well, never fear--this soup will do the trick! Seriously, there's like fifteen pounds of delicious creamy goodness in here. Which is good, 'cause it mellows and rounds out the kick from the spicy seasonings--making it as kid-friendly (Fisher's on his second bowl) as it is hearty (I ate one good-sized bowl and am well and truly done for the evening now).

This soup lends itself to variation; it would be good with just about any sort of salsa or picante sauce, and I think it would be downright intriguing made with a tomatillo-based salsa. I just ground a little fresh pepper over each bowl by way of decoration, but it would be nice with some chopped cilantro or a few sliced olives or even a little crumbled queso cotija, y'know, in case you didn't think it was dairy-licious enough already.

Southwestern Corn Chowder
Serves six

2 Tbsp butter
2 small-to-medium onions, chopped
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp taco seasoning (just mix together some chili powder, chopped garlic, dried oregano and salt if you don't have this on hand--I'm not sure why we have this on hand, let alone in the vast quantities currently chilling out in our pantry)
1 tsp ground cumin
2 cups vegetable or chicken broth
2 cups salsa or picante sauce, your choice of flavor/texture/heat level; I used a medium heat, fairly thin, tomato-based salsa
1-1/2 to 2 cups frozen corn, allowed to thaw a little, though it's not the end of the world if it's frozen hard when it goes in
Cream cheese: I had about two-thirds of an eight-ounce block left and it was nice. The whole block might've been a little much. Use whatcha got. This works better if the cream cheese is softened just a bit, either by putting it in a warmed bowl for a while or tossing it in the microwave at 50% power for 20 seconds or so.
1 cup milk
S&P2T (that's how the cool kids say "salt and pepper to taste," maybe)

In a soup pot, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add onions and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are quite soft, about 7 minutes. Stir in flour, taco seasoning and cumin; cook, stirring constantly, until everything smells a bit toasty (but don't let it burn).

Add broth, salsa and corn. Increase heat and bring to a boil; once it's just boiling, remove from heat.

Scoop out 1/4 cup of the hot liquid and combine it with the cream cheese in a small bowl. Stir until softened and smooth.

Return soup to low heat. Stir in cream cheese mixture and milk. Heat through; do not let it boil or you'll have weird-looking little curdly things to contend with. Taste for salt and pepper and serve immediately.

This would be nice with corn muffins, or if you're super-into lily-gilding, as we apparently are around these parts, you could pair it with simple quesadillas. No lie. We seriously had quesadillas with this soup. And it was damn fine eating.

19. Complete and total exhaustion chicken-chile-black bean soup

Is this looking like a trend, or what? Very little simmering time required. You (I) can make this no matter how late it is or how tired you (I) are (am).

Utter Exhaustion Chicken-Black Bean Soup
Serves four-ish. You'll be asleep by the time they eat, anyway.

1 medium onion, chopped
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can diced tomatoes with chiles
1 cup frozen corn, or 1 can corn, drained
3 cups chicken broth (scratch, canned, reconstituted bouillon, what-freakin-ever)
1 cup cooked, chopped chicken (if you've made the Lazy Woman's Chicken Stock recently, you have plenty of this hanging around)
Salt and pepper
Grated Jack cheese

Heat oil; saute onion as you feel appropriate.

Add beans, tomatoes, corn and broth. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, 10 minutes.

Stir in chicken. Heat through.

Taste for salt and pepper. Serve with Jack cheese sprinkled on top, or let people serve their own damn selves if you're sufficiently tired. (I am.)

Night, all.

18. How is Madame DuBarry like a cauliflower?

 After a wait of almost six months, I finally scored a copy of Craig Claiborne's New New York Times Cookbook (copyright date: 1975; a very good year indeed) from PaperBackSwap. The Soups chapter was fairly thin, but fairly interesting-looking.

