Spring greening: Lively Broccoli Mint Soup

Mint and a drizzle of curried yogurt give healthy, creamy [but cream-free] Broccoli Mint Soup the vibrant, fresh taste of spring. Serving it room temperature makes for an elegant, surprising first course. Recipe below.

broccoli-mint-soup

Sometimes watching television can be good for you. On a recent Saturday morning, I was flipping through the channels trying to get a weather forecast [answer—it started raining as we pulled out of our parking place later that morning]. Suddenly, I saw someone cooking and was of course immediately glued to the set [we don’t have cable, so moments like this are rare for me]. It was New York chef Paul Liebrandt making a version of this lively, lowfat soup on the Early Show on CBS.

Chef at the critically acclaimed Tribeca restaurant Corton, Liebrandt has been branded both a tempestuous diva of the old school and an English wunderkind, by the same publication, no less. On the Early Show, he seemed gracious and poised as they hurried him through three dishes in what seemed like 2.3 minutes. The soup was the one that caught my eye. Broccoli is one of those insanely good for you cruciferous vegetables. The problem with most creamy soups made from broccoli is that they’re loaded with cream—or cheese. Delicious, of course, but suddenly less healthy. This soup is broccoli, water, mint, salt and pepper, with a lively flavor boost from a swirl of lowfat curried yogurt with lime zest.

Marion is fond of quoting Robert DeNiro’s character in the thriller Ronin. He’s part of a crew that’s supposed to take something from some really bad men who really don’t want it taken from them. He insists on doing reconnaisance on the attack point and is told they already have a map. To which he says, “The map is not the territory.” The soup Liebrandt described as he made it on TV was not the recipe posted on the CBS website. I took that as license to put my own spin on it. Well, my spin aided by Marion. Continue reading “Spring greening: Lively Broccoli Mint Soup” →

In like a lion, bring out the lamb: Lamb stew delivers comfort on a blustery night

Lamb, dark beer and root vegetables team up for a hearty, satisfying Lamb Stew. Recipe below.

THERE’S AN OLD SAYING ABOUT THE MONTH OF MARCH, “In like a lion, out like a lamb.” It is a transitional month, changing from winter to spring about halfway through. And if the first day of March wasn’t exactly a lion this year, it was no kitten, either. Here in Chicago, we woke to 17ºF and snow blowing sideways. Suddenly, lamb stew sounded like a great idea. Continue reading “In like a lion, bring out the lamb: Lamb stew delivers comfort on a blustery night” →

Eternal City, quick meal: Pasta and Chickpeas

“One of Rome’s favorite humble dishes,” pasta e ceci, comes together quickly, deliciously with the aid of pancetta and garlic. Recipe below.

As with most national cuisines, the food of Italy is very much a collection of individual regional cuisines. Sure, there are national common threads, but there are also distinct differences. From Piedmont in the North, known for its cheeses, wines, white truffles and quality herbs to Sicily at the Southern tip, melding Arab and Northern techniques in dishes heavy on seafood and simple peasant ingredients [and a wonderful touch with rich sweets], to Tuscany in the middle, whose food has been described as being “of the earth”—wild game, cured meats, crusty breads and some of Italy’s best olives.

This Valentine’s Day, I was introduced to yet another Italian regional cuisine with a wonderful gift, an unfortunately out-of-print cookbook, Roma: Authentic Recipes from In and Around the Eternal City. I don’t know about you, but I’d never thought of a distinctly Roman cuisine before. Major capitals are such magnets for people from everywhere, each bringing and sharing their own foods, that it’s hard to imagine them having their own food personalities. Well, I’m happy to report that I’m wrong. Author Julia Della Croce and photographer Paolo Destefanis take us on a tour through the history of food in Rome and then sit us down at the table, serving up dish after delicious dish. Marion often says that if she gets one really good recipe from a cookbook, something she’ll make again and again, the book has earned its place on the bookshelf. If this simple, hearty dish is any indication, I think this book will earn its place many times over. Continue reading “Eternal City, quick meal: Pasta and Chickpeas” →

Potage Crécy: French for “It’s cold outside—you need some creamy carrot soup”

A handful of basic ingredients—carrots, potatoes, leeks, stock, fresh thyme and cream—proves once again that the French are masters of sublime simplicity, in this colorful, subtle soup. Recipe below.

