It felt like soup weather, being
the start of November. This is an adaptation of my basic soup
recipe. The rules are simple, and you can put in anything you
want. Basic Soup is really just the following:
- onion
- 1 lb. vegetables
- 1 lb. meat
- starch of some kind (potatoes, beans, egg noodles, rice)
- 1 cup canned tomatoes
- chicken broth
- herbs of your choice
It's the kind of thing where you look through your pantry and go,
"hmmm, that looks good..." When I searched my pantry I found a
package of dried mushrooms. The package says to soak it in
water. I will soak it in chicken broth.
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The package of dried mushrooms
contains Porcini, Shitake, Black & Oyster mushrooms. I like
the black mushrooms the best. Another favorite of mine is the
"cloud ear" mushrooms they put in Hot & Sour Soup at the Mandarin
restaurants. Sadly, there were no Cloud Ears in this package.
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It is important to use
ingredients labeled "low sodium" when making soup. That way you
can adjust the salt to your taste. Have you ever seen how much
salt they put in canned soup and canned broth? OMG. Way
too much. This can is labeled 33%
Less Sodium which is good for our purpose. However try not
to be fooled by the labels: If the normal amount of salt is Way Too Much, then this can has 33%
less of Way Too Much
salt. Er... whatever that is.
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Soak the mushrooms according to
the package instructions. The mushrooms add a liquor to the
broth, sort of like making tea. They add flavor to the water you
soak them in, so don't throw that out. The liquid is going in the
soup.
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The meat I chose for this soup
was Sweet Italian Pork Sausage. This package is about a
pound. More meat would have been better, in hindsight.
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The sausage is cut up into
marble-sized chunks, perhaps 2cm. Yeah, more sausage would
definitely have been better.
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Tonight's beer of choice is
Sapporo reserve. It is a smooth malt beer, with a gentle wheat
flavor and not a hint of hoppy bitterness. Japanese beers are
very good. Personally, I am a Sapporo man. Don't get
me wrong; I like Asahi. Asashi tastes like what Budweiser should taste like, if Budweiser
were actually a quality beer. However, there is more zen artistry
that goes into Sapporo. It is smoother, and fuller.
Note: The sign on the wall behind the can of Sapporo says,
"There's nothing like a GUINNESS." haha, alright you got me.
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Open your beer enjoy it while
you brown the sausage in the bottom of your soup pot. I recommend
putting in 1 T. Olive Oil, to get things started. The sausage has
its own fat that will ooze out while it cooks. Just brown the
outside, don't cook all the way through.
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You can see how they have left a
burnt mess on the bottom of the pot. This is very good! The
brown bits are called fond in
French cooking. Fond adds a lot of flavor. So don't go
cleaning out your pot. We browned the sausage in the pot just for
this:
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Now is a fine time to dump the
bowl of soakey mushrooms in the pot. PLOP! This will infuse
with the fond and fill your broth with flavor-y goodness.
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Get out your favorite Chef's
Knife and chop the bell peppers. I love the orange bell
peppers. When you slice open the peppers, be sure to remove the
white membrane and the clump of seeds. Any white bits you see
inside the pepper will be bitter. The don't belong in your soup.
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My grocery store stocks celery
hearts, which are a bit more tender and less stringy than regular
celery. I use one of the celery hearts in the package and about
half the package of carrots. When choosing carrots, many people
choose the largest ones possible. We are conditioned to think,
"larger is better." Smaller
is in fact better with carrots. Small carrots have sweeter
flavor, and larger carrots are more bland. That's why the huge
carrots are sometimes called Horse
Carrots. Leave those for the horses!
Ah, some garlic snuck into the picture. Garlic is always welcome
at my party.
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I feel it is wrong to peel
carrots. Most of the vitamins are in the layer right under the
skin. The vitamins get stripped away when you peel the
carrot. You can get away with washing them in cold water.
Chop the carrots about like this:
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Chop the celery down to the end,
but don't use the root-y part.
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How much garlic? I
dunno. About this much...
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Alright everybody! Welcome
to the party!
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Hey wait, where are the
onions? These are pearl onions. I haven't gotten the trick
to par-boiling pearl onions yet. What I did here is cut the root
ends off, then boil them for 5 minutes. The idea is to boil them
quickly and then pinch them out of the paper skin. They are
supposed to pop right out.
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Well, I boiled them too long so
the paper got soft. I boiled these for 5 minutes, let them cool,
and then took them out.
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| These were a chore to remove
from the skin. After talking to my
Executive Chef and Mentor (a.k.a. Mom) she told me that boiling for 1
minute is best. |
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Put the onions in and add enough
chicken broth to cover the vegetables. Just use as much as you
feel like.
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So far the soup does not have
any starch. I am trying to cut down on carbohydrates, however the
soup is not very good without something like potato, beans or
noodles. I got out my official Nigella Lawson measuring cups (I
loooove you Nigella!) and measured half-a-cup of basmati rice.
Personally, I can't stand any other kind of rice. Only basmati
will do for me.
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The soup also needs
tomato. You should always have a can of chopped tomatoes sitting
in your pantry, for those nights when you want to make soup.
Canned tomatoes are actually ok, because they are picked at the peak of ripeness and sealed safely
in the can, so they are still super-fresh when you want them.
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Dump the rice and tomatoes into
the pot. PLOP!
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Hey M0N! Don' ferget da
herb! My herb of choice this evening is Penzey's Herbes de
Provence. That's da kine, mon! The mixture contains:
- rosemary
- cracked fennel
- thyme
- savory (what the heck is savory?)
- basil
- tarragon
- dill weed (heh heh, weed)
- oregano
- lavender
- chervil (wait, aren't those like guinnea pigs?)
- marjoram
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This is a closeup of 1
tablespoon of Herbes de Provence. See the lavender?
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Stir it all in. Bring to a
boil and then lower heat to a very low simmer. Cook for 1/2 hour
to 45 minutes. Serve and enjoy!
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After making this soup, I felt
it still needed something. It was a bit bland. It needed
something with a kick... yet sadly I was out of Tabasco, and Pepper
Plant California Garlic Sauce. So I opened up the spice cupboard
and tried the following:
- Penzey's BBQ 3000: Contains paprika, black pepper and
mustard. Fine. Also contains citric acid and natural smoke
flavoring, which were strange. The citric acid flavor did not do
the soup any good.
- Penzey's Chicago Steak Seasoning: Main ingredient
salt, which helped a little, and sugar which didn't. Also
contains citric acid, which doesn't go well at all.
- Penzey's Garam Masala (Punjabi Style): Ok, now we're
talking. All of my soups love corriander. This mix has
cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg. The corriander was
helpful, the nutmeg not so much.
Final thoughts: The soup was good, but a little bland. I
should have put in twice as much sausage because I ended up picking out
bits of sausage and munching on them whenever I scooped up a bowl of
soup! The sausage was the best part. Also, the thing that
would have made the soup more flavorful was either Tabasco, or Pepper
Plant California Garlic Sauce. Those both have a kick, and would
have been great with this!
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