One that caught my eye was titled, in true old-school haute-cuisine style, Crème DuBarry. At first blush, it's a fairly standard cauliflower soup: pureed vegetable/stock base, finished with milk and a little cream. What caught my attention was the name. I'd just learned that Potage Crécy,or carrot soup, got its name from the site of a particularly nasty battle during the Hundred Years' War. Claiborne's terse headnote for this soup explained: "No one knows at what point... cauliflower and the Comtesse DuBarry, mistress to Louis XV, became eternally associated. But on any menu, a dish bearing the name DuBarry indicates the invariable presence of cauliflower."

Compare that dry bit of culinary minutiae to this far livelier snippet from the explanation given at one of my favorite food blogs, The Old Foodie:

The beautiful Jean Becu, Comtesse Du Barry was guillotined on this day in 1793, in her fiftieth year. She did not go quietly - weary and accepting - like Marie-Antoinette. In her last hysterical moments she wept and pleaded with the executioner for "Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment". A sad and undignified end for a beautiful woman who had had an undignified beginning as an illegitimate seamstress but – thanks to her great beauty - rose to enjoy a powerful and extravagant life as a courtesan and the last mistress of Louis XV.

(Read the rest of the fascinating story here.)

So this delicate (honestly, as written, a little overly so) soup is forever linked to the altogether indelicate image of a middle-aged French aristocrat pleading for her life. It hardly seems fitting for such a mild (honestly, as written, perhaps a little too mild) dish.

This recipe is not exactly what I did with the soup, but rather what I would do if I were to make it again--there's a bit more punch and maybe a bit more appeal to post-1975 culinary tastes. (It also cuts out a couple of steps in Claiborne's recipe that seem, in retrospect, unnecessary.) It's a nice base recipe, though, and I'm looking forward to trying several more of Claiborne's soups... especially the Billi Bi, a cream of mussel soup that was a one-time signature dish at Maxim's in Paris. (Looks like that soup could well be the occasion for another historical digression.)

(And be on the lookout, soon, for an altogether different cauliflower soup: one with plenty of sauteed onion and garlic and ginger and some nice homemade curry-style seasonings. Maybe next week.)

Crème DuBarry
Serves eight

1 Tbsp butter or olive oil
1 small to medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
One large cauliflower, cored and broken into large florets, a few florets reserved (maybe 2 to 2.5 pounds? Claiborne's original recipe called for 3 pounds and I think that was a little too much.)
1/2 cup raw rice
1 tsp salt
3 cups milk
1/2 tsp nutmeg, preferably freshly ground
1/4 to 1/2 tsp ground cayenne pepper (start with less, then add more if you like it)
1/2 cup heavy cream
Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Heat butter or olive oil in a soup pot over medium-low heat. Add onion and cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring, one minute more.

Add broth, cauliflower, rice and salt. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes, or until cauliflower is very tender. Shortly before simmering time is finished, chop the reserved florets roughly and steam or microwave them until barely tender (like 2 minutes in a steamer).

Remove from heat and allow to cool for a minute or two. Puree with an immersion blender or, in batches, using a food processor, If using a food processor, rather than pureeing the last batch perfectly smooth, pulse it until it's still got some texture to it.

Return puree to pot. Over medium heat, whisk in milk, nutmeg and cayenne pepper. Bring just to a boil; remove from heat and stir in cream. Taste for salt and pepper and sprinkle chopped reserved cauliflower overtop before serving.

(And one quick note: If you had some pesto hanging around for some reason, and you were to drizzle a swirl of the bright-green stuff over each bowl of this soup, I have a premonition that the combination would be both lovely and thoroughly appetizing.)

17. Taking stock... er, that is, making stock

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade... and when life gives you fifty-cent-a-pound whole chickens, you make chicken stock.

This stock may not follow every rule of classical stockmaking. In fact, since it starts with a whole chicken instead of six pounds of chicken bones & carcasses, I'm pretty darn certain it doesn't. But it's simple as can be to put together and produces a prodigious amount of fragrant, all-natural liquid that tastes better than anything you'll get out of a can (or a jar of Better than Bouillon, which is usually my refuge in times of lack of homemade broth). And, as a bonus, you get lots of delicately poached shredded chicken meat to do with as you will.