THE THING THAT KEEPS ME COMING BACK TO FRENCH FOOD IS ITS PERFECT SIMPLICITY. And yes, classic French cuisine is littered with plenty of complex creations, all wonderful, to be sure. But what really wows me is how they can take a half dozen or so ordinary ingredients and in a few simple steps make something perfect.

The French get food. They celebrate it. Much as their wines are named for the regions where the grapes are grown, many French dishes are named for their places of origin. According to Williams-Sonoma Collection: French, a gem of a cookbook, Crécy-en-Ponthieu in northern France is known for producing some of the country’s best carrots. Hence, the name for this creamy soup. (According to other sources, the town is even better known for a crucial battle in the Hundred Years’ War in 1346, a battle that did not end well for the French.) If I have to choose between dusty history and this subtle, satisfying potage, give me the soup, please.

A soup by any other name. Depending on who’s doing the counting, the French have either three or four distinct categories of soups. At one end of the scale is consommé, a clear broth that may or may not contain garnishes. At the opposite end is soupe, a “thick, hearty mélange with chunks of food,” according to epicurious.com. Potage falls somewhere in the middle, a thick, creamy soup that is often puréed. The Williams-Sonoma cookbook here calls out another category, bisque, a smooth, velvety soup most often made with lobster or shellfish and cream. Continue reading “Potage Crécy: French for “It’s cold outside—you need some creamy carrot soup”” →

A big, warm bowl of comfort: Roasted cauliflower and dill soup

Roasting the cauliflower mellows its flavor in this hearty, creamy [but dairy-free] Roasted Cauliflower and Dill Soup. Substitute vegetable broth for the chicken stock and you’ve got a satisfying vegan meal. Recipe below.

A quick note: I’ve totally dropped the ball in terms of providing any ideas for Thanksgiving this year. But at the end of the post, I’ll provide a few links for some interesting sides.

As proof that you just never know where inspiration will strike, this soup started out as a tuna sandwich. On a recent Sunday, that’s what sounded good for lunch. But Marion and I wanted our sandwiches on better bread than we had at home, so we walked up to Kurowski Sausage Shop, a Polish deli/grocery/bakery in our neighborhood. By the time we had walked the five or so blocks in the brisk November air, though, some soup was sounding pretty good—and Kurowski serves up delicious homemade soups fresh and cheap in their refrigerator case.

After flirting with bigos and borscht and some other Eastern European delights, we settled on a hearty cauliflower soup flecked with fresh dill. Being no fools, we got two containers—a whopping $1.29 each. Back home, the tuna sandwiches became half-sandwiches, bit players to the soup’s star performance. And as I leaned over my steaming bowl with big chunks of cauliflower and carrots, I knew I would be attempting my own version soon. Continue reading “A big, warm bowl of comfort: Roasted cauliflower and dill soup” →

Moving day, chilled soup, cool borrowed memory

Creamy and unexpectedly chilled, watercress vichyssoise makes a cool first course for the last hot days of summer—or paired with a crusty bread, a satisfying light lunch. Recipe below.

It’s happened again! Summer is almost gone, and we’ve hardly gotten around to making any cold soups. Marion did make her refreshing gazpacho once—oh, and her sweet potato vichyssoise, always a hit, but usually reserved for Thanksgiving. But there were none of Marion’s delicious attempts at recreating the cold cucumber bisque we used to get at Café Balaban in St. Louis—she never matches our fading memories of it [it’s been years since we’ve had it or they’ve even served it—we recently learned, in fact, that Balaban’s has closed], but she always creates something summery and fresh. So when I saw a simple, authentic sounding recipe for vichyssoise over at Katie’s Thyme for Cooking, I had to give it a try.

