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Maximum Flavor in a Minimal Broth

Posted on March 12, 2015 by DebbieN

minimal carrot onion soup

My kid had the flu just in time for President’s Day (and both Friday and Monday off from school). How does this happen in a place where it actually hit 90 degrees one day??? How annoying! But her classmates had been catching it right and left all through January and coming back to school still iffy. She and I had both gotten the flu shot a couple of months before, achy arms and all. The prevention rate this year isn’t all that good; only about 23%. And people have naturally been grumbling if or when they catch the flu anyway.

But I’m still pro-vaccine, and here’s why: The minute she woke up with fever, I called and got an appointment with her pediatrician for that morning, no being palmed off on the advice nurse (or the muzak they put you on while waiting half an hour). When you’ve got a diabetic kid with flu, you take a deep breath, channel your Brooklyn-raised mother and elbow your way through to get seen before the kid has a chance to develop nausea and vomiting, which makes it trickier to manage food, insulin and so on safely. I mean, we’ve done it, it’s doable, and we’ll probably have to do it again at some point, but it’s a total pain.

Luckily for me, the pediatrician is also from Brooklyn and doesn’t take offense. She and the nurses had been run off their feet, and yet she was glad we got our act together early enough for Tamiflu to do some good, because the poor kid just ahead of us at the clinic was wobbling and actually fainted just as he got into the exam room. Five days his family waited and he had serious fluid in his lungs. So I stopped feeling selfish and stupid for bringing my kid in when she was mostly okay except for a fever. And I hope the other kid’s better by now.

So I wanted to pass this on: the doctor told us the best-bet recommendation is still to get a flu shot. Why? Because even though you might still catch flu, the severe hospital-level cases this year with pneumonia and worse, at least in Southern California, are turning out to be almost all unvaccinated patients. That’s a result you might not have expected. You need that insider perspective to see there’s a more serious benefit hidden behind the obvious numbers. And the serious cases are pretty bad. So if you haven’t gotten a flu shot yet, go get one now.

And my kid did indeed get better by the time school started up again, and my husband and I managed not to catch the flu from her, which was good, because with a snarky bored teen home on a 4-day weekend, the last thing either of us needed was to catch it from her just when she was finally back at school.

But we needed soup in a big way. And with a sick kid in the house I had less time to go shopping. I imagine (because we had the fluke 90-degree day, I have to imagine it or else talk to my poor mom in Boston) that people caught in the big snows back east also have these problems of limited shopping mobility, patience and scant last-ditch vegetabalia in the house. What did we have left that was soup-worthy?

Well…there’s always the can of tomato paste for nearly instant cream-of-tomato, which my daughter likes when she’s sick. The real cream-of-tomato, made with actual tomatoes, is more voluptuous but takes 45 minutes on the stove and involves baking soda to tame the acidity before you add cream, plus the use of a stick blender which I aspire to but don’t yet own. Tomato paste doesn’t have much acidity to start with, so you could just skip the baking soda and heat with milk instead of water if you wanted to. We generally leave milk and cream out and add a dash of vinegar to restore some semblance of tomato flavor.

–  –  –

Tomato Soup in the Microwave (AKA, “bonus” recipe for what it’s worth)

  • 1/2 can tomato paste (no recipe EVER specifies a whole can, as far as I can tell…must be some kind of culinary superstition, much like “the Scottish play”…so just scoop the rest into a ziplock baggie, squeeze the air out, and throw it in the freezer for next time…)
  • 1-2 c. water (enough to bring it up to the thickness you like best for soup)
  • small splash of vinegar, any kind
  • small clove of garlic, minced, mashed or grated
  • pinch of cumin or thyme, optional
  • salt to taste after cooking
  • splash of milk or half-and-half, if you like it

In a microwaveable bowl, use a whisk or fork to mix the water gradually into the tomato paste until it reaches the thick-but-not-too-thick consistency you prefer for cream-of-tomato soup. Add the garlic, vinegar, and cumin or thyme, cover the bowl lightly and microwave 2-3 minutes or until heated through. If you want to add a little milk or half-and-half afterward, you probably could, just don’t add it and then heat or it’ll curdle from the vinegar (or leave the vinegar out to start with if you want it bland).

–  –  –

But down to business with the “not-chicken” vegetable broth. I’ve already gone about as far as I can go with bok choy and shiitake broth, up to and including hot-and-sour soup. Plus we didn’t actually have any bok choy left. Feh.

So the usual carrot-onion-celery not-chicken broth should have been next…but no celery either. Double feh. And no fresh dill–dry we had, but you know fresh makes a world of improvement. So it wasn’t looking all that good in the clear soup department this week. And I needed some for me, even though I only had a head cold and a bad temper and a sassy, feverish bored teen at home watching cartoons.

