Too Hot to Cook: Gazpacho

One of the (many) reasons we moved to Belgium was the climate. I grew up in Atlanta, where it's hot and sticky for at least 6 months of the year. Dan and I lived in DC, where it's stinkin' hot. AND humid. (Though we used to say that in Washington, it wasn't the heat that would kill you, it was the stupidity, heh.) Belgium, however, is on the same latitude as the southern tip of Hudson's bay. Yesss! Cool in the summer. We checked—not much is air conditioned here. No need! Double Yesss! We almost didn't need the enticement of languages, culture, travel opportunities, chocolate. Cool summers, yessirree. That was it for us.

WINTER CLASSICS: Oxtail Soup

Soup. Are you sick of soup yet? Not me!

Before I made this, I’d never had oxtail soup. I KNOW! It’s such a winter classic, so traditional. Maybe that’s why I’d never had it! Be that as it may, when I saw some queues de boeuf in the supermarket, I snatched them right up. When I got home, I wasn’t sure anymore why.

There they were, though, so I decided to go ahead and make oxtail soup. The problem was that I didn’t know how to begin. So I searched all my favorite blogs. Nothing. I googled and found this and this. The problem was that I didn’t know what it was supposed to taste like. From the googled recipes I began to put together an idea of what I should be doing. For another point of view, I turned to James Beard. In my copy of The New James Beard (1981!), there are recipes for not only oxtail soup but also oxtail gratin and oxtail bouillon. Clearly this is something that was much loved in the past. Or maybe it still is, but just not in MY past...

Finally the time for reading was over. It was time to start cooking. Below is the recipe I ended up with -- partly a combination of the common properties of all the recipes I found and partly a function of what I had on hand. It was still snowing outside, and I wasn’t going out. (I’m from the South, remember? I don’t drive in this.)

The recipes all said to cook this 3 or 3 1/2 hours, until the beef was tender and falling off the bone. It took mine almost 5 hours, and by then it was too late for dinner. So I left it to cool in the stockpot overnight and we ate it the next day for lunch. I think if you have a slow cooker this might be just the thing to do in that.

Yeah, Kate, but how did it taste? Well. They say that the muscles that the animal uses the most have the most flavor--the legs and haunches. I think this beast must have practiced standing on his tail. This was veryvery good. It brought back memories of some of the best pot roasts I had as a child--meat meltingly soft, falling in threads; vegetables adding their color and flavor. But it was the broth that made this special. James Beard spoke of it as unctuous. Because that word makes me think of a gigolo, I don’t think I’d use it. I don’t know a better one, though. This broth had a body to it that was remarkable. That, added to the flavor of the beef and the vegetables makes this something I’ll make again.

Oxtail Soup

2 Tablespoons olive oil

500 g / about 1 pound oxtail pieces

Flour to dust meat

Salt and pepper

1 onion

1 bell pepper

3 medium carrots

3 stalks celery

• Heat the oil in a soup pot.
• Put about t heaping soup spoons flour in a dish and add salt and pepper to taste.
• Roll the oxtail pieces in the flour and brown in the oil over high heat. You’re not really cooking them, only searing them. Remove from pot and set aside
• Slice the onion in half, peel it, and slice it thinly. Add to the pot, reduce the heat to medium and cook until the onion starts to brown.
• Chop the pepper, the celery and the onion roughly and add them to the pot along with the oxtail pieces.
• Add enough water to cover, bring to boil and reduce heat to simmer. Cook for until the meat is tender and falling off the bones, skimming the scum that rises to the top. Most recipes say this will take 3 to 3 1/2 hours. It took mine 5 hours. Add water as necessary to keep the meat covered.
• When the meat is tender, take the pieces out of the soup and let them cool till you can handle them. Strip the meat off the bones, shred it and put it back in the soup. Stir and serve!

Serves 4 if they like it and 10 if they don’t

NOTES:

• We served this with cornbread. I think it would also be good with boiled potatoes or some good crusty bread and butter.
• It really needed a little more salt.
• All the recipes I checked said to skim the scum that rises to the top of the soup. I skimmed all the scum I could (say THAT five times fast)--there wasn’t very much. I think it’s easier if there’s plenty of water in the pot.

White Onion Soup

Cold, snow, ice. I had a whole day to cook, because I sure wasn’t going out in that stuff. I needed to go to the market, though, because we didn’t have much in the way of fresh fruit or veggies. But I decided that tomorrow is another day (as they say where I come from).