One reason the idea of vichyssoise appealed to me, I have to admit, was the opening of Anthony Bourdain’s highly entertaining book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. He talks about his very first realization that food was more than mere fuel. Even though I read it back when it first came out in 2000, this passage stays with me:

My first indication that food was something other than a substance one stuffed in one’s face when hungry—like filling up at a gas station—came after fourth grade in elementary school. It was on a family vacation to Europe, on the Queen Mary, in the cabin-class dining room. There’s a picture somewhere: my mother in her Jackie O sunglasses, my younger brother and I in our painfully cute cruisewear, boarding the big Cunard ocean liner, all of us excited about our first transatlantic voyage, our first trip to my father’s ancestral homeland, France.

It was the soup.

It was cold.

As Bourdain explains, it was something of a discovery for someone whose entire experience with soup to this point had consisted of Campbell’s. Here’s how he describes that first taste of vichyssoise:

I remember everything about the experience: the way our waiter ladled it from a silver tureen into my bowl; the crunch of tiny chopped chives he spooned on as a garnish; the rich, creamy taste of leek and potato; the pleasurable shock, the surprise that it was cold.

Bourdain realizes that vichyssoise has become an old warhorse of a menu selection, but says the very name “still has a magical ring to it.” Good enough for me. I had to make some.

But first, I did a little reading. Turns out this most French-sounding soup was created in New York in 1917. By a Frenchman, though—Louis Diat, head chef at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. He based it on a warm potato and leek soup, a classic French soup that he made from a recipe his mother had given him. Julia Child’s version of this traditional Potage Parmentier in Mastering the Art of French Cooking is simplicity itself. Of course, much of French cooking is deceptively, elegantly simple.

One variation on this basic soup includes watercress. The slightly peppery crisp taste of this herb sounded like it would the perfect addition to this creamy, cold soup. Continue reading “Moving day, chilled soup, cool borrowed memory” →

Gazpacho: Cold, tangy, perfect for summer

Chilled, chunky and chock full of healthy vegetables, this lively gazpacho makes a refreshing, simple first course all summer long.

I REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME I HAD PIZZA. I remember the first time I used chopsticks and the first time I made a pot roast and the first time I saw Terry and my first actual cocktail in an actual bar (it was a brandy Alexander—hey, I was an entry-level drinker—and it was Chumley’s). I no longer remember the first time I had gazpacho,though. Continue reading “Gazpacho: Cold, tangy, perfect for summer” →

Warm and sunny: Moroccan Braised Beef

Moroccan Braised Beef, made with golden raisins and an international mix of spices, delivers the warm, sweet/savory flavors of Morocco. Recipe below.

Last week, I sang the praises of oven-braising cheap cuts of beef for flavorful, juicy tenderness. With winter maintaining its icy choke hold on the Midwest, I was inspired to explore this technique further. Nothing like firing up the oven for a couple of hours and enjoying a hearty, meateriffic dinner to take the edge off the cold. Eventually, my virtual explorations led me to Morocco.

“Morocco.” The name alone conjures up exotic visions—Marrakesh, Casablanca [and Bogart and Bergman], souks [Moroccan markets] filled with dates, nuts, fragrant spices… Traditional Moroccan cuisine is as influenced by Europe and the spice trade routes as by being part of the African continent. Indeed, it is a mere eight miles [13 kilometers] from Spain at the narrowest point of the Strait of Gibraltar.

Lamb, chicken and beef all figure heavily in Moroccan cooking, especially in their stewlike tagines [the name for the dishes themselves as well as the special ceramic pots in which they’re cooked].

