Hearty Soups, Scandinavian Dreams

A cold worked its way through the office, eventually finding its way to myself. I don't know if it made its way to me through coworkers or through E, who picked it up the week before. Now, what does two weeks of people with colds mean? Soup. Not as much as one might expect, but not as many as in this post. One was an interesting experiment, but not worthy. But first, look at this baby corn I found at the farmers market. It has a tiny little husk and everything!

Also, a foray into bread from last post. I now have a "dutch" oven cast iron, instead of my jury-rigged cast iron pot and brownie-pan lid. Before I got that, I made one last loaf in the old style. This was a tiny loaf - 90g flour. It was cold-proofed, 20% whole wheat, 70% hydration. It was good stuff - by itself, with jam, with butter, and a la Scandinavian future dream. I haven't quite worked out toasting bread in a cast iron for maximum awesome, but I hope to hit that style soon.

Two soups were worthy of this post. The first is yet another recipe from The Herbal Kitchen for avgolemono. No recipe for this one, but the idea is simple - heat broth, cook some rice in it, whip lemon juice into eggs, and add them to the soup without curdling. That last bit is the hard one - the soup not featured in this post was an egg-thickened broth that went too far. You must ensure the soup temperature is well below simmering, the mixture is stirred constantly, and it is only heated for just long enough to thicken. Ignoring that part, however, its a simple 20 minute soup of incredible depth, especially when herbed, that uses 4 ingredients as a base (broth, egg, rice, lemon).

The other soup, though it really isn't one, was a return to jambalaya. I haven't cooked this in a few years, but it is a favorite dish of mine. The idea is simple - take the trinity of celery, onion, and pepper and sautee them in oil. You can make a roux at this point, but I'm not entirely sure on the tradition. At this point, add all the other ingredients - rice, stock, tomatoes, meats - and let it cook for a while. Seasoning is up to you, though "cajun" should be the name of the game. The meat, bowing to tradition, is most likely a combination of andouille sausage, shrimp, and chicken. I modified that for laziness in this recipe, using just andouille. What you get out of this is anywhere between a stew and a rice dish, depending on taste and hunger level, that hits the spot like none other. You can substitute meat-free sausage in this recipe, but be mindful of flavor. That andouille spice is hard to match.

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Mikey's Jambalaya (more suggestion than recipe)

Serves 4 or so

4-6 stocks celery

1 white onion

few cloves garlic

1 green bell pepper

2 cups stock

1 cup rice

1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes

2 andouille sausages

salt

crushed red pepper

cajun seasoning

extra cayenne, to taste

olive oil

green onion for garnish

Dice the celery and onion. In a large pot over medium heat, add a tablespoon or more of olive oil, onion, and celery. Season with salt and cajun mix. Mince the garlic, and add it after 5 minutes. Cook for another 5 minutes - the onions should be clearish - then add the pepper, stock, rice, tomatoes, and sausage. The sausage should be sliced and the pepper diced. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20 (stew) to 50 (rice-dish) minutes. You may need to replenish the liquid if you cook for too long. Taste intermittently and add more seasoning as desired.

Place in a bowl and top with diced green onion. Optionally, serve with mustard greens like in the above shot - sauteed with a dash of sherry and oil, salted, and topped with fresh-ground ginger and horseradish.

Spicy Rice Cake Soup, Others

An initial attempt at cooking Friday led to rotisserie chicken from the grocer and a Pixar movie. The next night, after a long day of climbing, scrambling, and exploring up the coast, nothing seemed like a better idea than cooking what we didn't the previous night. A recipe from Momofuku was picked, entailing blanching and peeling a pint of cherry tomatoes. Mayhaps a poor idea given the exhaustion from a long day, but the idea we went with. The salad was a take on caprese, with silken tofu providing a base. Served with rye soda bread, miso butter, and soft boiled eggs it made an interesting snack. You can find a photo lower in the post; below this, however, is the title of the post.

I decided, somewhat accidentally, on a new take of a previous dish. This time, the soup would be more of a soup and the cauliflower on the side. The idea was to take a tomato-basil soup, provide the creaminess with silken tofu instead of dairy, and throw in grilled rice cakes for the hell of it. I ate it with two quick side dishes - blanched snow pea with rice vinegar and quick sweet pickles - and the mentioned cauliflower. The sides were, frankly, somewhat conflicting with the soup and I wouldn't recommend them. But the soup itself - yes. To further confuse the reader is a photo of the previous night's dinner of salad and toast.

