La Soupe de Louviers

Adapted from Epicurious recipe from 2000 here

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

1 pound leeks, trimmed, diced

1 large carrot, trimmed, diced

3 medium turnip, diced (peeled if you prefer i-- i didn't)

3 stalks celery, diced

4 medium potatoes, diced (peeled if you prefer-- I didn't)

A half small savoy cabbage, thinly sliced (i just used a green cabbage)

1 quart water

1 scant tablespoon coarse sea salt

2 whole cloves

2 dried imported bay leaves

20 stalks fresh thyme

Freshly ground nutmeg (I forgot this)

1. Place the oil and the onions in a heavy stockpot over medium heat and cook until the onion begins to turn translucent and give up some of its liquid, about 4 minutes. Add the leeks, the turnips, the carrot, and the celery, stir and cook, stirring frequently, until all of the vegetables are translucent but not limp, about 15 minutes. Add the potatoes and the cabbage, stir, then pour over the water. Add the remaining ingredients, stir, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low so the soup is simmering merrily and cook until the vegetables are tender through but not mushy, about 20 minutes. Adjust the seasoning and remove the bay leaves, the cloves, and the thyme.

2. Sprinkle each serving with a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg and serve immediately.

Soup Returns!

We are back in business. Winter soup season has officially begun, starting with last night's Soup at Sharon's.

What a wonderful way to spend at chilly November evening.

Tomato Soup with Dos Fennels

Adapted from Molly Wizenberg's A HOMEMADE LIFE

3 T. olive oil

1 large yellow onion, quartered and thinly sliced

2 medium fennel bulbs, trimmed, quartered from root to stalk, thinly sliced

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tsp. fresh thyme (I used lemon thyme)

2 tsp fennel seed

Two 28 oz. cans whole peeled tomatoes

water 3/4 salt, or to taste,

Sugar, to taste (I didn't use any.)

Red wine vinegar, to taste (I forgot this.)

In a large (5-quart) pot, warm the oil over med. heat. Add the onion & fennel, cook, stirring occasionally, until onion softens, about 5 min. Add the garlic and cook about 5-8 min. until onion is translucent and soft, stirring frequently. Add the thyme and fennel seeds, and cook about 2 min.

Using your hand and the can lid, pour the liquid from the tomotoes into the pot. Stir well. Crush the tomatoes in their cans, using your hands or a potato mash into small chunks. Add the tomatoes to the pot. Then fill 1 empty tomato can with cold water and pour into pot. Bring to boil. Then, simmer gently, uncovered, about 45 min.

Add the salt, sugar, and red wine vinegar to taste.

Serve with crusty bread, parmesan or goat cheese, or drizzle with olive oil.

I doubled this, and it served the coalition dinner, and sent everyone home with a quart (including the cook).

Chowing down on Chowder

This soup was made from Primrose Farm potatoes and carrots, combined with some farmer market corn and peppers frozen from last summer. Recipe is modified from Epicurious: I modified the recipe slightly by only using 2 cups of 2% milk. No scallions, no cilantro. Obviously, with frozen corn, there was no cob, so I basically skipped the first step. Started off by sauteing the onions with a leek. Added the potatoes in later.

Roadtested by David. Good results.

Potato Corn Chowder

• 3 ears corn, shucked
• 2 quarts water
• 1 pound red potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (2 1/4 cups)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 large carrot, halved lengthwise, then sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 2 thyme sprigs
• 2 Turkish bay leaves or 1 California
• 3 cups heavy cream
• 3 scallions, finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne

Garnish:

• chopped cilantro

Cut corn from each cob, then hold cob upright in a bowl and scrape with knife to extract "milk."

Bring cobs, water, potatoes, and 1/2 teaspoon salt to a boil in a large pot, covered, then boil, covered, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Discard cobs.

Meanwhile, cook onion, carrot, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until onion is pale golden, about 10 minutes.

Add bell pepper, corn and its "milk," thyme, and bay leaves. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, 15 minutes.

Stir in potatoes with water and cream and gently boil, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until reduced to about 7 cups, about 30 minutes. Stir in scallions, white pepper, cayenne, and salt to taste. Discard bay leaves and thyme sprigs.

For my dahl-lings...

Dal, Dhal, Dahl, Daal... all acceptable. Wikipedia describes dal as a bland stew made of pulses. They certainly have the pulses part right. The word dal also describes the pulse (chick pea, lentil, kidney bean, etc). The consensus last night was that we won't stop attempting dal until we've reached the nirvaniciousness of Dohban's. And when we've figured that out, we certainly won't stop making dal!

Last night's dal was about the simplest I've made, except that I didn't have enough of the pulse of choice, red lentils. So I added the last of the kidney beans leftover from last month's sopa de fejão vermelho, and some white beans. I had to pressure cook the beans in order to catch up with the speedy-cooking red lentils, which were already boiling. (It's not that pressure-cooking isn't simple, but it was only the second time I tried this potentially explosive, face-scarring piece of engineering; plus, when I took out the pressure-cooker, some memories sprang from the cabinet too: of cooking fejão vermelho with Filipe over Christmas, calling his darling mom for the recipe, and staying up late with pots and pans and good smells everywhere!)

ingredients:
1 c red lentils
4 cups water
1 t turmeric powder
3/4 t salt
1 1/2 T canola oil (or ghee)
1 t cumin seeds
1 onion, chopped pretty fine
1/4 t cayenne
1 m tomato, chopped pretty fine
splash lemon juice

(I didn't have any ghee, green chilies, or cilantro so I left those out. I also added kidney beans and white beans and their cooking liquid.)

method:

1. Start 1/2 c beans (red and white in this case) in a pressure cooker with 2-4 cups of water.)


2. Bring to a boil: lentils, water, turmeric, salt.


3. As froth starts to build up, reduce heat and skim off the froth.


4. After frothing settles, reduce heat to low. Cover, leaving a gap to prevent froth formation and boiling over.


5. Cook lentils until soft (15-20 mins)


6. Heat oil on medium-high. Add cumin seeds and reduce heat immediately to medium. Add onions. Reduce heat to low and cook until the onions are sweet, tender, and delicious. The reason you start with high heat is to release the flavor from the cumin seeds, but careful -they can burn!


7. Add cayenne and tomatoes. Cook until tomatoes are soft.


8. Add seasoning and cooked beans to cooked lentils and simmer for another 10 mins.


9. Add lemon juice and garnish with fresh cilantro.


10. Bring to Brynn's house, where Sharon will tell everyone how good your last dal was (must have been a fluke) and hyper-inflate expectations for this simple one...

The Premise

We believe that SOUP can make us better people, better friends and better fed.

We believe that SOUP should be shared.

We believe that sharing SOUP can give us the warming comfort necessary in this big bad world.

And now, let us share our recipes.

Sincerely,

The SOUP Coalition