Category: Soup

Soup, A Way of Life

Years ago I bought a big, thick cookbook titled “Soup” with a perplexing subheading: “A way of life”. 

I’ve pondered the logic of that title forever. How could a bowlful of tomato, bean or chicken noodle soup determine one’s lifestyle?  Wasn’t this the domain of style or taste?  

But it turns out soup is just that — especially at breakfast. 

When I first witnessed Taipei office workers perched on stools at early morning street stalls slurping down hot steaming bowlfuls of doujiang, while dipping crispy, deep-fried bread sticks into a hot melange of soy bean soup, I knew it wasn’t for me. I could abide by doujiang as a late night snack, especially for its fabled anti-hangover abilities, but nope, not the morning after.

Ditto, say soup naysayers, when it comes to a dinner revolving around soup. A small appetizer, perhaps, but who in their right mind would make soup the star after six? 

Hot summer temperatures also tend to drive many people as far from soup as possible.  Yet not so in the Caribbean where scalding bowlfuls of callaloo or black-eyed pea soup not only assuage hunger but -get this- reduce body heat with cooling streams of sweat.

If anyone is guilty of a soup lifestyle, it’s me. It’s my go-to meal for lunch, dinner and snacks in between.  I make it by the vat full, counting on numerous labeled leftovers to pile into the freezer, otherwise known as my kitchen’s Taste Archives.  

Next time you ponder your lifestyle, consider pouring more soup into it. 

“Potage

This lush green soup  can be served hot or cold, preferably with a dollop of sour cream or cream-top yogurt and a flurry of fresh herbs.  

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 cooking onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

2 broccoli heads and stalks, chopped and separated

6 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 cup frozen green peas

2 cups packed spinach leaves 

1 bay leaf

1 tsp dijon mustard

1/2 tsp cayenne

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp salt  

2 tbsp white wine or white balsamic vinegar

1/2-1 cup sour cream 

Green onions 

Fresh mint

Heat a large pot, add oil and sauté onion, celery, carrot and broccoli stalks until tender and fragrant. Add stock and bring to a boil.  Add broccoli florets, peas, spinach leaves, bay leaf, dijon mustard, cayenne, black pepper, salt and white wine or vinegar.   Simmer covered until just tender, about 5-7 minutes. Remove bay leaf. Puree with an immersion blender. Whisk in sour cream or yogurt.  Serve hot immediately or refrigerate and serve chilled. Garnish with fresh mint and green onions.

 

MadoFood2 Comments

dipping into soup

There is something so very gratifying about making soup again —  despite the sweltering August heat. The kitchen garden is busting with basil, tomatoes and zucchini. Meanwhile, the fridge is crowded with leftover this and that, daily harvests tucked into bags and fresh produce splurges found on sale.  

I open the crisper and am determined to find a destination for a clutch of golden beet greens that are still fresh and vibrant a whole week after their yellow orbs were removed. Wouldn’t these greens taste fine in a vegan bean soup? I pounce on two cups of leftover bean dip:  the genesis.  Laced with lemon, rosemary and smoked paprika, this luscious dip on the blog last week will be this week’s soup base.  

I yank out a medium pot, heat it on medium-high, waiting a minute or two before drizzling the base with two tablespoons of olive oil. Next up, a chopped yellow onion and two stalks of celery sprinkled over by a confetti of golden beet leaf stalks. 

Down in our basement, where the rat once lived, I survey the contents of my standup freezer door where each of the four shelves is lined with green-lidded yogurt containers.  Most are full of chicken or bean stock.  Others contain soup. Some are pasta sauces. All are meticulously labelled. I grab two white bean stock containers and climb up the rickety wood stairs.

In a flash, a soup base is born. It’s strange to spoon my cold bean dip into the caramelized onions, celery and beet stalks but magic happens when I pour in the broth and a cloudy, creamy liquid swirls beneath.

More veg! I cut a yellow bell pepper into mouthfuls and a dozen grape tomatoes into quarters. A cob of corn is sliced into a pile of niblets that are shoved with my chef’s knife into the mix. I find a small patty pan squash and a zebra-striped zucchini from today’s harvest and chop them up. 

I fiddle with seasoning, starting small with salt — just a  teaspoon — then lashings of ground black pepper, a big pinch of chilli flakes and 1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika.  On with the cover and a low simmer for 10 minutes or so. 

Another taste of this soup-in-the-making tells me lemon from the dip is too loud.  I blunt it with tomato paste.  I don’t open a can, I find a flattened sheet of tomato paste frozen into a thin, easy-to-break sheet from the flavour drawer in my kitchen freezer. Baggies full of frozen bay laurel and kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass, chopped herbs, galangal, whole Thai red chili peppers and lime juice cubes are just a reach away from stovetop soups, curries and sauces.