As do spices. Cumin, ginger, coriander, cloves, cinnamon, turmeric, cayenne, saffron… Various takes on the Moroccan spice blend Ras-El-Hanout use some or all of these and other spices. The emphasis is on bold flavor, not heat. The recipe that became the basis for my braised beef even called for [authentically or otherwise] the Indian spice blend garam masala. Again, given the centuries of the spice trade through the region, it didn’t seem off the mark. And when the spice mix hit the hot pot early in the cooking process, it gave us an instant preview of the exotically delicious meal to come.

Mixing sweet with savory is also a big part of this cuisine. Besides onions, the vegetable that appeared most frequently in the recipes I found was carrots. And raisins showed up in more recipes than not. Once I’d settled on the beef dish, I started looking for a Moroccan side to accompany it. After the fourth or fifth recipe with raisins and pretty much the same spice mix, I served a simple salad on the side. And I opted for spooning the beef over a bed of ditali, instead of the recommended couscous. I felt the scale and texture of the tiny tubes worked better with the chunks of beef.

The beef itself was tender and full of flavor; the raisins [which plumped up to resemble small, golden grapes] and spice blend lent a definite sweet note to the savory meat. The cayenne delivered a bit of heat that sneaks up on you without overpowering the dish. Together, they served up a bit of warmth and sunshine on a cold Chicago night. Continue reading “Warm and sunny: Moroccan Braised Beef” →

Slow good: Oven-braised beef stew

Slow, moist cooking in the oven makes inexpensive chuck roast juicy, flavorful and fork tender for this Oven-braised Beef Stew. Recipe below.

A couple of quick notes before I get started:

First, is green the new color of Valentine’s Day? Carmen and Aimee of the website Ecoscene report that Chicago high-end chocolatier Vosges Haut-Chocolat not only makes exotic treats guaranteed to spice up your Valentine’s Day—they do it green. In fact, they’re soon to be LEEDs certified.

Next, a quick little toot of the Blue Kitchen horn. Sometime last Sunday evening, the odometer clicked over to 100,000 hits. Very cool to see. But enough about me—let’s talk about stew.

I work in advertising. In just about every agency where I’ve worked, you’ll either see the following sign [usually in the print production manager’s office, if the agency’s big enough to have one], or creatives will bring it up when they think the suits aren’t standing up to the clients enough, particularly regarding deadlines:

GOOD
FAST
CHEAP
Pick two.

I know this sign isn’t unique to advertising—I’ve seen it in at least one car repair place, for instance. But wherever you see it, the message is clear. If you want something done good and fast, it’s going to cost you [almost anything can be done fast, if you throw enough money at it]. If you want something fast and cheap, it ain’t gonna be pretty. And if you want something good and cheap, it’s going to take some time.

Which brings me to beef stew meat. Stews were made for the cheap cuts. Chuck roast, the cut most commonly used for stew meat, has lots of connective tissue in it, which requires a long cooking time to break down so the meat will be tender. Conversely [and somewhat perversely], more expensive cuts of beef—steaks, for instance—get tougher the longer you cook them. This is why you should never order steak more than medium rare in a restaurant; and according to Anthony Bourdain, if you order a steak well done, you are guaranteed to get the worst steak the chef has at hand, because the steak is going to be ruined and it’s assumed you wouldn’t know the difference anyway. Here’s what the Restaurants & Institution’s Beef U site says about connective tissue:

“Connective tissues are the tendons and ligaments that attach muscles to the bone, and help give muscles their shape and form. The amount of connective tissue determines the meat’s tenderness; the greater the connective tissue, the less tender the meat. Muscles that are used for locomotion and power (i.e., in the legs and shoulders) have more connective tissue and typically yield less tender meat. The muscles of support (i.e., in the back—rib and loin) move less, are not as important for locomotion or power and, as a result, are more tender.”

Chuck comes from the shoulder, one of those locomotion and power sets of muscles. No problem—you just cook it a long time. Well, except the problem with that is the meat can tend to dry out when cooked a long time—especially, it turns out, on the stovetop. It’s nearly impossible to keep the temperature low enough with the pot sitting right there on the flame.

