cooking @ home

Archive for the ‘Soup’ Category

©2008 Harry Kenney

What can I say about mushrooms? Ok, first off, they’re obviously delicious! Eating-wise they can add another dimension to a steak. Or to chicken as well. They give that extra “something” when added to soups, a rice mixture or pasta. They can serve as a tasty vessel for stuffing.

In many ways they are “meaty” for both the vegetarian and the carnivore in us alike. I recall the oft-quoted here Frugal Gourmet, Jeff Smith, saying something to the effect of mushrooms being a sign of a generous God that from horse manure could such amazing things as mushrooms spring. Or something to that effect. He said it partly in jest and partly serious. Anyway, we get the idea of what he meant.

In other regards, by now you probably already know it’s a fungus or fungi. That there are edible and poisonious varieties; fortunately the poisonous ones don’t make it to the market. The term toadstools has often referred to them somewhate interchanably, especially in and since the European middle ages. However today that term seems old fashion and when it’s used — more often in fairy tales than in reality — they refer to the poisonous kind of mushroom. They can be used in medicines and lately cosmetics as well as some varieties used by shamans and others for psydelic trips. These also don’t make it to the grocers.

By the way, if you’re absolutely wild about mushrooms (edible and not) then head over to MykoWeb for what’s perhaps the greatest resource of knowledge pertaining to “mushrooms, funghi and mycology” on the Web. Just the Funghi of California section alone contains over 500 species and ia approaching 3,500 photographs.

While once considered to be without nutritional value, in modern times we know better. They are excellent sources of selenium and ergothioneine, two antioxidants, as well as copper and potassium/ Additionally, they are one of the few natural sources of vitamin D. Mushrooms are also good sources of three essential B-vitamins: riboflavin, niacin and pantothenic acid. Mushrooms are low in calories, fat-free, cholesterol-free and very low in sodium.

Flavor, hmm. Overall I think mushrooms are delicous, but describing the differences in types difficult to convey, but I’ll try. Crimini taste just like white button mushrooms taste like, well, I’d have to say they are what we normally think of with a mushroom, sort of the baseline. Portobellos taste meatier somehow, and shitake a bit more spicy and a bit more aromatic. Together though, wow, what a supeb and sublime combination.

As with other recipes, substitute the chicken stock for vegetable stock and you have a 100% vegetarian version of this incredible soup. And again, if I had found vegetable stock at the store (or had the presense of mind to have made some myself homemade) I would have easily gone that way. Oh, and timewise this is fairly fast for a soup. I’ve seen a few recipes where something like this is given to take up to two hours; really, I have no idea what they’re thinking in doing that. After prep work, this takes about 40 minutes from start to finish.

Hearty Three-Mushroom Soup
©2008 Harry Kenney

4 oz shitake mushrooms, cleaned, stems removed, rough chopped
6 oz baby portabellos (or mature portabellos) mushrooms, cleaned, rough chopped
6 oz crimini (or white button) mushrooms, cleaned, rough chopped
2 stalks celery, diced
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 leek, well-cleaned, chunks
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
2/3 cup dry white wine (I used Pinot Grigio, if you’re wondering)
4 cups chicken broth (substitute vegetable broth for vegetarian version)
1 pint heavy cream
chives (topping, optional)

Add butter and oil to stock pot on medium heat. Add onions, celery and garlic and sweat for about 8-10 minutes. Add all the mushrooms and more oil, cook down, stir often. Again, not trying to brown or cook completely, but partially, about 10 minutes, adding more oil if needed. Then add wine, stir and add chicken stock. Cook for 20 minutes.

Now either transfer stock in sections to food processor and return to pot or use emersion blender to puree. Mushrooms will still be there in a very fine mince. Add cream to pureed mixture and cook for 10 minutes. Top with chives. Suggest serving with crostini, fresh bread or maybe polenta rounds. Makes about six servings.