I toss in a square inch of paste along with another 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt and a sprig of basil, pinched from the garden just moments ago,

Another taste. This soup is still asking for more…

I give it a wallop, smashing two cloves of hard-neck garlic just harvested by a Cowichan Valley young farmers’ collective. The smash is so sticky, papery thin garlic skins become glued to my fingers. Sticky garlic can only mean one thing: Rich, garlicky bite. I sprinkle the sticky crumble over the bubbling soup’s surface and chuckle and natter on to myself, laughing like a witch.

Last step and we find ourselves at the beginning again. Those beet greens. I slice then slide them off my cutting board, the green mound melting instantly into a sea of beans. I turn off the heat.  It’s done. Soup again. 

Garden Vegetable Bean Dip Soup

Totally unorthodox, this soup’s success rests on humus or bean dip. Clean out the contents of your fridge with this nutritious brew, substituting any of my additions with your own fridge or garden finds. 

2 tbsp olive oil

1 cooking onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 bunch golden beet stalks, minced 

2 cups bean dip

6 cups white bean vegetable stock

1 yellow bell pepper, cubed

1 small zucchini, 1/2-inch dice

1 patty pan squash, sliced

4 small boiled potatoes, cubed

6 grape tomatoes, quartered

Niblets from one cob of corn

1-2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tbsp tomato paste

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

Big pinch chili flakes 

2 cloves garlic, smashed and minced

Beet greens, sliced 

Heat a medium pot on medium-high. Add oil, onion, celery and beet stalks and saute until tender. Add bean dip and stock.  Bring to a boil.  Add bell pepper, zucchini, patty pan squash, potatoes, tomatoes and corn. Season with salt, black pepper, tomato paste, paprika, chilli flakes and simmer, covered for 10-15 minutes or until tender. Add garlic and beet greens and cook a final minute or two.

MadoFood1 Comment

Chiang Mai Noodle soup

This is a dreamy Thai noodle-soup dish, famous in the northern city of Chiang Mai. The addition of turmeric gives it rich colour.  Delicious with chicken but also great with shrimp, or a mixture of both. Noodles can also be switched up. Fresh egg noodles found in Asian supermarkets are the classic addition, but dried thick rice noodles are perfect, too. 

Serves 6

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp chopped garlic

1 sweet red pepper, diced

1/2 cup coconut cream 

3 tbsp red curry paste

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 3/4 cup coconut milk

3 1/2 cups chicken stock

15 basil leaves

2-3 chopped bird’s eye chillies

3 tbsp fish sauce

2 tsp sambal oelek chili sauce 

1 tsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

2 lbs. boneless chicken breast, thinly sliced or shrimp, peeled and deveined 

3 tbsp lime juice

1/2 lb Chinese egg noodles or rice noodles

1/2 cup chopped fresh coriander

4 green onions, chopped 

In a large pot on medium-high, heat the oil.  Add garlic and stir-fry 30 seconds or until golden. Add diced red pepper and stir-fry 2-3 minutes or until tender.  

Open the can of coconut milk and gently spoon off half a cup of the thick cream on top into the pot.  Warm the coconut cream at medium-high, whisk in curry paste and turmeric and continue to whisk until coconut cream starts to separate slightly and glisten with oil.  Add remaining contents of coconut milk can, chicken stock, basil, chillies, fish sauce,  sambal oelek, sugar and salt.  Bring to a boil, then simmer.  Add chicken or shrimp and cook gently until it is just cooked through. Remove from heat and stir in lime juice.

In a large pot of boiling, salted water, boil egg or rice noodles for 2 minutes or until just tender.  Drain.  

Place one-sixth of the noodles in each bowl and ladle over with hot soup.  Garnish with coriander and green onions.

 

MadoFood4 Comments

Ginger Turmeric Carrot Soup

 

When I was a little girl, happily engrossed in a snack, chomping on a fistful of carrot sticks, grownups (especially grandparents) used to chuckle and nod in appreciation.

They were tickled pink that I loved those orange roots so much.

“Just like Bugs Bunny, Lynnie, you love them carrots.”

They’d chuckle among themselves, scratch their chins in that thoughtful, elderly way and proclaim, “Carrots, little Lynnie, are not only good for ya, but they’ll put a curl in your hair.”

Curls and carrots were a good thing. Still are. I’ve got a head full of curly strands and in my garden grows some of the least straight, most angled and wayward, thwarted and stopped-up roots ever grown in these parts.