(BTW: if you luck out with a fresh bunch of dill that’s too big to use up quickly, wash the rest well, twist off the stem ends, stuff the dill into a ziplock sandwich bag with the air squeezed out and freeze it–it’ll stay good for a couple of months minimum, and you can just quickly crumble a frozen bit into whatever dish you want, then toss the bag back in the freezer. Or in Boston, just leave it out on the porch and rediscover it sometime in April.)

Normally I’d say onion and carrots alone aren’t enough for a soup; you have to have something else in there or when you add garlic it’ll just be about the garlic. Which is fine for me, of course, because my motto still seems to be, “If there’s no garlic, is it really food?”

True, the Italians have acqua pazza (“crazy water”), which is basically garlic broth. I think both Spain and France have similar offerings. But normal people might want something a little more complex or at least balanced.

My usual MO for vegetable soup and bok choy broth is just to microwave the base vegetables to wilt them and then bring them up with a bit of water, add garlic, herbs, and any other appropriate flavorings, and heat again. Pretty basic, and very quick–5 minutes, maybe 10 for a couple of quarts that will last me a week. But with such a limited vegetable base as onion and carrot, I was going to need something more.

So I scrounged again in the fridge. Carrots and a red onion…and a clove of garlic. A sprig of thyme–well. A little leftover white wine. Yes. OK.

It would all be kind of blah and pale, though, if I just dumped it in a bowl with some water and hit the nuke button. When you have so few main ingredients and they’re both boring when simply boiled or nuked, you have to strategize a little to get the best out of them quickly. Continue reading →

Filed under: frugality, Microwave tricks, soup, Vegetabalia, wine | Tagged: , , , , , | Comments Off on Maximum Flavor in a Minimal Broth

Souper

Posted on January 20, 2011 by DebbieN

I’m a hardcore used book glutton–you can often find me squinting at the Friends of the Library Last Chance shelves for the 25 cent specials, wondering whether some of the offerings are really worth a quarter or not, and if not (as is often the case), how come the same book (Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons both come to mind here, as do any pseudo-psychology guru selections and Betty Crocker spiralbound works from the 1970s) in slightly better condition is going for two bucks upstairs in the Friends’ main room. But I rarely come away entirely disappointed, because the used book shelves tend to contain quirky and entertaining gems you can no longer find in the thinning selection of bestsellers at your local Borders if it’s still open.

Last spring, I picked up just such a gem at my synagogue’s library used book sale and have been suitably impressed with my bookhound instincts ever since.

The Soup Peddler's Slow & Difficult Soups by David AnselThe Soup Peddler’s Slow & Difficult Soups by David Ansel (Ten Speed Press, 2005) has sat on my desk for about six months, aging gracefully under a shifting pile of papers, notes, my camera, my blank book cooking diaries, and other detritus, and every once in a while I unbury it again, read a bit at random, thumb through it, and resolve that I really MUST review it here.

Ansel’s book is the story of how he became the Soup Peddler, a Baltimore-born Jew cooking, peddling and, I guess, pedaling homemade soups of all kinds to subscribing customers all over a small town in Texas.

It’s a little hard to describe. The Soup Peddler’s Slow & Difficult Soups is something in the vein of MFK Fisher’s A Long Time Ago in France or Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun, but it’s even more in the vein of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegon Days, John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (only without the murder or most of the voodoo, I think–I haven’t finished Soups yet), Woody Allen’s Radio Days and almost any of the local asides in Kinky Friedman (another slightly more famous/infamous Texas Jew)–pick one of his earlier mysteries, I don’t know, but let’s say the one where he and his sister (both adults) are arguing and each tells the other they “mourn the fact” that the other one’s being an idiot. Only with soup recipes and the sometimes risqué, sometimes heartbreaking tales Ansel’s Soupies recount in their email orders.

Since I’ve only been thumbing through it, not reading straight from beginning to end, I can only give you a taster here:

I hopped on Old Yellow [his bike], coasted down Mary Street straight across the creek. … I found the Follicle Fondler on his front porch stropping his scissors.

“Sir,” he said.

“Yes sir,” I said. “I’m here to take you up on your offer to discuss the gumbo.”

He inflated his great lungs and, setting down his scissors, exhaled through his flaring nostrils. “Let’s go inside,” he said. He cleared off the kitchen table  and rummaged in the corner, pulling out a roll of maps. He laid them out on the table.

“I hope you’re prepared to go all the way,” he said.

…

He drew up his lower lip. I raised my eyebrows hopefully. “Good,” he said. “Where are you going to smoke the ducks?”