So I looked in the fridge, and I had a chicken carcass from one I had roasted a couple of days before. By now, Dan is well trained to put the bones back in the dish so that I can use them to make stock. I had the complete chicken in there. If the paleontologists come, they can create a replica of a chicken from these bones. Well, minus the head. And the feet.

Where was I? Oh, yes, trying to find something warming to cook. What I really wanted was a big steaming bowl of dark, rich onion soup, complete with a toasted crouton and melted cheese oozing over it. The problem was that I had no beef stock. All I had was chicken. And some onions. And some bread. And some cheese. Hmmm...(if I had had a beard I would have stroked it here)...I thought, can I make onion soup without beef stock? Can I make it with chicken stock? Well, of course I CAN, but will it be any good?

The answer is an unequivocal YES. I made the chicken stock and then made the onion soup in the normal way, but substituted white wine for the red and chicken stock for the beef stock. Not the traditional way, but it was really really good. The flavor was lighter, with a different kind of depth than the traditional soup. I’ll make it again. Because the color and the flavor were lighter than the traditional onion soup, I called it “white”. Also because “chicken onion soup” would have sounded like the onion was a coward, which wasn’t true. At least I don’t think so.

Because I had time on my hands while I waited for the onions to brown slo-oo-owly, I made some fancy pants croutons. That was almost as much fun as the soup, and I think that they made the soup taste better.

This is not expensive food, but it is food for someone who has time to spend with it, since a large part of the flavor depends on the quality of your stock. You can use canned stock if you need to--it’ll still be good, I think. I don’t see why you couldn’t even use vegetable stock for a vegetarian version, which would be even lighter. But there’s no hurrying the onions--they need to cook long and slow to develop their flavor.

I thought this would make more, but in the end it was enough for just two.

White Onion Soup

3 medium onions

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 heaping teaspoon flour

1/2 cup white wine

salt and pepper

2-3 cups chicken stock

2 slices bread

1/2 cup grated swiss cheese

• Cut the onions in half, peel them, and slice them thinly.
• Heat the olive oil in a large pan and add the onions.
• Cook over medium low heat till light to medium brown and caramelized. This can take up to an hour, so be prepared to wait. Don’t rush this step--this is an important part of the flavor of the soup. Once they start to brown, though, they go pretty quickly so don’t leave them too long at that point.
• When the onions are browned, add the flour and stir to mix it well. Keep stirring to cook the flour for a minute or two.
• Add the wine stir well, and cook over medium heat till the wine is evaporated.
• Add the chicken stock, stir well and heat through.
• Meanwhile, toast your bread. If it’s larger than your bowls, cut it so that it will fit inside. Put the cheese on the bread and run it under the grill to melt the cheese.
• Ladle the soup into the bowls, top with the croutons and any leftover cheese. Enjoy.

Enough for 2

NOTES:

• I used Gruyere cheese, which is what I had. Emmenthal or any Swiss-type of cheese would do just as well.
• The traditional way to do the bread and cheese is to put them both on top of the soup and put the bowls under the grill to melt the cheese. I don’t do that because my bowls get too hot that way, and because I always spill the soup trying to take the hot bowls out of the oven. You might not be as clumsy as I am.
• If you decide to make fancy pants croutons like I did, I think you need a really strong bread. I used a sourdough rye which was even a little stale. It was maybe a little TOO hard to cut, but the flavor stood up to the soup well. I toasted the little stars in the oven and then put them on a baking sheet with the cheese over them. VOILA! I love stars.
• I also had some shredded chicken from the carcass that I threw in at the last minute. TOTALLY untraditional, but you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, eh? Next time I think I’ll leave it out, though.
• Note to self: When photographing hot soup from directly above, wait till it's stopped steaming.

Minestrone and Two Winners!

TODAY’S THE DAY! TODAY’S THE DAY! Today is the day when we choose the winners of the Double Truffles. According to random.org, the two winners are numbers 13 and 33. That’s Maria at Two Peas and Their Pod and Kate at Kate in the Kitchen. I’ll need your addresses--email me at Kate(underscore)and(underscore)Dan AT yahoo.com, and I’ll get the goodies in the post after Christmas. The post office is a madhouse right now!

I don’t know about you, but right now I’m tired of rich food. I want something a little lighter, fresher, full of vegetables and simple goodness. Minestrone fits the bill perfectly.