Just make sure you have plenty of room in the freezer before you start. I'm thinking that the frozen turkey that's been taking up space since oh, Thanksgiving or so, will have to make way for the various & sundry containers of stock that now need a place to call their own.

Lazy Woman's Chicken Stock*
Makes about 1.5 gallons

Two medium onions, peeled and quartered
Three cloves garlic--no need to peel if you don't feel so inclined
Two medium carrots, cut into large chunks
Two ribs of celery, cut likewise into large chunks
One bouquet garni, consisting of a handful of flat-leaf parsley sprigs, several fresh thyme sprigs and a bay leaf, all wrapped or tied in a bit of cheesecloth
One chicken, three to four pounds, giblets and any other suspicious-looking bits hanging out in the cavity removed
One teaspoon salt

In a very large soup pot (I pull out the big mo-fo for this job), place vegetables and bouquet garni. Place whole chicken, breast side down, on top of vegetables. Fill pot with water to just cover chicken (I think this used about 6 quarts water in my case). Sprinkle in salt.

Cover and bring to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, turn to heat just high enough to maintain a barest simmer. Skim frequently during first hour of cooking (my skimmer doesn't have a fine enough mesh, so I tied a bit of cheesecloth over it). After first hour, skim every twenty to thirty minutes, until chicken is completely cooked through and meat is starting to fall away from the bone. This will probably take about two to two-and-a-half hours.

Carefully (!) extract chicken from pot to a cutting board. The chicken is likely to break into two or three pieces during this process; that's fine. Set aside to cool slightly.

Line a large colander with cheesecloth. Set it into a very large bowl and carefully (!) pour remaining stock through it, stopping as necessary to scoop out pieces of veg that are impairing the stock's transit through the cheesecloth. Cool stock by setting it in a sink partially filled with ice water, then move to refrigerator to finish cooling. When completely cool, skim fat from surface of stock. Transfer skimmed stock to containers in two- or three-cup increments and freeze.

Meanwhile, when chicken is cool enough to handle, use your fingers to pull off skin and shred meat into small edible bits. Divide into increments as you like, wrap, refrigerate or freeze.

 

Look, stock and chicken! (And miscellaneous carcassy bits!)

* Since this is made with meat and not just a carcass, it's technically a "broth" rather than a "stock." But I think "stock" sounds better, so there it is.

16. Do as the Belgians do: Carbonnade à la flamande

Fans of Douglas Adams will recall that, according to Life, the Universe and Everything, the dirtiest word in the galaxy--the one for which an award is given for using it most gratuitously in a serious screenplay--is "Belgium."*

But this out-of-the-way, EU-hosting, easily-overlooked little sweetbread of a country produces some seriously good food. This thick, hearty, unabashedly meaty beef-and-beer stew is one of its classic dishes. It's still got half an hour or so to simmer downstairs, and it's already making my kitchen smell better than anything I can remember cooking recently.

Adapted from Martha Rose Shulman's Ready When You Are: A Compendium of Comforting One-Dish Meals, which I just picked up from the library yesterday and over which I have already spent several hours slavering in anticipation. (It's also got, I believe, a recipe for waterzooi, which is another Belgian stew--this one based on chicken--and a guaranteed stumper at the Portland Spelling Bee.)

Carbonnade à la Flamande
Serves four, theoretically

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 lbs boneless beef chuck or round, cut in 1" cubes

4 oz (or 4 nice fat slices) bacon and/or pancetta (I had two slices left of each; the original recipe just called for bacon)
2 Tbsp butter, divided
2 large or 3 medium-small onions, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
12 ounces good dark beer (I used a porter)
A bouquet garni consisting of several sprigs each flat-leaf parsley and fresh thyme, plus one or two bay leaves, bound together in a bit of cheesecloth
More salt and pepper

2 thick slices good rustic-style bread
Dijon mustard

Sift together the flour, salt and pepper in a shallow soup bowl or plate. Dredge the cubes of meat lightly in the flour and set aside.