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Spicy Rice Cake Soup

Serves 2-ish

2/3 cup uncooked sushi rice + water

12 oz silken tofu

1 large heirloom tomato (or maybe 6-12 oz canned tomato)

1/2 cup water

2 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp sesame oil

spiciness to taste (sriracha, dried cayenne, fresh jalapeno, anything really)

several leaves basil

Cook the sushi rice per instructions - rinse thoroughly, heat to boil, cook covered until the water is gone, fluff the rice and let sit covered for 10 minutes. After the rest, put the rice in a bowl to cool. Do some prep-work on sides if you want. When the rice is cooled, use a wet spoon or your fist to mash it into a pulp. With a spoon, use the back to smear sections along the side of the bowl, doing this until you get something like a paste or get tired. With wet hands, form it into a log and set aside.

Prepare the soup. In a saucepan, add the water, mirin, and sesame oil. Heat to a boil and let reduce for a minute - consider adding onions or garlic before, but I didn't. Add the tomato, mushed, to the soup - try and avoid adding skin as it will add texture, but a little bit is fine. Simmer for another minute or so, then add tofu and spiciness. Reduce heat to low. Prepare a cast iron over medium heat with a bit of oil. Slice the rice cake into patties and grill until browned on both sides, about 5 minutes total. Split soup between bowls, add the rice cakes to each, and top with torn basil (or basil chiffonade if you want to be fancy).

Tomato "Cassoulet", Two Preparations of Celery Root, Greens

The weather this weekend has been phenomenal, hitting the mid-60s with mostly-cloudless skies and no winds. Perfect for lounging in a park watching the dogs, getting chided for not having one ourselves, riding the cable car, and... soup? A hearty bean-and-pork concoction heavily influenced by cassoulet on a warm day? You, astute reader, may have forgotten that it is winter. It gets cold when the sun goes down, and it gets cold fast. Not quite cold enough to really complain about, the mid 40s are still enough for bundling up and turning on the heat. And, yes, a hearty dinner.

I had a few goals in mind for the dinner; I wanted to cook something like the titular dish of this post, having seen one on the dinner specials board whilst eating brunch and I wanted to use seasoning very sparingly. For the veggies, I decided on broccolini (because I love it and my grocer had Sovrano cheese) and celery root, which has a strong flavor. Also, you can make, essentially, mashed potatoes with it and call it "celery root puree" and put it on your fancy menu next to things like "fricassee de poulet". If you had a fancy menu, that is. Anyway, celery root puree is nice but I also wanted to try making fries from it or, going with the earlier menu theme, "celery root frites". So I ended up with this:

The seasoning was sparing; I've thrown some herbes de provence on top of the soup and celery root for effect, but when cooking it was simply salt and pepper. Starting with the bowl, we have a tomato-and-bean soup with dry sausage, severely blackened ("frites noir") celery root skinny fries, roasted broccolini dressed with a bit of sovrano, and celery root puree. While dark, the fries didn't taste burnt; they had started to brown, I turned around to shape the puree into balls, and turned back to see the charred-looking mess. Honestly, I would change nothing with the dish except not charring the fries. The prep was simple and the flavors strong.

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Tomato "Cassoulet" Soup, Celery Root Preps, Broccolini

Serves 2-ish

Soup

1 can (15oz) of diced, salted tomatoes

1 can (15oz) of white beans (navy beans/haricot)

1 small (4oz?) dry sausage, sliced thinly into rounds

a bit of strong, hard cheese (sovrano grana recommended, or use pecorino)

dressing herbs (fresh herbes de provence or other hearty herbs, or dried if you don't have fresh)

Heat a cast iron over medium until hot. Add the sausage, cook on one side for a minute, flip, and cook until a decent amount of fat has rendered out and the sausage darkened. Reduce heat to medium-low, add in the beans and tomato, and stir. Stir every now and then while you do the rest, but you are mostly going to leave this alone for the next 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400 to make...