Like much of my favorite Italian cooking, minestrone is very flexible - it takes advantage of what’s available when you make it. At its most basic, it’s vegetable soup. Made right, it’s a revelation. This is a dish that is different every time I make it--because what I have to use is different every time.

This soup starts with the ‘aromatics’--onion, carrot, celery. In Italian, these are called ‘gli odori’. Now, normally I love the Italian names of things--they’re just so musical and evocative. But in this case I prefer the English name, because ‘odori’ sounds too much like old gym shoes. Actually, in our house we normally call them ‘the usual suspects’. In any case, they fill the house with a wonderful smell, which presages the flavor of this soup.

I think minestrone needs some pasta in it--not too much, but a little bit. Because this makes more soup than we can eat at one time, I don’t put the pasta in the soup until I serve it, so that it doesn’t turn to mush. You can use any kind of small pasta. I had some tiny squares I found in Italy, but you can use orzo or even vermicelli that’s been broken into tiny pieces. If you leave the pasta out, the recipe is gluten free.

Most recipes also call for chopped cabbage or cavolo nero, which is a very dark kale-type cabbage that grows in Italy. It’s only good after a frost, so it’s really a winter vegetable. We don’t have it here, but I did have a chinese cabbage, so I used that. I don’t really like boiled cabbage too much, so I didn’t add it to the soup either. I put it in the bowl and poured the soup over it. I did the same with the green onions to preserve their sharp flavor and crunch.

This recipe came from my cooking course in Siena. In Italy they throw the rind from parmesan into the soup pot. It adds a richness to the soup, and gives some gooey melted cheese pieces that are like the cheesy croutons on top of French onion soup. I sometimes forget to keep them, but this time I had a couple so I threw them in too.

Minestrone

Enough for 6-8

1 T butter or olive oil

1 large onion

1 leek

3 medium carrots

2 stalks celery, including greens

1 bell pepper (I used a red one, for color)

2 medium potatoes

1/4 celery root

2-3 medium tomatoes

125 g / 1/4 pound small pasta

3-4 kale or cabbage leaves

1 spring onion

a good handful of grated parmesan

salt and pepper

• Put the butter or olive oil in a large soup pot over medium low heat.
• Cut the onion in half, remove the peel, and slice it thin. Add to the soup pot.
• Cut the dark top off the leek, cut it in half, and clean it under running water. Slice it thin across the grain (giving you little semi-circles) and add it to the soup pot. Stir the pot.
• Cut the carrots into small cubes and add them to the soup pot. Stir the pot.
• Cut the celery across the stalks, including the greens. Add to the soup pot. Stir the pot.
• Chop the bell pepper into small cubes and add to the pot. You know what comes next.
• Chop the potatoes into small cubes and add to the pot. Stir it. By now all the onions and leek should be well sweated.
• Chop the celery root into small cubes and add to the pot. Stir it.
• At this point add water. I use boiling water, but it probably doesn’t matter. You want enough to come 8-10 cm / 3-4 inches above the vegetables.
• Chop the tomatoes into cubes and add to the pot. Yes, stir it again. Add about 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
• Leave this to simmer for about an hour and a half. Adjust salt to taste.
• To serve, boil the pasta and drain it. Chop the cabbage and the spring onion.
• Put some pasta in the bowls, along with some chopped cabbage and spring onions. Pour the soup over, and top with some fresh grated parmesan and pepper.

NOTES:

• Of course, you can adjust the veggies any way you like. I think it has to have celery, carrots, onions and potatoes. It’s good enough with just those, but add whatever you have to it.
• I never peel my potatoes or carrots. I buy organic ones and scrub them well. I like the peel!
• Celery root, on the other hand, has to be peeled. It’s a wonderful winter vegetable. We use it in salads, and add it cooked to mashed potatoes. It brings a light celery flavor to everything.
• In the summer you can use zucchini / courgette or any kind of squash in this. In the winter parsnips or turnips are good. Feel free to play with this recipe.
• We ate this with some good bread and cheeses.

TUSCAN AUTUMN SOUP

A couple of years ago, I was fortunate to be able to participate in a professional cooking course in Siena. We spent all morning, all afternoon, and into the night cooking. We prepared traditional Tuscan food and learned how to select, prepare, and cook the freshest ingredients. I also learned at a gut level (maybe I should say at a FEET level) how physically demanding restaurant work is. I went back to our apartment

every night exhausted, with my feet hurting and my head full of wonderful ideas. Some nights I couldn’t sleep because my hands ached from having rolled out pici (a round,eggless, spaghetti-like pasta) for 30 people by hand.