In a soup pot, cook half the bacon over medium heat until fat is rendered but bacon is not yet crisp. Add 1 Tbsp butter and all the onions. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are deep brown and caramelized. Stir in sugar; remove from heat and set aside.

In a large skillet (the original recipe called for nonstick, but another time I would've probably just used more butter), cook remaining bacon until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and stir into onions. Pour off all but 1 Tbsp fat. Return skillet to heat; add remaining 1 Tbsp butter. As soon as butter stops foaming/hissing, add 1/3 of beef cubes and cook, flipping occasionally, until well browned on all (or most) sides. Spoon beef into pot with onions; add more butter to skillet if needed; and cook remaining beef in 2 batches.

When all beef is browned and added to onions, return skillet to medium heat. Stir in vinegar and cook, stirring vigorously to loosen browned bits from bottom of skillet, about 30 seconds. Scrape vinegar and browned bits into soup pot.

Add beer and bouquet garni to soup pot. Bring just to a boil, cover, reduce heat to very low and cook at the barest simmer for 3 hours. (You may find, as I did, that your stove can't maintain a low enough flame to keep the stew just at a simmer. In that case, you can use an official flame tamer to diffuse the heat, or you can do like I did and just set the whole soup pot into a larger cast-iron skillet. Works like a charm and doesn't cost a dime.)

After three hours, spread bread thickly with Dijon mustard. Taste stew and adjust salt and pepper if needed. Fish out bouquet garni, then lay bread, mustard side down, over stew in pot. Cover and cook for an additional 30 minutes.

You can make this a bit soupier for serving by using a cup of beef broth or water along with the beer (maybe adding some diced carrots an hour or so before you're done simmering, then stirring some green peas in at the very last) or you can do as we're doing tonight and serve the whole shebang over some decadently creamy mashed potatoes. Either way, raise your glass (preferably full of a fine Belgian sour) to the food-related ingenuity of our Flemish friends.

* Actually, as I just learned a few minutes ago, it was only "Belgium" in the U.S. publication and the radio script. In the original UK novel manuscript, it was "fuck," which is substantially less funny.

15. Plan B Cream of Broccoli Soup

When life throws you a curveball, it's good to have a backup plan.

Tonight's curveball was having to drive out to back-of-beyond to deliver additional Camp Fire candy to our intrepid sellers. Since I don't drive on the freeway (per yesterday's post), this took a good deal longer than it ought to have. Since East Portland has such incredibly poor/illegible signage, it took still longer.

But... bygones! And Plan B, in this case, was B-for-Broccoli (Cream of) Soup. An extremely simple, tasty and worthwhile endeavor all the way around. Paired with some orange chicken (thank you, Trader Joe's!) and a couple of episodes of "Monk," it's an excellent setup for a snuggly family evening.

Adapted from Mark Bittman's invaluable How to Cook Everything.

Cream of Broccoli* Soup
Serves six-ish

1 pound broccoli, florets separated and chopped, stems peeled and chopped (the stems really have lovely character and flavor! try them today!)
1 medium russet potato, peeled and chopped
4 cups vegetable (or chicken) broth
1/2 tsp red chile flakes (optional, but recommended)
1/2 to 1 cup half-and-half or cream (or whole milk, if you're being really abstemious)
Salt and pepper to taste

In a soup pot, combine broccoli, potato, broth and chile flakes. Bring just to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer until vegetables are very tender, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat.

If you have an immersion blender, puree the soup right in the pot. If not, let soup cool a few minutes, then puree in blender or food processor. Return to low heat. Whisk in cream. Heat through. Taste and add salt and pepper as warranted.

* Works well with other vegetables, too. Try cauliflower (delicious with a bit of curry powder stirred in) or winter squash (with maybe a hint of ginger). Truly an all-purpose recipe.