secret, mystery, expert guest poster

This blog hasn't even received 200 total page views in its entire lifetime, and we have already lined up a guest poster. That's right, I'm here working for you, dear reader. There are still a few things to hammer out, but this expert chefs musings on soups should start appearing here in a few days. Until then I will leave yall wallowing in suspense.

soup iii: split pea and bacon

This soup is going to make me rich! I now realize that I will not have to pay for overpriced baby food when Michelle and I have a kid.

Split pea soup ... pretty easy. Cook peas in chicken stock until mush. The soup came out a nice yellowish-green color. I suppose I could have located peas that were greener in color and made it look more akin to the vomit-color that this soup is known for, but really it is just an aesthetic decision. Taste-wise the soup was sweet. I am thinking that the sweetness

of these soups may have more to do with using homemade stock, perhaps the sodium in the store bought stuff just overpowers the sweetness. The peas had a nice velvety mush consistency that contrasted well with the crisp salty bacon. In fact I think that was the highlight of the soup. The soup portion was more of a backdrop, or canvas if you will, for the delightful bits of bacon. Come to think of it life is the canvas that contains, magnifies and provides occasion for the moments when I get to eat bacon.

tacos de lengua

Say it out loud. Don't you like how the words roll off your tongue? Phonoaesthetic.

Tuesday night, on the prompting of one Lauren Smith, I embarked on a culinary adventure, Beef Tongue. Actually it was more like Tuesday afternoon, preparing a tongue takes some elbow grease. First you get to wash it, then you get to photograph it, then you get to boil and simmer it (for three hours), then you get to peel it, then you apply the knife, then you fry it up, then you photograph it some more and finally you get to eat it.

That much work could make anything taste good. Actually, tongue is quite tasty on its own. Prior to Tuesday top blade steak was the most underrated cut of beef in my book, not any longer, tongue has claimed that title. Slow cooking this fatty cut causes the meat to come out like Sunday roast. The recipe that we chose for Tuesday night is a staple of higher class taco trucks around the world. In fact, if your taco truck is not serving lengua you need to question not only the quality of all of the food served there, but the status of your soul. Warm tortillas, fresh pico de gallo, sour cream, cheese and tongue. Heaven.

Needless to say Lauren and I tore through them ... Michelle, that is a different story. Do not feel bad for her though, she received chicken thighs that had been slow cooking in Rotel so long that they feel apart with a spoon.

To wash things down, I baked a sweet potato pound cake. Yeah that's right, a Sweet ... Potato ... Pound ... Cake. The sweet potatoes cut right through the extra-sweetness typical of a pound cake and made for a warm, nutmegy gratification on a cold winter night. All was right in the world.

soup ii: french onion soup

...but we used red ones. The next soup from the cookbook was French Onion. A classic, I guess that is why the editor included it in the "Classic Soups" section at the beginning of the book. French Onion Soup holds a special place in our hearts. We once had a bowl at a TGI Friday's in the Minneapolis airport while waiting on a flight on our honeymoon (bet Michelle didn't think I remembered that one, score one for the home team) We also are served it every Christmas Eve at my father's. French Onion Soup is associated with good times in our life.

As I posted the other day, this soup has been in process since Thursday with the making of the stock. Preparation today for the soup consisted of thinly slicing (or not so thinly in my case, hopefully my knife skills will increase as I do all this chopping, mincing and slicing for these soups. Right now I just blame it on a crappy knife) four large red onions, and four leeks.

Mmmmmmm ... oniony goodness. Of course, I once again failed to follow the sage advice of my wife and wear my contact lens, by the fourth onion the sting had set in. We also found out that four large red onions is a lot of onions. After pulling out our biggest pan, they filled it to the rim. I swear the 3 lbs/1.36 kg that the onions weighed at the store became eight after slicing. Some real weird alchemy. Next was determining how to cut a leek, since neither of us had ever had to deal with one of these interesting boogers before. We stood in amazement at the amount of the leek that the internet deemed as non-usable.

