Read Around My French Table Online
Authors: Dorie Greenspan
Around My French Table (17 page)
TO MAKE THE SALAD AND SERVE:
Divide the mushrooms, scallions (if using), parsley, and chives among six soup plates; season lightly with salt and white pepper. Ladle the soup into the bowls, and top each with a dollop of crème fraîche, if desired.
MAKES 6 SERVINGS
SERVING
Arrange the salad in the bowls, and ladle the soup over the salad—if you're looking for a little drama, do this at the table. If you'd like, finish the soup with a spoonful of crème fraîche.
STORING
The soup can be covered and refrigerated for up to 3 days or packed airtight and frozen for up to 2 months.
aka Stone Soup (The Carrot Version)
W
HENEVER IT LOOKS LIKE THERE'S NOTHING
in the house to eat, I declare that I'll make stone soup. The reference is to a children's story about a beggar who comes to a house and offers to make soup from a stone in exchange for being invited in. His host and hostess are intrigued by the idea, welcome him, and the tale begins. First the man places a stone in a tall soup pot. He adds water and suggests that the soup would taste really good with a little onion. When the onion is added, he suggests some carrots. And, so it goes, until he's got a thick, savory soup packed with vegetables simmering on the stove.
My "stone" is a couple of always-in-the-kitchen ingredients plus one star vegetable, and the soup is built on the traditional French formula for a soup made with ingredients from the market or
potager,
the kitchen garden. The base of the soup is slowly cooked aromatics: onions, for sure; garlic, if you'd like; and celery, if you have it. The liquid can be water—in a French home, it would likely be water flavored with a few bouillon cubes or maybe a bit of whatever cooking juices remain from a roast or a chicken—or it can be canned chicken broth (an ingredient that's hard to come by in French supermarkets) or soup from a dried mix (an often-used French shortcut). The thickener is optional, but the standard is one smallish potato. Or, if there's rice left over from dinner the night before, the potato will be spared, and the rice will get tossed in.
The main event is the vegetable, and it can be just about anything or even a couple of anythings: I use carrots routinely, but the featured ingredient can be broccoli, celery (root or stalk), potatoes (in which case, leeks would be good too), parsnips, beets, or cabbage (and bacon). After that, the rest depends on whim and what's around. Herbs are a good addition, ditto spices. A little ginger is good with carrots, more garlic is fine with broccoli, a scrape of nutmeg is nice with cabbage, and dill can be right with beets. The soup can be left chunky or pureed into velvety smoothness, and if there's a spoonful of crème fraîche or a bit of heavy cream in the house, it can be added for a drop of luxe.
As you can see, it's more an idea for a recipe than a real recipe, and it's meant to be kept in mind when you're in the market and at your wits' end wondering what to cook.
| 2 | tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil, or a combination |
| 1 | pound carrots, trimmed, peeled, and thinly sliced |
| 1 | big onion (I like to use a Spanish onion), coarsely chopped |
| 2 | celery stalks, trimmed and |
| 1-2 | garlic cloves, split, germ |
| 1 | 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped (optional) |
| 1 | rosemary sprig (optional) |
| 1 | thyme sprig (optional) |
| Salt | |
| 6 | cups chicken broth (plus per haps 1 cup more, for thinning) |
| 1 | small potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes |
| Freshly ground pepper |
Put a large Dutch oven or soup pot over medium heat and add the butter and/or oil. When the butter is melted, or the oil is hot, toss in the carrots, onion, celery, and, if you're using them, the garlic, ginger, rosemary, and/or thyme. Season with salt, reduce the heat to low, and give the ingredients a couple of turns to coat them with butter or oil. Cover the pot and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring a few times, until the vegetables are very soft but not colored.
Remove the lid, pour in the chicken broth, turn up the heat, and bring to a boil. Toss in the potato cubes and adjust the heat so that the soup is at a simmer. Partially cover the pot and let the soup simmer gently for another 20 minutes, or until the potato can be mashed easily with a spoon.
Now you must decide if you'd like to serve the soup just as it is or if you'd like to puree it—I usually opt for the puree. In either case, do the best you can to fish out the rosemary and thyme sprigs, if you used them. If you're serving the soup in its chunky state, taste it and season as needed with salt and pepper. Or puree the soup in a blender (which will give you the silkiest texture) or food processor, or use a food mill or an immersion blender. Taste it for salt and pepper and reheat it before serving. If you find the soup a little too thick for your taste, when you're reheating it, pour in enough additional chicken broth (or water) to get the texture you like.
MAKES 8 SERVINGS
SERVING
If you'd like, top the pureed soup with a dollop of crème fraîche or sour cream or a spoonful of unsweetened whipped cream and a sprinkling of chopped fresh rosemary or thyme. The soup is also good with a swirl of Basil Pesto (
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) or a drizzle of olive or nut oil.
STORING
The soup can be covered and refrigerated for up to 3 days or packed airtight and kept in the freezer for up to 3 months. Bring the soup to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes or so before serving.
J
ERUSALEM ARTICHOKES, SOMETIMES CALLED SUNCHOKES
, have a place as deeply etched in the memories of many French people as potatoes are engraved in the minds of the Irish, and for exactly the same reason: they were the food of survival. A gnarly tuber that tastes like an artichoke (a mild artichoke, to my mind) but looks like a mix of sweet potato (its color ranges from beige to rusty red), ginger (it's got that knobbiness), and water chestnut (its texture is similar), the Jerusalem artichoke was one of the few vegetables in the markets during World War II and for some years after.