©2008 Harry Kenney

This recipe was actually going to go in two different directions from where it ended up. Recipes happen that way sometime. It was originally going to be pure vegetarian. Visits to two supermarkets and failing to find vegetable stock at either (as well my being too “lazy” or not that interested in making it myself) meant I ended up using the more traditional chicken broth as base. Also, once I got past that, I decided bacon would definitely give this a more interesting taste.

So, for those of you looking for vegetarian dishes that are robust and stand-alone and not merely “sides”, you can oh so easily alter this recipe and make it so. To make it vegetarian (as mentioned above) simply substitute vegetable stock for chicken stock. Don’t use bacon. Then either leave the rest of the recipe exactly as is, or you add still more vegetables in the form of finely diced zucchini and/or yellow squash. Also black and/or white cabbage would be nice and is often used in some parts of Italy in one of the many variants of this recipe.

Seems like a lot of ingredients maybe, but they are all pretty basic. We start of with basically a mirepoix. Then add garlic and take it out. Then to get some “meaty” flavor going, we sweat bacon and then mushrooms in with the bacon. Then the chicken broth goes in on top, the mirepoix goes back in, then the white beans and spinach. Along the way comes wine and heavy cream, and a side trip to the food processor to puree part of the mixture, giving it a creamy thick feel while still leaving the rest of the soup chunky. Add some grated parm and you have an absolutely delicious, rich, full-bodied soup for a cold winter’s day. And you have to serve this with the Toasted Polenta Cheese Rounds. That’s specifically why I did that recipe yesterday in preparation for this one today.

You probably know from my (at the moment only other soup recipe) Butternut Squash Soup with Chorizo and Rice. I like my soups a mix of creamy and chunky. Rarely all creamy. I enjoy that mixed texture much more. Speaking of things I’ve done before. You could if you wish puree the part of this soup in a blender. However, big warning … as I said in a past article called “But I Saw the TV Cook Do It” you can only do this in one of the newer, powerful blenders that come with the newer, stronger containers.

If you use an old kitchen blender, glass or plastic, the heat could crack or smash the container, causing not only a big mess but possible personal injury, so either use a food processor or one of the new blenders. And even then, still be careful. Be sure you take the feeder tube or top cap off, because of the heat, and then place a folded kitchen towel or potholder over the top when doing this. Taste is nice, but hey, safety is number one.

Oh, right I said at the start this recipe was going two ways. At first, as mentioned I was going to make this vegetarian. The second thing was, the Tuscan white beans were going to be the star of this recipe. But hey, when I added the spinach for extra taste, well, I forgot myself how much spinach colors everything. I know better, after all that’s how you get green pasta such as spinach fettucine. Now the fact this soup turned out green instead of beige with green flecks, hey, I can live with it. It’s still a very pretty looking soup, and more importantly you will love the taste of this. Every component comes out when your eating it. It’s really a nice complex taste as all these different yet very compatible tastes just burst on the taste buds.

Creamy Cannelloni-Spinach Tuscan Soup
©2008 Harry Kenney

1 small onion, diced fine
1 medium carrot, diced fine
1 celery stalk, diced fine
3 gloves garlic, smashed and sliced thin
4 slices of thick sliced bacon, sliced 1/3-1/2 inch pieces (leave out for vegetarian version)
3-4 oz of portobello mushrooms, 1/2 dices
1 quart chicken (or vegetable stock)
19 oz can cannelloni white beans, washed and drained
8-10 oz chopped frozen spinach, partially thawed (don’t drain)
1 cup dry white wine
1 half pint heavy cream
1 small or 1/2 a medium-sized bay leaf
1 tbsp dried oregano
salt
pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Olive oil in the bottom of a large soup pot on medium heat. Put in the onion, carrot and celery and sweat in pan, keep stirring and don’t brown. After about five minutes, add the garlic and continue to sweat. After another two or three minutes, take this out and reserve in a dish on the side.