From this course I took away many things. Fond memories of meals and friends made, ideas shared in Italian and English and French. That wonderful moment when service was finished and we all finally sat down and ate something--sometimes the ribs that we had used as a roasting rack for the pork, or the brown, crusty ends of the turkey roll, or maybe just a bowl of rice with pepper and fragrant, grassy Tuscan olive oil. It was then that we enjoyed the bonds forged by working hard and performing a seemingly impossible task together.

I took away from the course a better understanding of ingredients and a sense of the Italian way of putting them together. I also took away from the course a notebook stuffed with recipes and ideas (of course!). In it are some classics, some cheffy new Tuscan dishes, and this soup. This is the soup I make when the weather first turns cold and I want something hearty. This is the soup I make when I am having company and I don’t have the time or energy to fuss a lot. This is the soup I make when I want to remember the taste of Tuscany in the autumn.

This soup is hearty, and it's a meal in itself served with salad and some crusty bread. It's also vegetarian, even vegan if you replace the butter with olive oil.

I have seen a lot of recipes for chickpea soup, but I’ve never seen this one except in my course. The first time I tasted it I almost cried, it was so good: complex, layered flavors, golden color, crunch from the croutons. Try this. You owe it to yourself.

Tuscan Autumn Soup (Passata de ceci)

Ingredients

7-8 cloves garlic

4 shallots or 1 large, mild onion

5 cups soaked, cooked chickpeas

12 - 15 sage leaves, the fresher the better

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 stick / 50 g butter

12-15 bay leaves, the fresher the better

Leaves from a bulb of fennel

4 oz/ 100 gr tomato paste or plain tomato sauce

1 cup brandy or white wine

5-6 doses of saffron

3-4 small dried hot peppers

To serve

3-4 slices stale bread

a walnut-sized piece of butter

In a deep pot, simmer the chickpeas and their cooking liquid with the sage leaves.

If your saffron is in threads, add it to a little hot water and let it steep. If it’s powder, you can just add it directly to the soup at the end of the cooking (below)

In a frying pan, melt the butter with the olive oil and add the chopped garlic and onions. Crumble the dried peppers over it, and add the bay leaves. Saute over medium low heat until the bay leaves are soft and fragrant and the onion and garlic are translucent. Do this relatively slowly, as you’re infusing the oil and butter with the flavors.

Add the tomato paste/sauce and the brandy/white wine. Cook over medium heat till it’s almost dry. Remove the bay leaves and add the mixture from the frying pan to the chickpeas.

Liquefy with an immersion blender or by transferring to a blender. Add water if necessary to get the consistency you want. Put the bay leaves back in and add the saffron and the fennel leaves. Turn the heat off and let it sit for at least an hour. Really. This makes a huge difference. Don’t forget to remove the bay leaves again before serving.

Before serving, cut the stale bread into cubes, and melt the butter in a small pan. Add the bread cubes, toss, and let brown slowly over medium-high heat. Toss from time to time to brown them evenly on all sides.

Ladle the soup into bowls, add the hot croutons (I love the sizzle), and enjoy!

Serves 4 if they like it and 10 if they don’t.

Notes:

1. You can substitute four cans of chickpeas. I don’t have to tell you that it’s better with the dried, soaked beans, but if you’re pressed for time, go ahead and use the canned. It’ll still be heavenly.

2. I never understood the point of bay leaves before this recipe. But now they’re among my favorite herbs. The smell of them as they sautee is out of this world.

3. In Siena we didn’t use fennel leaves, we used finocchio fiori, which are the dried petals of wild fennel flowers. Unless you’re in Tuscany, you’re probably not going to find this. Believe me, I’ve tried. You can substitute fennel leaves, if you can find a bulb with leaves on it. I just keep finocchio fiori in the freezer, and stock up when we’re in Italy.

4. You can skip the fennel flowers and the saffron if you can’t get them, but you’ll miss a subtle layer of flavor, as well as some of the golden color.

5. While this might seem like a fussy recipe, remember, it’s ITALIAN. Everything is approximate. Feel free to play with it!

6. This recipe is gluten free if you leave out the croutons.