At long last we got down to some cooking. 15 minutes on medium low for the onions, and then toss in the leeks and a little sugar and caramelize for 45 minute. Stirring frequently. Standing over a pan of lowly simmering onions for an hour does wonders for your general body odor. I am sure the Michelle will smell like an old sock for the next three days, good thing I have short hair. Finally we combined the onions with the broth and a little white wine, and we were good to go.

Ladling the soup out and firing up the broiler, we topped each bowl with freshly sliced baguette and some cave aged gruyere (we splurged a little here, but it was worth it). The soup turned out to be very sweet, in that good oniony sweet type of a way, and not nearly as salty as other versions of it. The soup was onion soup with beef undertones, as opposed to beef soup with onion. One of my favorite things in the world is a whole onion, slow cooked with Sunday roast. You peel back the layers and get to that tiny kernel in the middle, it is like eating a baked apple. That was what this whole soup tasted like.

By allowing the onions and leeks to caramelize low and slow on the stove top, we created a whole pot full of sweet goodness. The leeks reminded us most of cabbage after having been cooked and then melded in the soup. The cheese complimented it perfectly. By splurging on the cave cheese (And I thought our house stunk today, the smell must be unbearable in a cave full of cheese) we had something that was strong enough to be surprising, but of the right texture and taste to bring out the beef stock and more earthiness of the onions. Michelle noted that the cheese's consistency was perfect in that it was melty and bubbly, but not stringy, thus eating the soup was not frustrating as it sometimes can be. Overall an excellent meal.

French Onion Soup is now over (except for the leftovers, which will probably only get better in the fridge. I find that the fridge is like a reverse stovetop using the cold to mix and mingle the components of a dish), next up Split Pea Soup with Bacon.

But wait dear reader that is not all. This week you are in for an extra treat. I will be making an extra special post following dinner Tuesday night. Although it will not be about soup, the centerpiece of dinner that night is one that I am sure will intrigue everyone. Beef Tongue. Chew on that awhile.

stock or soup?

Which came first the stock or the soup? What is the difference between stock, bouillon and broth? If a dead stock were poured in a forest with no one around, would it make a sound? These are my new philosophical crises.

Recipe ii in the book is for french onion soup. A classic. But of course french onion calls for beef stock. Rather than listening to the sound reasoning of my wife, and running down to Publix (where shopping is pleasurable) to by a box of Swanson broth, I resolved to make my own. Enter the above questions. Beef stock is very similar to some beef soup.

Onions, carrots and beef all in a pot simmering for a long time, if that ain't soup then tell me what is. In fact after clarifying enough stock for the soon coming french onion soup, I threw the rest back in with the vegetables and beef shank for this evening's supper. I guess soup becomes stock when you remove all the bits, and stock becomes soup when you add it back in.

My second quandary when launching on this stock/broth/bouillon adventure was what to include in the bouquet garni, dried or fresh herbs. I remembered reading once in Men's Health that dried herbs performed better in slow cooked dishes, thus I went dry. We will have to plant an herb garden here soon, as almost all of these recipes call for thyme and flat leaf (Italian) parsley.

Finally, I have included an action shot. I am already tired of photographing food looking down into a pot. Perhaps I will do some research on photography, specifically of food.

soup i: chicken noodle soup

prepared: 1.7.11

The first soup we prepared was chicken noodle. Completion of this soup was easy enough as we have cooked the soup many times before. A little broth, some chicken, carrots and onions and we were good to go. We left the celery out because Michelle is not too fond of it. The soup probably, no definitely, would have been better had we prepared our own stock. Given the time constraints on our hunger, we decided to go with store broth.

We then debated whether or not we had enough broth. Boiling the egg noodles in the soup allowed them to soak up a lot of the broth. It turned out very noodlely (I love making up new words. Perhaps we should describe it as noodley, but I like 3 syllables better). The highlight of the soup was using the dark meat off the chicken that I had beer-canned the previous evening. The recipe called for white meat, but that is bland. As I get older I am finding the dark meat and its fattiness much more satisfying.

in the beginning

This blog is a chronicle of mine and Michelle's project of cooking through a cookbook. The cookbook in question is The Williams-Sonoma Collection: Soup. The goal is to cook one soup a week and make it through the book sometime later this year.

The soup project was inspired by Miranda when she gave us the book and a stock pot for Christmas.