Caldo Verde

I am a sucker for recipes with short ingredient lists. Who isn’t? When this recipe for Caldo Verde popped up in my RSS feed, I saved it for a rainy day. Literally.

Onions, garlic, potatoes, chicken stock, fried chorizo and shredded kale. Hearty, warming and healthy – it’s the kind of soup that makes you extra glad to be in for the night.

Erwtensoep, aka Snert, aka Dutch Pea Soup

In which I learn that chatting and cooking don’t always mix.

I’m Dutch. Well,  I’m mostly Frisian. Well, actually I’m Canadian, born to mostly Frisian parents who emigrated to Ontario in the early 195o’s.  In spite of my heritage, I’ve never cooked any proper Dutch food, although I have many happy memories of pea soup and kaiser buns on wintry Saturday evenings as a kid.

One of my Dutch-Canadian friends is quite the cook, and emailed me his favourite Dutch Pea Soup recipe. We conspired to meet up at my place and make the soup together – I was a bit sqeamish about the pig’s ear and trotter the recipe calls for. Dave showed up with his big soup pot, Dutch cookbook, and various necessary pig parts (along with adding flavour, rendering the collagen thickens the soup).

Dave's bounty

Necessary pig parts

simmering away

The conversation and beer flowed freely, and although this post was originally going to be about getting back to my roots and the macabre aspect of cooking with recognizable portions of pig, I learned other valuable lessons that day.

1. It takes a cook with more experience than I have to talk while cooking.

2. It takes a cook with more alcohol tolerance than I have to drink while cooking.

3. If something smells like it’s burning, it probably is.

4. Taste before adding salt.

There. That should be enough foreshadowing.  Prep done, salt added and soup simmering, Dave and I moved into full conversation mode. His partner, Paul asked politely, “is something burning?”, which was immediately pooh-poohed by Dave and I.

When the time was up, we served the soup, thick enough to stand a spoon upright. Dave and I quietly noticed that the entire bottom of the pot was caked with burned soup. No matter, we just scooped a little more carefully to make sure we didn’t dislodge the burnt bits. As we began to eat, silence fell over the table. I have never eaten anything so salty before in my life. I was in the process of choking down my own first bite when Paul sputtered “I can’t eat this!”

So, as for our triumphant batch of soup, not so much. All that planning, sourcing ingredients, imagining if it would be as good as the soups of my childhood…and all I got was a good laugh.

Dave’s email for ERWTENSOEP:

2 cups split green peas (dried)
2.8 L water
1 pig’s trotter, 1 pig’s ear (you need these to thicken the broth with the natural gelatin, you can find them at a Portuguese butcher)
1 cup bacon squares ( I use about for strips cut up, I tried butcher cut squares but I found it kinda’ gross)
4 frankfurters (sometimes I use the sometimes I don’t)
1 Lb potatoes
1 celeriac ( it’s worth finding, usually at an independent produce vender)
1 bunch celery greens ( leafs, sometimes found attached to the celeriac, again worth the search)
2 leeks, 2 onions
3 table spoons of salt (yes it seems like a lot but necessary)

Wash the peas, soak for 12 hours (unless you use quick cooking peas which is more common and is what I use) and boil gently in the water they were soaked in for at least 2 hours. Cook in this liquid the trotter, the ear and the bacon for one hour. and the potatoes (diced), salt, celeriac (pealed and diced), cut up leeks, and chopped up celery greens. Cook until smooth and thick.

I usually take OUT the pig’s ear and trotter before adding the veg.

Add the frankfurters in the last 10 minutes (again optional)

The longer the soup simmers the better, usually about 3-4 hours.

AWESOME THE NEXT DAY!

Carrot Soup

Damn I love this soup. Love love love this soup.

This soup makes me a queen. A queen of soup. I serve it to guests and they almost swoon. I’ve seen them.

You can find Bob Blumer’s recipe here. Just follow it to the letter, right down to serving it with multi-grain bread and Beaujolais and you will not be disappointed. Even if you don’t particularly like carrots.

Go make it. Now.

Carrot Soup

Butternut Squash Soup

Autumn in a bowl!

3 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, chopped
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp coriander
about 2.5 lbs butternut squash
3-4 cups chicken stock
1 cup half-and-half
4 pats butter
salt and pepper to taste
parmesan cheese, grated, for garnish

Cut the squash in half and remove the seeds. Peel away the outer skin, and then cut its meat into modest cubes.

Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add and saute onions. Add in the spices, squash pieces, and stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat until you achieve a simmer.

Let it bubble away, covered, for about 20 minutes.

At this point the squash should be done. Take the pieces out with a slotted spoon and blend in a food processor until smooth. Add them back to the pan, then add in the half-and-half and butter.

Season it with salt and pepper. Taste and, depending on what you like, you could touch up the cinnamon flavour, too. Taste again.

Notes:

In my experience, cutting and peeling the squash isn’t the simple step it sounds like. This is one of those times I let the grocery store do the work for me – I buy it peeled and cubed.

If you don’t have a food processor, an immersion stick blender will do the trick nicely. The cooked squash will blend very easily.

Source: Dr. Will Clower, The Fat Fallacy

Lentil Soup

This soup is very comforting in the depths of winter.

2 small onions (or 1 large one), finely chopped
olive oil
3 or 4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
handful of button mushrooms, cut into quarters
pancetta – 1 cm thick disc, finely cubed
small bunch flat leaf (italian) parsley, chopped
1 1/4 cups green lentils
1 litre of chicken stock or water
1 bay leaf

Brown pancetta in a large pot with a little olive oil over moderate heat. Add onions, garlic and celery, cook until golden and translucent. Add mushrooms and parsley.

Pick lentils over for little stones and wash thoroughly. Stir them into the pot. Add stock and a bay leaf and bring to a boil. Skim off any froth that surfaces. Turn heat down and let simmer for about half an hour, partially covered.

Season the soup with salt, pepper and lemon juice, if desired.

Notes: This soup freezes well.

Source: Nigel Slater, Appetite