Two celery roots, two preps (plus broccolini)
2 celery roots
1 bunch broccolini
white wine vinegar
a bit of strong, hard cheese (sovrano grana recommended, or use pecorino)
high smoke point oil (grapeseed if you have it, or refined canola)
salt and pepper

Chop off the top and bottom of the celery roots, then skin with a knife. You can lose a bit of flesh during this. Chop one of the roots into fry-shaped pieces then soak in a bowl with white wine vinegar. Prepare a foil-lined baking sheet and in a bowl combine enough oil to coat the broccolini, a few turns of salt, and a turn of pepper. Shake out the fries and toss them and the broccolini in the oil mixture. Lay out on baking sheet without crowding, otherwise the broccolini won't crisp properly. Put in oven about 30 minutes before you want to eat.

With the untouched celery root, chop it into cubes and start a small pot of water boiling. Proceed as you would for mashed potatoes, viz. boil until a fork easily pierces, drain, (optionally add some fat like butter or milk), mash with fork, and salt to taste. This will take about 20 minutes and cool quite quickly when mashed, so consider saving it until the fries are frying.

After the cooking sheet has been in the oven for 15 minutes, remove it and take the celery root off. It should have softened and lightly browned. Grate cheese over broccolini, place back in oven, and lower to 350. Given how small the fries will be, prepare the smallest frying prep you can manage; I used my smallest pot with only a few tablespoons of oil. Once the oil is hot, add the fries, shaking intermittently. Prepare a paper-towel lined plate to dry fries on.

Once the fries go in, add some cheese to the cassoulet (to taste) as well as any salt or pepper you think it may need; the sausage should have seen to this, but you never know. Mash the celery root as described above, remove the fries to paper towel and drain. Toss with a bit of salt and pepper. Remove broccolini from oven. Garnish with any herbs. Eat.

Sweet Potato Bean Soup and a Cereal Update

With the changing of the clocks comes the changing of seasons in San Francisco - from just warm enough to warrant a short sleeve (on occasion, that is) to just cold enough to warrant a jacket (also, again, on occasion). For those not familiar, there are roughly two seasons in San Francisco, and those seasons come twice a year. Jacket, no jacket, jacket, no jacket (though the jacket season that the rest of the country calls Summer is a local effect and not, necessarily, felt in all parts of the city). But, yes, it is now the end/beginning of the year jacket season, and the necessitates some warm things. To start, Irish Coffee is now acceptable to order at bars where it is not their specialty. Also, you can make things like soup for dinner and not feel bad.

Which brings us to today's dish, of which I have no photos. It was an off brown color, under harsh indoor lighting, and the photographs were unappealing. The taste, though, was spot-on. While cooking it, I was worried it would be bland and flavorless; initial tastings supported this notion. It turns out that few things remain bland when a quarter pound of cheddar-like cheese is added, though. This was the dishes saving grace, without which it merely would have been bland mushrooms, zucchini, and kidney beans served in hot water. Before the recipe, a quick update on cereal experiments.

Bowl number two was much better; I did as I suggested I might last time and procured oat flour for the recipe and replaced molasses by honey. The results were superior, though slightly undercooked - 325 degrees for 35 minutes was not sufficient to turn the pieces crispy, though it also was not sufficient to burn them. Overall, a win in the taste category. A few pieces even had a proper air pocket in the middle! I think I know how to reproduce this effect, so I will try the next time. But, yes, the recipe I promised:

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Creamy Sweet Potato and Bean Soup

Serves 2

1 yellow onion

2 zucchinis

1 large sweet potato

1 cup white mushrooms

1 cup stock (veggie or animal)

1 can (15 oz) kidney beans

1/4 lb white cheddar or other flavorful, melty cheese

1 tbsp butter

olive oil

herbs de provence

salt + pepper

Preheat oven to 375. Chop the onion into strands. In a cast-iron (or other oven safe) pan, melt the butter over medium then add the onion, stirring occasionally. While this cooks, dice the sweet potato. Once the onions are soft and have begun to sweeten, put half of them in a large pot with a dash of olive oil over low. Add the sweet potato into the cast-iron with the remaining half onion, add a dash of herbs de provence, and place in the oven.