Turn heat up to medium-high. Bacon in, sweat, again do not brown, get it to where it’s softened and going translucent. About three minutes. Lower heat add then mushrooms add in a bit more olive oil. Keep stirring. As you don’t want the bacon to brown, nor the mushrooms to start sticking, after about two minutes add the chicken broth on top. This will also help to get the browning bits that are starting at the bottom and stop all browning.

Along with the broth, add back in the reserved diced veggies, the drained white beans and the spinach. After a couple minutes this is where to season. Add herbs, salt, pepper. Cover with lid and give it a simmer on medium for 20 minutes. Take lid off every five minutes or so, give it all a good stir and replace lid.

After the 20 minutes, take out no less than 1/3 and no more than 1/2 of the hot soup, place in a food processor and puree carefully. Take off the top tube or cap and place a towel or pot holder on top for the puree. Return this mixture completely back into the soup..

Add white wine. After three to five minutes add cream. Mix, simmer another three to five minutes then add Parmesan. Lower the heat and stir more often as the added cheese can stick and start burning on the bottom if you’re not careful. After two or three more minutes, it’s done.

Depending on size of serving, makes 4-6. Serve with toasted polenta cheese rounds on the side.

Gourmet and gourmet food. Exactly what do these mean? And I am not talking about people who are “gourmets”, which by the way, is actually supposed to be “gourmands”, and either way (truthfully or not) seem to equate with snobbery. No, what makes something gourmet cooking or gourmet food?

The definition it seems nearly everyone uses is the same: “gourmet food is of the highest quality and flavor, prepared well and presented in an artful manner”. A three year old discussion on a forum a person, saying the thinks there should be more, posts: “I have had some of the best meals at non-’gourmet’ venues and some of the worst at ‘gourmet’-venues.”

Kate the global gourmet thinks likewise: “Personally, I think it’s important to keep in mind that ‘quality’ is the operating term here. I have had many a meal in fancy 3-star restaurants that I would not consider gourmet—the ingredients were tired, the flavors overwhelming and presentation in the form of skyscraping towers entirely overdone. For me, a simple dinner of a roast chicken, fresh vegetables and fruit and cheese for dessert can be the epitome of a gourmet meal—but only if the ingredients are of high quality and cooked properly.”

Which brings me around to what I think. I think the word is changing and evolving and becoming less “snooty”. I basically agree with the two people I quoted above on what they say. I think though it goes further … especially with food. I think if something is difficult to find or to procure or is expensive, that that often makes something “gourmet”. For instance, if you rarely eat duck or quail or frogs legs, then having them is for you a more gourmet meal.

Building on this, if I’m cooking with something that is available to me, and most people I know around me have never had it, it too is possibly gourmet (though, yes, it might just be unusual in the Anthony “I’ll Eat Anything” Bourdain style of things.) If I have something that is plentiful around me, and others too can easily get their hands on it, and it’s not expensive, yet because of either true or perceived difficult, people do not buy nor cook nor eat it much, that too might be gourmet.

The reason I am “going here”, you see, is I think this particular meal is somewhat “gourmet-ish” if that were an actual word. Chorizo (a spicy Spanish sausage) I finally found after a lot of looking. Now I’m betting a lot of people seeing it in the meat case at the market would pass it up though, maybe for simply not knowing what it was, and not wanting to try it. Meanwhile, while there were dozens upon dozens of butternut squashes at the market, I’m betting you would not see one in everyone’s shopping cart. In fact, I’d bet the number of people who might buy one to be a ratio of one against something with three zeroes, 1:100 or maybe 1:250 or 1:500, I can’t say which, but I’m betting the number comes out to less than 1 percent. And why? Because of difficulty and/or unfamiliarity.