And while there are older French people who won't touch the vegetable—"I ate enough of them to last a lifetime," one elderly woman told me—young chefs, for whom the tuber is memory-free, have taken to it, turning it into soups and purees; pairing it with herbs, mushrooms, and potatoes; and finding that, like the globe artichoke, it's great with truffles.
When I started cooking in Paris, I knew nothing about the Jerusalem artichoke's history or the sentiment surrounding it, and so I happily made this thick, deeply flavored soup and blithely served it to my French friends—all of whom loved it and many of whom were surprised to find themselves enjoying it, since they'd never been fed the vegetable, just the wartime stories.
Jerusalem artichokes in France are about the size of a medium potato and usually have a reddish color; in America, they're smaller and beiger. No matter what they look like, they need to be washed—scrubbed, really—before using. You can peel them, but it's not necessary. Sometimes I take a vegetable peeler and give each knob a quick once-over, getting off most of the peel but not fussing with whatever is deep in the crannies. If you do peel the chokes, drop them into a bowl of water with a squirt of lemon juice to keep them from darkening.
| FOR THE SOUP | |
| 3 | tablespoons unsalted butter |
| 2 | large onions, halved length-wise and thinly sliced |
| 2 | celery stalks, trimmed and thinly sliced |
| 1 | leek, white and light green parts only, split lengthwise, washed, and sliced |
| 2 | garlic cloves, split, germ removed, and sliced |
| Salt and freshly ground white pepper | |
| 1¾ | pounds Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes), scrubbed and cut into 1-inch cubes |
| 6 | cups chicken broth |
| | |
| FOR THE PARSLEY COULIS | |
| 1 | packed cup fresh parsley leaves |
| 2½ | tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil |
| Salt and freshly ground white pepper | |
| | |
| About ½ cup crème fraîche or heavy cream, for serving |
TO MAKE THE SOUP:
Melt the butter in a large Dutch oven or soup pot over low heat. Toss in the onions, celery, leek, and garlic and stir until they're glistening with butter. Season with salt and white pepper and cook, stirring now and then, until the vegetables are soft, about 10 minutes. Add the Jerusalem artichokes, season again with salt and white pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes more—you want the vegetables to be soft but not colored. Pour in the broth and bring it to a boil, then lower the heat and cook, partially covered, for 45 minutes, or until the artichokes fall apart when pierced with a fork.
MEANWHILE, MAKE THE PARSLEY COULIS:
Put a saucepan of salted water on to boil; fill a bowl with ice water. Toss the parsley into the boiling water and blanch for 30 seconds, then drain and drop into the ice water (this will set the color). Remove the parsley and dry well between paper towels, then, using a mini food processor (my favorite tool for this), regular processor, or blender, puree the leaves with the olive oil. Season with salt and white pepper, and set aside.
When the soup is done, remove the pot from the heat and puree it using a blender or food processor; or use an immersion blender. This soup is best when it's smoothest, so puree it well, and if you think it needs it, push it through a strainer after it's been blended. Taste for salt and pepper.
Reheat the soup if necessary, then ladle into plates or bowls and garnish with the cream and parsley coulis.
MAKES 8 SERVINGS
SERVING
Ladle the soup into soup plates or bowls. Put a spoonful of cream in the center of each bowl and drizzle a circlet of parsley coulis around the cream—leave it to your guests to swirl everything together.
STORING
The soup will keep covered for up to 3 days in the refrigerator or, packed airtight, for up to 2 months in the freezer. The coulis can be kept for up to 3 days in the fridge.
BONNE IDÉE
You can replace the parsley coulis with a drizzle of truffle oil. If you've got truffles, you can't do better than to top each serving with a few thin rounds. The soup also takes to a topping of coarsely grated Parmesan or a side order of country bread, toasted and topped with butter or truffle butter.
The French are very fond of soups they call
velouté,
or velvety, those beautifully smooth purees that, were no one around to scold you, you would slurp. Because the ingredients have been pureed—and often pushed through a strainer après blending to ensure their impeccable velvetiness—every spoonful is as smooth as the last was and the next will be. I, for one, enjoy this textural uniformity and find, in fact, that the soup gets more interesting with each spoonful even though the consistency never changes.
Be that as it may, it's fun to add a little surprise to these smoothies, and the French often do this by swirling in another flavor, color, or texture. The most common swirl-in is the ever-at-hand and always delicious crème fraîche, but a few drops of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, or soy sauce drizzled over a soup will do the trick as well. I'm partial to spooning a little pesto or other herb coulis into soups.
To make the coulis, I puree fresh herbs with salt, pepper, and enough olive oil to make the mix swirlable. (Do this in a food processor, mini or regular; a blender; or mortar and pestle; or use an immersion blender.) And, depending on the soup, I might mix in some grated citrus zest too—zest is a great picker-upper for winter vegetable soups.
But not all swirl-ins have to go on top of the soup. These days, lots of stylish bistros bring soup plates to the table devoid of the soup but sporting a spare still life of crunchies. In the bottom of the bowl, there might be some tiny croutons, a fluff of chopped herbs, teensy cubes of onions or peppers or mushrooms, slivers of garlic, or pieces of nuts—little additions that will be covered when the soup is ladled into the bowl and will emerge when you swirl it around. It's surprising, delicious, and another way to add even more flavor and panache to comforting soups.