Chop the zucchini and mushrooms into whatever shape you fancy for soup and add them to the pot. Increase heat to medium and add the stock and can of beans (with liquid). Add pepper, a dash of salt, and herbs de provence. Keep stirring and let simmer for 20 minutes, after which time the sweet potato and onion should be close to carmelized. Grate or dice the cheese and add it along with the carmelized veggies to the soup, stirring constantly until the cheese has melted and incorporated. Serve immediately, though it will be hot.

Two Simple Meals

Having been a little under the weather recently, nothing extravagant has been prepared in my kitchen. I'm currently working from home, resting, and very full. From what, you ask? None other than the perfect "lunch for the common cold".

Sometimes, a simple meal is all you really need. Here we have some orange-like thing from the grocery store (tangerine?), Jarlsberg toasted cheese, prepared the proper way, and tomato soup from a can, with a dash of cheese and dill sprinkled on top. How to prepare grilled cheese the proper way? Well, your cheese should be sliced thin and layered only one slice thick. A very tiny pad of butter should be placed on the top and bottom of the bread. Place it in a frying pan, then turn on the heat to medium-low. After a minute or so, slide the bread around by shaking the pan by the handle (to spread out the butter). Every 30 seconds or so, peek into the cheese - once it starts melting even the slightest bit, flip the whole thing over and continue cooking until the cheese becomes a little gooey; at that point, give it a firm press with a spatula, a flip, and another minute or so of cooking.

It is also possible to cook a lazy, healthy dinner to make up for the gluttony of holiday meals and desserts, without using any energy that would be better spent slothing around the apartment.

Here we have Israeli Couscous cooked with chopped carrots and broccoli, spiced lentils with bell pepper, and steamed carrots and broccoli on the side (as well as on top, obviously). The lentils came from a can, plain, and spices were added. To cook couscous with veggies in it, simply chop the veggies into the water before boiling it. They will add a little bit of flavor (you can add broth or spices as well) to the couscous, as well as cooking fully.

Hopefully my sickness will fix itself soon, allowing me to get good and thoroughly hung over for New Years and possibly cooking something before then.

Breaks Over, Soup's On!

Thanksgiving break is over and I'm back to my own kitchen. I did bake the bread for my Thanksgiving dinner, but it was nothing new - I made a full batch of rosemary sea-salt rolls and everyone enjoyed them. No photos of that, sorry.

Looking for cooking inspiration, I noticed it has been cold for a while now and the rain is ever-looming (and sometimes even falling, although thankfully not on my bicycle commute). My usual reaction to this is to drink hot chocolate and Irish Cream. That, however, fails as a nutritional dinner. I was going to make the next best thing, but Kahlua doesn't really add any nutritional value over Irish Cream, so I went further down the list until I hit the "soup" section. A while back, I had homemade bread and soup from a can; what would be better to try than homemade soup and bread from a bakery?

(The pictured carrots did not cook for long enough to brown because I forgot to preheat the oven)

Weirdly Seasoned Tomato Soup and Roasted Carrot (serves 4?)

For the soup:

• 1 shallot, chopped
• 1 carrot, sliced
• 2 boiling onions, quartered
• 1 stalk lemon grass, chopped into a few pieces
• 1 bunch savory
• 3 cups water
• 1.5 to 2 cups diced tomatoes (a decent sized can, roughly)
• 1.5 to 2 cups navy beans (a decent sized can, roughly)
• olive oil
• salt

For the carrots:

• enough carrots for as many people as will be dining (1.5 or 2 carrots each), quartered
• olive oil
• salt

In a soup-sized pot, put in a bit of olive oil and sautee the shallot for a minute or two. Take the dice carrot and the onions and add, sauteeing for another two minutes. Add in the water, lemon grass, and savory, and simmer, salting to taste. Let the stock simmer for 15 minutes.

On a cookie sheet, spread some olive oil and rub the carrots in it. Sprinkle salt on top of the carrots, and put into a 425 degree oven. Keep track of when you put it in - they should get about 45 minutes, which will be timed to when the soup is done.

Let the stock simmer for another 15 minutes, then add in the tomatoes. Raise the heat a little, but still don't let it boil, and cook for another 20 minutes. Add in the beans, and cook for 10 more minutes.

Both the carrots and the soup should be done now (although do keep an eye on the carrots and make sure they aren't in the oven too long).

When serving the soup, you can add some cheese on top. Also remember to not eat the lemongrass or the savory stalk - although you can, they are both very strong and can be removed from the soup.