IMG_2302But that hasn’t stopped my love affair with this root.

They were the first veg I fed my babies.  I’d peel dozens of those orange wands, chop them into coins and toss them into a steamer basket. Once tender to the fork, I’d whirl them in my trusty food processor, adding just enough of the cooking liquid to create a fresh, real carrot puree bound for the mouths of my babes.

I remember the bright orange stains on their bibs and the way they’d open their tiny mouths like hungry baby birds.  Absolute delight welled up in this maternal heart as I fed such pure, nourishing orangeness on a little, plastic-coated baby spoon to my happy little charges.

IMG_0220Carrot soup is not that far a leap from baby food.

It’s a pure puree meant for adult tastes including complex flavours that hop around the carrots, not unlike Bugs, but with more flavour than a cartoon can ever conjure. Ginger, a fellow root, pairs so sublimely with carrots, cutting a little of the sweetness and giving it a sideways spike. Turmeric, that currently trendy Asian rhizome that is popping up in lattes and milky teas,  deepens a carrot’s  orange into a golden crimson, while leaving yellowed tattoos on your fingers when freshly grated.

But the real kicker is in the stock — the foundational rock of any soup.  My cheat for any soup that stars vegetables-only is a super-slow-cooked chicken stock.  It adds a magical velvet to the soup’s texture while leaving a sparkling, golden sheen on the surface.

I know vegetarians and vegans will simply bypass that remark and enjoy this soup just as much, if not more, without the poultry.  I won’t even wonder what Looney Tunes could chime in with —  but I bet it would make this elder chuckle.

 

IMG_0217

Ginger Turmeric Carrot Soup

If your freezer isn’t full of homemade stock, bouillon cubes will suffice. Taste the results before adding salt to the soup as most cubes are sky-high in sodium.

2 tbsp coconut oil

1 red onion, chopped

2 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated

2-inch piece fresh turmeric, peeled and finely grated/ 1 tsp turmeric powder

5 cups (10-12 medium)  carrots, chopped

6 cups defatted, homemade chicken stock

1 cup coconut milk

4 kaffir lime leaves (or 2 bay leaves)

1 ½ tsp salt

Freshly ground pepper

Freshly ground nutmeg

Fresh lime wedges

Freshly chopped coriander and/or mint

Heat coconut oil in a large pot on medium high.  Add onion, ginger and turmeric cooking 3-5 min or until soft and fragrant.  Add carrots, stock, coconut milk, lime or bay leaves, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer, cooking 15-20 min or until the carrots are tender soft.  Remove the lime or bay leaves and purée the hot soup with a hand-held immersion blender. Taste before seasoning with salt and pepper. Garnish with freshly ground nutmeg, lime juice, a dollop of yogurt or freshly chopped coriander and mint leaves.

MadoFoodLeave a comment

And the beet goes on

Every January, fresh vegetables finally get the attention they deserve. My beet buddies, whether they have billowing green leaves, long tapered roots or roly-poly bodies, are finally  back in vogue! All it took was the excess of the holidays to help nudge all those colours and shapes back into the healthy eating spotlight.IMG_9401 copyWhile I don’t like to play favourites, beets make me particularly happy, appealing not just to my palate, but my parsimonious nature. Where else do you get two vegetables for the price of one?

But the redness factor in beets – both in the roots and the greens – can distract. Not everyone can abide by the faint red juice that accompanies a sauté of beet greens and garlic. And even I, vegetable lover that I am, almost fainted when presented with a crimson bowl of borscht at the age of 13 while visiting the home of a classmate. Barely over the shock of my girlfriend’s father wearing an apron and cooking the soup from scratch, I followed her serving suggestion and placed a dollop of sour cream in the middle of what looked like a pool of blood. When I swirled the two together, I had visions of Pepto-Bismol and wondered if anyone would notice if my soup went stealthfully, spoon by spoon, into the African violet on the ledge behind me?

IMG_9546My children, now in their 20s, still won’t go near a beet. Who cares?! I’m tickled to reap more of my share of beet rewards. Besides, these babies take time. To roast, simply wrap unpeeled, individual beets in foil and bake at 350 F  for an hour or until tender. Or boil unpeeled roots in salted water for 45 min (or until a knife slips through the flesh with no resistance). Once cooled in an ice-bath, a beet’s skin slips off effortlessly.

There’s a reason you’ll find vacuum-packed, cooked beets sold in most European markets and in some upscale Toronto ones, too. Once cooked, you can slice them into a zillion different salad combinations.

