12 posts tagged “soup”

Yup, there's three different types—or rather garlic prepared in three different ways—in this soup. Sadly, the weather just wasn't cold enough to truly enjoy it. This would be a killer soup for a cold winter day. However, if you're cooking for garlic-fiends, it's a killer any day.

This is yet another excellent America's Test Kitchen recipe. It uses minced garlic, sautéed; an entire bulb of garlic, simmered; and garlic chips, deep fried. Hey, garlic is good for you! Plus, there are an awful lot of vampires hopping around these days...

For the soup:
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter
- White and light green parts from a medium leek, chopped (don't forget to wash it)
- 6 cloves of minced garlic
- One whole bulb of garlic
- 5-6 cups low-sodium chicken broth/stock
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 lb. potatoes (use high and low starch taters for a varied texture—like russet and red)
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 1/2 tsp minced fresh thyme (less, if using dried)
- 1/4 fresh, minced chives for garnish

For the garlic chips:
- Olive oil for deep frying (in the smallest pot you have)
- Half a dozen cloves of garlic (or to you liking)

1. The soup starts by softening the finely chopped white and light green parts of a leek, in butter for about 5-8 minutes.
2. Then, add the minced garlic for 30 seconds, and a bunch of low-sodium chicken stock, a couple of bay leaves and a bit of salt—and an entire bulb of garlic with the top 1/3 cut off. If need be, add more stock to cover the bulb.
3. Cover partially and let simmer for 30-40 minutes, or until the garlic bulb is soft. Remove the garlic bulb, and using paper towels, squeeze out the contents and mash it into a pulp with a fork. Add it to the soup.
4. Add potatoes, cut into 1/2" cubes (for a more varied texture, you can use a mix of russet and red potatoes). Let simmer for an additional 20 minutes.
5. Bring olive oil to medium-high heat in a small pan and add thinly sliced garlic chips sliced lengthwise. This, you have to watch like a hawk, because I left them in too long and they got a tad too dark. They are supposed to have a bittersweet flavor, but the darker they get, the more bitter they get. I left them in too long.
6. Take the soup off the heat and add the cream.
7. Buzz the soup with a stick blender, according to desired thickness/chunkiness.
8. Serve garnished with garlic chips and chopped chives.

Dagnabbit, I keep writing "garlish" every time I try to write "garnish." I'm all garlicked out here. (Clue ridiculously hammy Klaus Kinski: "Listen to them: the children of the night—what music they make!") (Oh yeah, that's the ticket: I wanna be the Alton Brown of food blogging, heheh.)

One thing I seriously dislike, is pretentiousness. Maybe I've got an overly sensitive bullshit detector, but I really do appreciate the old, no-nonsense kind of approach, you know? Good thing I'm a computer nerd, and not a fashion designer, hehe.

But sometimes, the old salt-of-the-earth style just won't do. I mean, there IS a good reason why there are microbreweries and non-franchised hamburger joints: Man cannot live on Budweiser and Bigmacs alone -- at least not a sensible man.

So -- while I seriously appreciate unpretentiousness, I find myself disappointed in the Better Homes and Gardens' New Cookbook's recipe for Minestrone Soup. It relies far too heavily on canned, and pre-mixed ingredients and spices. I had some carrots and celery around, and added that to the mix, to try elevate it a little, but the end result was just depressing.

I made a minestrone soup a couple of years ago, and it was truly great. I froze it, and used it as a starter for later meals -- it always went over really well. But whatever recipe I used, it sure as hell wasn't this one. Bah.

This is from Michael Smith's Chef at Home. This dude is almost as much of a ham as Raray. The concept of the show is probably one of the more contrived ones I know of. His secret is "Cooking, without a recipe" -- ie., he pretends to have no idea what to cook, but somehow manages to pull out a perfectly matched starter, main course and dessert just from "random" things he finds in his fridge and pantry. He tends to say things like "Oh yeah, I made this the other day! I think I'll use this" a lot.

I'm not saying the guy couldn't pull this off, but as a home cooking show, it's a tad unrealistic. The whole thing reminds me of this crazy cookbook written by some British Baroness (or whatever title it was), that actually included sending your game warden out for a couple of pheasants.

Well, enough bitching -- it doesn't matter if the concept is contrived, as long as the show is instructional -- and it is. So if you can stand the scenery chewing antics, it's not too bad... This salmon chowder was really easy to make, and tasty -- and I easily found time to make the biscuits that accompanied it.

This was made earlier, and frozen. Soups are great that way -- easy starters.

I don't make as much soup as I'd like to I guess. The weather is pretty hot most of the time, around here. There's nothing like a bowl of hot split pea soup on a cold day.

Made with yellow and green split peas (actually, I think the yellow ones might have been some chana dal). A soup & salad can make a great, fairly light meal. Plus, you can freeze the leftovers and serve it as a starter another day. Which I did here, a week later.

In this case, the soup is used as a starter. It was made earlier, and frozen. Soups are great for a cold day -- and easy to make. And very quick to, if you've got a blender; stick or stand. There's nothing like sitting down with a chunk of fresh bread and bowl of hot soup when it's cold outside...

The classical Thai soup Tom Yum comes in a few different varieties -- this one's chicken. It's also supposed to look a lot more appetizing than this. For some reason, with Asian soups, I keep ending up with an almost clear broth.It should have a much more reddish hue.

I really like clam chowder, but for some reason, I just don't make it very often. It may be that I've got a slight aversion to using canned seafood -- but then again, I'm pretty sure that the clam chowder you get in restaurants, ain't made from freshly shucked clams...

Soup of potato, carrot and leek. A salad with garlic-rosemary bread. Very nice on hot and cold days. I tried making some clever and artistic yin-yang teardrops with some cream, but that didn't work out. I should have tried to make a smiley face instead.

Apparently, you're not supposed to try create the actual shape when you drop cream in a soup -- you should just drop a blob in and then manipulate it with a toothpick or something sharp. Ah, you live and learn!