I haven't been tagged -- and I'm not complaining about that -- but I thought I'd share a not-so secret thing about me. I love soup.
I love soup so much that I have considered starting a take-out soup business. But I also know from experience that I am not as entrepreneurial as a business needs its founder to be, so instead I play with the idea of the thing, and have a good old vicarious time of it.
I credit Sally Nirenberg with launching this wholesome preoccupation. In 1990, Ms Nirenberg published Recipes from the Night Kitchen: A Practical Guide to Spectacular Soups, Stews, and Chilies which just may be the best book of recipes of any kind ever. (The Night Kitchen was the name of the wholesale soup business that she founded and ran in Massachusetts.) She makes having a soup business sound achievable and idyllic; and her recipes for the home cook are, in fact, Practical and Spectacular -- this is not hyperbolic press puffery. I've never met her, but I am profoundly grateful to her. I've never had a bad meal from her book, or a sour moment while pretending that maybe I could have a business like that too. Ongoing food for the body and the imagination is a good return from a $10 investment amortized over 18 years. The book is still available -- new and used -- so go get one.
Meanwhile as winter taps ever more vigorously at the panes, I thought that, from time to time, I might share some of the treasures from my travels in the realms of broths and report on the many goodly stocks and consommes seen. (apologies to Keats) To wit, my variation on Ms Nirenberg's Carrot-Fennel soup (she calls for fennel seeds; I thought "why not an actual fennel?").
1 tablespoon olive or canola oil
1 Spanish onion, coarsely chopped
1.5 to 2 lbs carrots, peeled and sliced
8 cups chicken or vegetable stock
(I use half stock, half water; all stock is too chickeny for me)
1 small fennel bulb. with or without the feathery bits, coarsely chopped
(or 1 teaspoon dried fennel seed, for all you originalists)
I don't use the oil. I just toss everything into a crock pot and let it cook on low for 6 (or so) hours, then run it through the food processor. I used to use a blender but the processor doesn't completely liquefy everything the way the blender does, so the soup has a nice, very slightly rough texture.
If you don't have a crock pot -- YOU DON'T HAVE A CROCK POT? HOW CAN YOU LIVE? -- then put the oil in a 3-quart pot and heat it gently. Add the onions and carrots (and chopped fennel, if using it) and cook, covered, over low heat until the vegetables are tender.
Add the stock and the fennel seeds (if using those -- one or the other, vegetable or seeds, not both) and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes. Then run it all through a food processor or blender.
This yields about 2.5 to 3 quarts. It's also good cold in the summer. Which is one of the few good things about summer. In addition to my birthday, which is the only official holiday in August.
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12 comments:
Ahhh, another soup lover! Soup is my preference on any menu and I love to make it. To me, making soup is like creating a quilt. I may loosely follow a recipe using ingredients at hand. Most often my inspiration is to use whatever is still good before it needs to be tossed out. I'll look for that book for myself and my daughter-in-law who has learned well how to use her creativeness in the kitchen.
Mmmmm soup! Thanks for sharing your recipe. I love having a fragrant pot of soup on the stove in the winter time, the steam filling the kitchen each time i peek under the lid to see how things are going. (No, i don't have a crock pot...i have a tiny work surface made smaller by clutter...but i do have a beautiful blue LeCrueset pot that's perfect for modest batches of soup.) Ah, and an excuse to buy another cookbook, Yes! Thank you! I look forward to your additional contributions to this series.
The other day i suddenly was hit by a craving for soup and didn't have time or ingredients for a "real" soup, but did find a can of Trader Joe's low fat minestrone in the cupboard, warmed it per instructions, and tossed in a double handful of chopped kale at the end. Yummmm.
I have a compromise between food processor and blender that's a lot less messy (and doesn't take up counter space)...a stick blender. You can plunge it right into the soup. You don't get a superfine puree and can stop when there are still nice chunks of veggies left.
"...Around mid day his tum grew mutinous, for a bowl of pea soup, green and glutinous..."
As does mine.And the fennel is a splendid idea!
I love carrot soup. And I love fennel. Good idea to introduce the bulb...
Observation: the fennels seeds might render this more of a North African-type soup, or am I thinking of cumin (as in salad of...)
The oil does have the advantage of slowly caramelizing the onion, which releases a sweetness, which could be good with the carrot?
Do you think a slosh of buttermilk, in summer, would be good?
Guess what I bought this evening for dinner before reading your post? Fennel! Yippee.
A wonderful recipe! Thanks for posting it. Finally, we can make soups again. This recipe is quite different. I hadn't thought about using a blender.
An ingredient I like to add to some veggie soups is a small amout of honey. This also brings out flavor.
Thanks for all this, Melanie. I like soup too. I guess because I was raised a "Campbell's Soup Kid". To me, it's comfort food. I like to make big pots of vegetable soup all winter long.
And you could call your restaurant "The Soup Kitchen"!
whoa! that really struck a chord -- or accord.
Thanks, Nellie for sharing about your improvisational technique. Have you seen the film Babette's Feast (or seen it several times as I have)? It's wonderful movie about the power and transcendence of art and gratitude and uses food as the medium of expression.
Quiltcat, Crueset cookware is such a treat. I have a smallish one in which I can actually make a casserole for 2 -- which is a blessing since there are just two of us at home and my elderly mother hardly eats enough to keep a gnat alive.
dinah -- the last time I had pea soup I was snugged in high chair and it ended up sprayed all over the kitchen.
marie -- many things are enhanced with dairy (just ask estorbo). give it a go and report back. I've found with this recipe that sweating the vegetbles first makes it a little too sweet for my taste, tossing everything in at once keeps the brightness of flavors (especially the onion)more in balance.
melinda hi, and welcome. do you use the honey to offset pungency -- or to deepen and round the falvors in general?
katie jane, i was strictly chicken noodle as kid but now Campbell's tomato soup (which I hated when I was a kid) is my secret vice. it tastes nothing like tomatoes, but there are times when it's the only thing that will do.
Soup has made me the man I am today (and you thought it was the vino!)
Every week, especially in the winter, but summer too, I make a pot of what we call "Chuck-it-in-soup": lot's of chopped vegetables, lentils and real chicken stock, but absolutely no fennel (unless you want to run faster :o)
Doesn't last long.
In between times it's tins of Heinz with tomato and basil being a favourite.
Soup is a distinct pleasure of wintertime. And, so much fun to make!
Melanie,
You've been art 'tagged' at my blog and I hope you can stop by to see how this works. I just wanted you to know how much I enjoy your blog! Your process, your work, your thoughts are intellectually engaging and emotionally authentic.
I hope many others will enjoy your blog as much as I do.
Oh, I add a bit of honey to enhance the flavors. I think someone who actually knows how to cook taught me this!
My mom always had big pots of soup simmering away on her stove. She would deliver it to anyone who was ailing in any way. Now whenever I make soup i feel it is a way of nurturing my family. My favourite soup is butternut and apple. Hmmmmm I'm salivating at the thought.
you get what you wish for... TAG! you're it!
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