“The Smoked Salmon Man has promised his smoker.”

“Does he have access to an ample supply of mesquite?”

“Yes, he…”

“WRONG!!!” he boomed. I steadied myself against the kitchen counter. “Always use hickory.”

“Yes, hickory, got it.”

“So,” he said, narrowing his eyes and softening his voice, “will you be using okra?”

I inhaled and paused, my eyes darting back and forth across the kitchen for a clue. “Yes,” I said confidently, smiling.

“Good,” he said…”We need to talk about the roux. What are your plans for the roux?”

“Well, that’s kind of what I came here to talk about. I…”

“Son, this is not a time for tomfoolery.”

“I wasn’t…I just…”

“If you’re not serious about this, we can just roll up these maps right now and that will be that.”

“No sir. I’m serious. I’m totally serious.”

“Like, totally?”

“Totally.”

“Okay. You’re going to make a dark-brown roux. You’re going to stir it without stopping till it’s done. You’re going to take it to the edge of burning. You’re going to sweat. Don’t sweat into the roux. You’re going to get burnt. Don’t cry into the roux. You’re going to wear your arm in a splint the following week. A normal pot of roux lasts about three beers. Let’s see, you’re making (inaudible) gallons (inaudible) carry the five,” he mumbled, counting on his thick fingers. “Your roux should take about thirty beers.”

excerpted from The Soup Peddler’s Slow & Difficult Soups by David Ansel (Ten Speed Press, 2005)

Ansel’s business is still local, but he’s expanded enough to have a staff do some of the onion chopping and bicycle delivery for him. If you’re in his part of Texas, look up The Soup Peddler World Headquarters, which contains more anecdotes as well as ordering information if you want to become a Soupie yourself. If not, look for this book. I entirely wish it were available at Borders, front and center of the cookbook section, but it isn’t.

Meanwhile, I’m off to try Ansel’s version of Shorbat Rumman (yellow split pea soup with mint, spinach, parsley, cilantro, scallions, lime juice and pomegranate syrup), of which he writes:

Neither slow nor difficult…Dazzle even your most Republican friends with this soup, and when they ask, “What’s that taste?” just say casually, “Oh, that’s pomegranate syrup. We like to keep some around the house just in case we’re having Iraqi food for dinner, don’t you?”

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High-speed soup–tomato vegetable

Posted on June 7, 2008 by DebbieN

This is something I came up with about 10 years ago. It’s disgustingly easy to make, dirt cheap, vibrant in flavor, filling, entirely real, salt-free, and completely microwaveable. Also diet-smart: eating this every day for lunch, along with a veggie burger or a half-cup of beans for protein, helped me lose 20 pounds in a couple of months. And I’m not naturally good at that.

This vegetable soup has no salt, but it has lots of flavor and lots of vegetables–not a coincidence. The flavor of the vegetables melds with the dill and pepper and garlic, and there’s no salt to drown it out. So instead of being insipid, it, like many homemade soups, gets better the next day. And it takes maybe 15 minutes from start to finish for about 2 quarts of soup, fully cooked.

The trick to getting the most flavor from the vegetables without salt? Wilt the “aromatics” (onion, celery, and carrots) together first, with a little olive oil and nothing else for a few minutes, and then add the liquids and herbs. The order really makes a difference: your aromatics will release a lot more flavor this way than if you added them raw to the liquid ingredients and cooked it all together from the start (see, sometimes the French are right). The small amount of olive oil also helps draw out and trap the flavors (some flavors are fat-soluble) without adding a lot of calories.

High-speed Tomato Vegetable Soup

  • 3 big carrots, peeled and chopped bite-size
  • 3 stalks celery in bite-size pieces
  • 1 big onion, diced
  • drizzle (1-2 T) olive oil
  • 1 28-oz can or 2 15-oz cans salt-free tomatoes in their own juice (e.g., Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods)
  • 1 big clove garlic, grated or minced
  • 2-3 T fresh chopped dill or 1 T dried dill
  • 12 or so whole black peppercorns

1. In 2.5 qt pyrex bowl (or the like), mix onions, carrots, and celery. Drizzle olive oil over and stir lightly to mix. Put the lid over (I use a Corelle dinner plate, how chic) and microwave 5 min. on HIGH.
2. Pour the tomatoes and juice over the wilted vegetables, and break up the tomatoes to bite-size pieces as best possible. Add water to within an inch of the top, stir.
3. Add garlic, dill, and peppercorns, cover and microwave 5 min. to heat through.
4. Serve immediately or refrigerate overnight to meld and sweeten the flavors.

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