I know when soup season officially starts. It starts when seemingly out of nowhere a ziplock bag that slowly fills with veggie odds and ends materializes in the freezer.
Yes folks, it is really a simple as that. The basis of a great soup is a well prepared stock. Yes indeed, in a pinch you can indeed use a store bought stock, or shudder, bullion cubes. That is if you have no care for your sodium levels.
Once the weather turns cool enough that soups and stews are what come to mind when dinner planning, well, that is the time to start squirreling away all those veggie odds and ends that normally, i hope, you are composting. You know, onion ends, carrot ends, mushroom stems, garlic, etc etc etc.
I would caution against saving and using potato peels(i mean who peels potato) and cabbage family discards. Potato peels will release starch and turn your lovely stocks cloudy, cabbage family discards will over power any of the other flavors you might have.
Other important elements of stock making are bones and carcasses, don't throw away those shrimp shells or fish heads while you are at it. I can see a great bouillabaise in your future!
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| Simmering gently |
As a case in point the featured dish from a few evenings past is a lovely thick middle european styled soup, Barley and Mushrooms with Lamb.
I started with the shank end of a leg o' lamb that we had smoked a couple of weeks ago. Since i had just started my stock bag i was short on veggies, so i sacrificed a few baby cloves of garlic 1/2 an onion and a carrot and a celery stock. Add cold water to cover, throw in a bay leaf and maybe a few peppercorns, turn the heat on and pretty much walk away.
I shy away from overseasoning my stocks at this point, as i am mostly using the remenents of already seasoned meals and don't really want to muddy the water, so to speak.
The only thing you really need to do for your stock while it is simmering is occasionally skim whatever foam or fats that come to the surface, and keep the liquid topped up.
There is no hard and fast rule for how long a stock needs to simmer. It could be as little as 30 minutes for a simple vegetable stock or a court bullion of shrimp shells and fish heads. Any stock that is meat based will benefit from as long simmer time as you can manage.
Living aboard a smallish sailboat, it is not just the fuel consumption that you have to take into consideration, but the level of humidity that stock making generates, particulary if you do as i do and not cover my stock pot. I so shoot for around 2-3 hours, during which time i will top up the water probably twice. I'm pretty happy with about a 20% reduction.
Okay, so your stock is done, go ahead and fish out all the big parts, reserving the bones and any meaty bits that might have fallen off. Discard the veggies. Strain into a heat proof vessel.
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| All the essentials |
I shoot for about 4 cups of stock for almost all of my soups. There are several important factors in play here. This makes a soup that makes an excellant meal for Don and i, with leftovers for a light lunch, and perhaps more importantly is the amount of liquid that will top off my go to 12" all purpose cast iron pot.
Wipe out your stock pan and start your soup. Barley develops a lovely nutty flavor if you take the time to toast it before adding it to soup. A cup of barley in a nice hot cast iron pan will take as much as 15-20 minutes to start to get a nice color and aroma. If you can afford the time, do do it. If not, well it will be fine as well.
Follow along with me here, this is an important caveat: i almost never measure my ingredients. Yes of course i make sure that i have the right amount of water to make rice, etc, but i'm talking about spices, amount of oil, etc. So when i tell you 1 TB freshly ground pepper, no,i didn't grind the pepper than scoop it up into a measuring spoon. Nope, i put in what i thought looked like the right amount and then, i tasted it!
How, Why do i have the confidance to do this? I have been cooking all my life, it is pretty much the way my mom taught me how to cook, hell, i read cookbooks and cooking blogs for entertainment.
And yes of course, i do measure when i find a new recipe that i am trying, although i have been known to substitute ingredients on a regular basis.
All of this is a bit more than i planned to talk about, so the Barley Mushroom soup has gotten short shrift.
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| Table set and ready to eat |
This soup features the standard, cool/cold weather roster of veggies, carrot, celery, potato, onion, garlic and mushrooms. In this case, three different types of mushrooms, fresh buttons, white or bella, dried shitakes and some black cloud ear. I usually soak my dried mushrooms in the hot, just strained stock, while i am toasting the barley and getting all my veggies mis en place.
Start by sauteing diced onion in your fat of choice, in this case olive oil and some bacon fat, because, hey i had it, and you are wasting a precious kitchen resource if you toss that lovely bacon fat. Add sliced mushrooms, garlic, diced carrot, celery and potato. Stir to coat, add minced garlic, lots of it, finally barley. Once more stir, making sure that everything has been touched by fat. Add the stock and now for seasoning. Since i wanted a middle european flavor profile, with warm, slightly piquant notes i opted for: bay leaf, small quill of cinamon, whole clove, a dried chili pepper, lots and lots of fresh thyme. These all went in with the stock. Simmer partially covered until everything is done to your taste. It is going to take at somewhere between an half hour to an hour. It really depends on a lot of factors, sheer quantity, btu's and how tender or crunchy you like your veggies. I tend to the less done is better side of things. I despise mushy vegetables, and honestly prefer my grains to be a little chewy.
SO TASTE IT!
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| Pretty soup. pretty bowl |
When this soup is where you want it, turn it off. Temper between 1/2 cup to 1 cup of a good full fat greek yogurt, and add it back into your soup. At this point add lots of fresh ground nutmeg, be generous and serve, garnish the top of the soup with some good smoke spanish paprika.
Did you notice i didn't ask you to put in any salt? I know for a fact that the rub i used on the lamb originally had a fair amount of salt in it. I often don't actually salt my soups and stews until i serve. This one certainly needed only the smallest dusting of a nice coarse sea salt.
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| Tasty leftovers |
This is my standard soup formulation for the two of us:
1 onion, carrot, celery, potato, 4 mushrooms (in this case 4 buttons 4 shitake and 1 small section of cloud ear) 2-4 cloves of garlic, and 4 cups stock.
Bon appetit!
gail
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