Gentle Reader, While I’m closeted writing a novel I hope you’ll enjoy reading, it’s been suggested I post pieces from earlier years … years when I was freshly widowed, living in or near L.A. with my dog, waiting for Bill to appear. Do please bear with me!
A View from 15 years ago: Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Sunday morning, after making bacon for my granddaughters to go with our popovers, I started a pot of soup that I wanted to bring with me on a bit of a retreat … a couple of days out of town so I can work. No cooking. A comforting pot of soup already made.
The soup turned out to be — well, I want to say magnificent, but that’s a bit much, so I will say marvelous. What makes it so good? I figured it out. The vegetables are all happily married … a felicitous balance. Harmonious. There are lots of vegetables, but somehow I managed to add just the right amount of each so no flavor dominates.
Here’s roughly what I did…
First I whimsically poured about ¼ cup of the drippings from the bacon skillet into my big soup pot. Yes, I’m nominally a vegetarian, but not slavish, as you can see. I sauteed half an onion (coarsely chopped), a whole smallish head of celery (ditto) until they were gilded. I find the initial softening of onion and celery in fat makes an enormous difference in the finished flavor of any mixture–raw onion and celery can carry their sharpness to the end.
Next I peeled a couple of handfuls of baby potatoes, cut them in half, added them so they could golden up as well. Normally I leave the peel on potatoes for soup, but something made me peel them, and now I believe that lack of potato peel — which is bitterish — contributed to the soup’s delicacy.
More restraint: at this point I normally would have added garlic to the sauteing, but now I feel that LACK OF GARLIC in this soup is another reason it’s so delicate.
Next I added a dozen baby Brussels sprouts, tossed them around for a bit so they could soak up the lusty bacon flavor.
With the seasoning vegetables softened, I added a cupful or so of prepared crinkle-cut carrots (I know, I know, but I had lots to do besides make soup on Sunday).
Meanwhile, on the side, I started cooking a cup of dried Great Northern beans — fast soaked them (directions on the package), then cooked them in the pressure cooker. They emerged not quite done, so I simmered them uncovered in the pressure cooker pot with a handful of mixed dried mushrooms. No need to soak the mushrooms, they had ample time to hydrate as they simmered with the beans.
To the vegetable pot I added a big fat leek, sliced (about 1/8-inch thick), and a small bulb of fennel also sliced crosswise (a little thicker slices for the fennel). For liquid, I poured in a can (16 ounces) each of low-sodium chicken broth and beef broth — I find the flavor of these two together delicious. Stirred in half a big can of diced tomatoes — in my opinion, vegetable soup without tomatoes ain’t vegetable soup. Usually I would have used the whole can, but something restrained me, and am I glad. When the fennel had softened, I added half a sweet green pepper, coarsely chopped.
When the beans and mushrooms were tender, in they went with their broth together with the final vegetable, a 2-cup package (naughty girl, Sylvia, using prepared vegetables, but I was grateful for the gift of time) of fresh small English peas. I’ve never bought these before, but they turned out to be an incomparable addition — their texture is a lovely pop in the mouth, something one never gets from frozen peas.
Onion, celery, fennel, leek, potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts, white beans, green pepper, tomatoes, mushrooms, peas with not too much broth. That’s another of this soup’s virtues. The base is not thick like minestrone but the vegetables don’t float in a sea of broth either. Enough to cover. No herb (more restraint!), just sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Oh, yes, and a tad bacon fat (other days, of course, I would use olive oil). For garnish, I sprinkle on shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Where did this new wave of restraint come from? Beats me. But it has taught me an invaluable lesson (I will not say Less is more … will not).
Brrrrr, it’s soup weather. One big batch provides meals for days–the above makes 4 main dish servings–growing tastier with each day. Make some!
Use a light hand, eh? And don’t forget crusty bread for sopping up the bottom of the bowl.
2 Comments. Leave new
Sylva, when I win the lottery, I’m going to pay you handsomely to cook for me. The only thing better than reading about your wonderful cooking is actually eating it.
Deborah, dear kind generous Deborah, thank you in abundance for words that lift my spirits!