But if time is of the essence, peel a raw beet and pull out the box-grater. Shredded (or even spiralized) raw beets are a delicious addition to salads or can be sautéed in olive oil with seasonings such as ginger, shallots, garlic or lemon zest.

Citrus is a fine companion for beets both visually and texturally. Think finely sliced grapefruit rounds stacked with cooked, sliced beets bathed in a piquant dressing with chives.IMG_9412

Another winner is goat cheese. Try roasting peeled beet wedges, cippolline onions and whole garlic cloves in olive oil and salt at 400 F for 45 min. Toss warm with goat cheese, arugula and torn basil, dress with olive oil and a small splash of sherry vinegar and serve to your best, beet-loving friends – year round.

© 2016 Madeleine Greey

Beet and Cabbage Borscht

This soup feeds an army.  I like to serve it fresh (ideally the day after, since the flavours intensify) and freeze the rest. A dollop of dairy such as sour cream or plain Greek yogurt, sprinkled with chives or chopped green onions and chili flakes is an irresistible garnish.

  • 2- 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 leeks
  • 1 onion
  • 3 stalks celery
  • 6  red beets, peeled and diced into ½ inch cube
  • ½ small green cabbage, sliced
  • ½ small red cabbage, sliced
  • 2 fresh bay leaves
  • 8 cups vegetable stock
  • 8 -10 leaves Tuscan kale, stem removed and thinly sliced
  • 1 small can (400 ml/17 oz) of cherry tomatoes and juice
  • 2  garlic cloves, pressed or finely grated with a rasp
  • 1 tsp smoked hot paprika
  • Salt (1-2 tsp)
  • Pepper
  • ¼ cup red vinegar

Heat oil in a large soup pot and sauté leeks, onion and celery with a sprinkling of salt until soft and fragrant.  Add diced beets, sliced cabbage, bay leaves, stock, cherry tomatoes and Tuscan kale.  Bring to a gentle simmer and season with finely grated garlic, paprika, salt and pepper.  Simmer gently for 45 min to 1 hr. Finish with vinegar.     © 2016 Madeleine Greey

IMG_4715
Beet and cabbage borscht

MadoFood7 Comments

Let’s talk about stock

When I taught cooking, I always asked my students who made stock.  Everyone just laughed. No one has time for something as archaic as that.

Problem is, without homemade stock, cooking suffers. It wimps out. It lacks foundation and flounders. Food made with that imposter, commercial so-called stock (sorry Knorr) tastes completely mediocre or as the Chinese say mama huhu.

Who wants mama huhu cooking when every mouthful has the potential to sing out with flavour?  What’s the use of boring risotto or lackluster soup?

There’s no excuse!  Homemade stock is a must-do and a must-have.  All you need is a bunch of bones, a big stockpot and time to let it simmer.

That’s why I was so happy when shopping at Whitehouse Meats at the St. Lawrence Market this weekend. I asked for some chicken bones and was given two bulging bags of frozen chicken bones gratis.

“We give them away,” said the sales person. “All you have to do is ask for them when you’re making a purchase.”

While Whitehouse specializes in a lot of exotica – from elk to ostrich to de-boned quail – they don’t carry chicken feet.  I had to go to Fu Yao Supermarket on Gerrard St. (near Broadview) for those.  Besides, who wants to miss the experience of reaching into a smelly bin with a plastic bag over your hand and grabbing a few pounds of feet: they’re slippery and leathery at the same time, with lots of wayward appendages. Fun.

You don’t need a recipe for stock.  This is what you do:

  1. Rinse the bones. (Sometimes they’re bloody. Enough said.) You’ll need at least 4 lbs of chicken bones and/or chicken feet to fill a large stockpot.
  2. Fill with enough water to cover the bones and turn the heat to high.
  3. As soon as you see the first bubble, crank the heat down to low. The goal is to simmer, not bubble like mad. Boiling stirs things up and creates a cloudy, messy stock.  We don’t want that.
  4. Once the simmer begins, slime starts to surface.  Skim it all away. I like to spoon it out and place it in a fine-mesh sieve over a bowl. I return the liquid that collects in the bowl back to the stock.
  5. Add flavour. I add 3-4 quarter-size pieces of peeled ginger, 3 whole crushed garlic, a cooking onion sliced in half, 2-3 stalks of celery (count yourself lucky if you have celery leaves, they add great flavour) and 2 green onions, chopped into thirds.
  6. I cook it covered, on the lowest of lows for 3-6 hours.
  7. Strain the bones from the liquid and once it has cooled, transfer to freezer containers (I like to use yogurt containers, which hold about 3 cups).
  8. Refrigerate overnight. Skim off the fat. Freeze.

MadoFood6 Comments