Another thing about the term “gourmet”. And this has to do also with it’s opening up and evolving. Forty years ago a perfectly delicious meal cooked at home would not be called gourmet; in fact it would be ignored by nearly all chefs. Then about 20 years ago I started hearing the term “peasant food” used by chefs. It suggested that everything from hunter’s stew to a mixed fried rice, food of the poor or the peasants, historically — but weren’t they also suggesting the middle class of today I always suspected — came on the map. Today the terms are “comfort foods” and regional or local fare and this once overlooked field of poor man’s cooking or everyday cooking, is covered by everyone to some degree even if upscaled. For example, chefs Mario Batali and Lydia Bastianich co-own an upscale pizzeria in Manhattan. You would not have seen that twenty years ago, and never forty years ago, not by nationally and internationally known chefs, no way. Imagine Julia Child opening up an upscaled KFC! And just last week I saw Robert Irvine cook for the crew at Pixar; among items served was oxtails. These are what I’m talking about in terms of the evolution of what gourmet food means today.

So what brought these thoughts to mind, as said, is that in some ways I consider this recipe here to be “gourmet”. In part because chorizo is so hard to find and is regional to Spain and because the butternut squash, while cheaper and more plentiful, is often passed by as being too difficult or mysterious. In another way though, I sorta want to toss the whole “gourmet” word out the window, and say it comes down to good food — a perfect pizza slice or a beef wellington, a BBQ pork rib or coq au vin, an Italian merlot or a cold pint of Yuengling. Is it good? Really, really good? Do you like it? Do you absolutely love it? Would you have it again and again? To me that is the new gourmet.

With that discussion aside, do check out my recent article on Peeling and Cutting a Butternut Squash, if you haven’t already done so, before trying this recipe. Also, you can leave the rice and chorizo out of this dish if you want a simpler and more silky dish (or just a vegetarian one); obviously I wanted something more rustic and meaty and chunky. And finally, while they aren’t the same, if you want to substitute chorizo, I would suggest, in order: hot Italian sausage or smoked kabasa and add a healthy amount of paprika while cooking it.

Butternut Squash Soup with Chorizo and Rice

1 medium squash, peeled, deseeded, cut into 1 inch cubes
9 oz chorizo sausage, cooked, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

(mirepoix)
1 medium red onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
1 celery stalk, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1/2 one large carrot, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1 cup cooked white long-grain rice (or your favorite rice)
32 oz. chicken stock
1 cup dry or slightly-sweet white wine
1/2 pint half-and-half
2 tbsps butter (not margarine)(optional)

salt
pepper
nutmeg
garlic
thyme
olive oil

Preheat oven to 400°F. Place cubed squash on baking sheet, drizzle with oil, mix around to make sure completely covered. Sprinkle on spices listed, go light on the garlic powder and the nutmeg, and heavier on the thyme. Sprinkle a bit more oil on top and once again, mix and turn to ensure coverage. Place in oven for 35-50 minutes until softened and slightly browned on bottom side. Let cool somewhat.

While the squash cubes are roasting, if you haven’t premade your rice, make it now. Ditto cooking the chorizo sausage. Place your mirepoix in a saucepan with oil and sweat for about 10 minutes. When mirepoix and squash are finished, place both in food processor. (Note, I will often save 10 percent of the squash chunks to put in separately later). Then add two cups of chicken broth into processor, puree, then the third, then the fourth cup.

Dump all back in the pot. Place on medium heat. Add half-and-half, wine, rice and chorizo chunks (and reserved squash chunks if you’ve done so) and stir to mix well. Add seasonings listed above to this as desired. Mix well for a few minutes over medium heat. You may optionally place butter in at this point to give a more velvety sheen to the soup. Serve. Makes 4-6 servings.

This soup is extremely rich. If you need to “cut” the taste further to your liking, use an extra cup of milk first; if you feel the need to thin it out more, then use an additional cup of water. Would serve with a salad to offset the taste if part of the main meal. Naturally this also serves as an excellent first-course appetizer.

If you desire, you can alter this by leaving out the chorizo and rice and no reserved squash chunks if you want a silkier and/or a vegetarian soup; if you do this you will probably need less liquid and so adjust by using less or no wine, or less chicken stock to offset the fewer ingredients.