Blake over at The Paupered Chef wrote about cooking short ribs, another notoriously tough cut—wrote about it twice, in fact, once admitting his failure and once telling how he got it right. I remembered reading the second post and storing away in my brain that the difference was cooking them in the oven instead of on the stovetop.

Now, I’ve cooked stew for years. Good stew, not great stew. Oh, it’s always been hearty and satisfying, and I’ve generally gotten a nice mix of flavors going with wine and herbs. But often, the meat has tended toward the tough, dry, stringy side. Even if I cooked it over low heat for a couple of hours, same deal. So when stew weather hit with a vengeance—a spate of snowstorms, frigid temperatures and howling winds—I decided to solve this problem once and for all.

When meat’s the problem, start with meat solutions. I already knew what vegetables I wanted in my stew and how to prepare them, so instead of looking for stew recipes, I focused on the meat—specifically ways to braise beef, a slow, moist method of cooking. Remembering Blake’s tale of two short ribs, I rejected any stovetop recipes I found. Once I settled on a basic oven-braising recipe, I did what I always do—borrowed from other recipes I’d stumbled upon in the process as well as my own cooking experiences to morph it into my own take. And that take was delicious, if I say so myself—the beef flavorful, juicy and fork tender. Continue reading “Slow good: Oven-braised beef stew” →

Lentil Soup: Quick, versatile, healthy and good

Lentils and kale come together quickly in a hearty, healthy soup. Recipe below.

We’re big on beans at Blue Kitchen. Tuscan beans, chili, Cajun red beans and rice, Brazilian rice and beans—beans are versatile, delicious and packed with protein, fiber and a lot more stuff that’s really good for you. And for many recipes, canned beans are just fine, making them quick and convenient.

But when recipes call for dried beans, everything slows waaaay down. They need to soak, often overnight. And they need to cook, often for hours.

That’s where lentils shine. These tiny dried legumes pack the same nutritious punch beans do [according to Magic Foods: Simple Changes You Can Make to Supercharge Your Energy, Lose Weight and Live Longer, eating lentils twice a week can even reduce the risk of breast cancer in women], and they can go from dried to cooked and tender in as little as 20 minutes, without presoaking [at least the brown lentils common in the U.S. do—smaller, firmer French green lentils take a bit longer, 30 to 45 minutes or so].

They can go long too. Cooking a soup that takes 45 minutes? An hour? Longer? Even quicker cooking brown lentils will hold their shape and not cook to mush. [The red and yellow lentils commonly used in Middle Eastern or Indian cooking are skinless and intended to cook into more of a purée.]

They have a great taste, more delicate than beans, and a pleasant mouthfeel. Because they’re packed with fiber—16 grams in a cup of cooked lentils, much of it soluble fiber—they satisfy hunger for a good long time. And because they’re rich in protein [18 grams in that same cooked cup], they’re often used as a meat substitute. It’s little wonder that these little wonders are a staple in the Middle East and India. They’re also popular in parts of Europe and gaining in popularity here in the U.S.

Lentils are wonderfully versatile. They can be used in soups, stews, salads and the fabulously spicy Indian dish, dal. A quick check of epicurious.com turned up 47 results for lentil soups alone. Right here at Blue Kitchen, you’ll find a recipe for Curried Lentil Soup with Chicken.

This lentil soup balances the delicate taste of lentils with the mildly cabbagey bite of kale, another good-for-you powerhouse. A cruciferous vegetable, kale delivers vitamins A and C, folic acid, calcium and iron. It also contains cancer-fighting antioxidants.

And perhaps best of all in this fresh-produce-starved season, kale is actually best during the winter months; it greatly prefers cooler climes for growing.

Oh, and this hearty, delicious soup also contains some smoked sausage for even more stick-to-your-ribs goodness. We’re also big on meat at Blue Kitchen. Continue reading “Lentil Soup: Quick, versatile, healthy and good” →