Chinese Hot and Sour Soup

Name: Chinese Hot and Sour Soup
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Yield: 6 people
Ingredients: 3-4 dried Chinese black mushrooms; 2 1/2 cups rich chicken stock (or chicken-pork stock); 4 tablespoons rice wine vinegar (or distilled vinegar); 2 tablespoons soy sauce; 1 tablespoon sugar; 1 tablespoon hot sauce (such as sambal oelek, or to taste); salt to taste; 1 tablespoon corn starch; 2 tablespoons water; 1 tablespoon sesame oil; 2 eggs; 3-4 scallions (finely sliced); 8 ounces bean curd (cut in ½ inch dice)

Stracciatella (Italian Egg Drop Soup)

Italian Wedding Soup

6 Comments

February 5, 2018

Growing up I never really understood why this was called Wedding Soup. It was NEVER served at weddings.

It was mostly served at home, unceremoniously.

The fact that it was unceremonious is a shame. It is a wonderful soup and, being honest, takes a bit of work to pull together. Both the soup, and the soup-maker, in my estimation, deserve a bit of attention.

Although it takes some work, it doesn’t require much in the way of heard-earned skills like frosting a cake or making pie crust. It’s just a bit of slogging through a series of steps.

This is a beloved soup among Americans of Italian descent. Interestingly, my in-laws who are actually from Italy had never heard of it until I made it for this blog!

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But back to the “wedding” part. I did a bit of internet research (thanks Google!). Actually, I hesitate to call it “research.” I’m old school. I remember when doing research meant hours upon hours spent in libraries looking at actual hardcopy materials. It almost doesn’t seem fair to sit on my sofa with my laptop and read materials served up by Google based on natural language questions and call it research.

The “natural language” part is interesting too. In the “old” days, if you found an article that was relevant to the research topic, you would look at the articles referenced by the author and find, potentially, other relevant articles. But they would all be older than the first article. This is where the “Science Citation Index” came into play.

The Index was a series of periodically published volumes that listed all the articles that cited a particular article in their bibliography. With the Science Citation Index, you could start with a relevant article and then work forwards finding all the newer articles that had cited that article.

Now I just tell Google what I’m interested in and I get a bunch of (almost always) relevant “hits!” Google is even nice enough to tell me how many hits there are and what fraction of a second it took Google to identify them.

Even when I’m researching a biomedical topic I sit on my sofa with my laptop and search the National Library of Medicine. The search language is a bit more arcane than the natural language used by Google but it still feels like cheating compared to slogging around a library. I can even have the full article delivered to my laptop so I don’t have to figure out what library has the publication I need.

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So, what did I learn from my Google search?

It appears (at least it’s a plausible theory) that Wedding Soup is an inaccurate translation of Minestra Maritata or Married Soup; apparently so-named because of the way the different ingredients marry together so well.

**I’m guessing that many Americans with no affiliation to Italy have never had escarole.**

Interestingly, my husband’s Tuscan grandmother would use up small amounts of different types of dried pasta, perhaps putting them into a soup or serving them with a simple sauce. She referred to this as Pasta Maritata because she was marrying the different types of pasta to create a dish.

If this theory is correct, I am perplexed by the inaccurate translation but, be that as it may, the soup is wonderful. I urge you to give it a try.

I like breaking up the work over two days, especially since I like to make a long-simmered broth as the base of the soup. My mother didn’t do this. Once the chicken was cooked, it was removed and shredded and the broth was used without additional simmering to make the soup. It shaves about 3 hours off of the prep time. But, since making broth is mostly hands off, and the improvement in flavor is dramatic, I simmer everything a bit longer before straining and discarding the solids.

Italian Wedding Soup

If you don’t want to use the white center of the escarole, start with two heads and just use the dark green parts. The pale inner portion can be served in a salad or cooked in a number of ways. I like to divide up the work over two days, making the broth on the first day and the remainder on the second day. It’s perfectly feasible to do it all on the same day, however. I always keep a stash of rinds from Parmigiano Reggiano and Pecorino cheeses in the freezer. They add great flavor to broths, beans, and an array of other dishes.

Course

Soups and Stews

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

1 hour

Cook Time

5 hours

Passive Time

2 hours

Servings

people

Ingredients

Broth and Chicken

1 x 4 1/2 pound whole chicken
2 carrots chopped
2 stalks celery chopped
1 onion sliced
3 cloves garlic chopped
4-5 leaves sprigs parsley and tender stems only
1/2 cup white wine
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 whole clove optional
1 bay leaf
1 piece Parmesan cheese rind optional
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon salt
5 quarts water

Meatballs

1 pound ground sirloin 90% lean
1 egg
3 tablespoons Parmigiano Reggiano cheese freshly grated
1 clove garlic minced
1/4 cup parsley minced
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper freshly ground
5 slices Italian bread 2-3 days old

Final assembly

1 large head escarole
1 pound acini de pepe or other very small dry pasta
salt to taste
black pepper freshly ground to taste
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese freshly grated for serving

Course

Soups and Stews

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

1 hour

Cook Time

5 hours

Passive Time

2 hours

Servings

people

Ingredients

Broth and Chicken

1 x 4 1/2 pound whole chicken
2 carrots chopped
2 stalks celery chopped
1 onion sliced
3 cloves garlic chopped
4-5 leaves sprigs parsley and tender stems only
1/2 cup white wine
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 whole clove optional
1 bay leaf
1 piece Parmesan cheese rind optional
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon salt
5 quarts water

Meatballs

1 pound ground sirloin 90% lean
1 egg
3 tablespoons Parmigiano Reggiano cheese freshly grated
1 clove garlic minced
1/4 cup parsley minced
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper freshly ground
5 slices Italian bread 2-3 days old

Final assembly

1 large head escarole
1 pound acini de pepe or other very small dry pasta
salt to taste
black pepper freshly ground to taste
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese freshly grated for serving

Instructions

Broth and Chicken

Cut the chicken into breast halves, legs, thighs, and wings. Cut the back into 2 or three pieces. Reserve the liver for another use but chop the remaining giblets.
Slice the onions. There's really no need to peel them first.
Same with the garlic, no need to peel. It all gets strained out in the end.
Combine all ingredients in a large stock pot. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, partially covered for two hours.
After two hours, remove the breasts, legs, and thighs. Continue to simmer the broth.
Remove the meat from the bones. Return the chicken bones and skin to the broth.
Continue to simmer the broth for another two hours, adjusting seasoning as needed.
Meanwhile, shred the breast meat and refrigerate.
Reserve the leg and thigh meat for another use.
After the broth has finished cooking, cool it for several hours. Strain and discard the solids. Allow the broth to come to room temperature and refrigerate.
Alternatively, immediately strain and discard the solids and proceed as below.

Meatballs

Put all the ingredients except the bread into a mixing bowl.
Cut the crusts from the bread.
Cover the bread with warm water for 3-4 minutes.
Squeeze some of the water from the bread.
Add the bread to the mixing bowl.
Mix with your hands, until thoroughly combined and no streaks of white from the bread remain visible.
As you are mixing add a bit of the bread soaking water from time to time (about a quarter cup or so total) to keep the mixture moist but not wet.
The mixture should become tacky from the effects of the water and the mixing on the proteins in the meat. The tackiness will help the meatballs hold together for the same reason that sausage doesn’t fall apart when the casing is removed.
With damp hands, roll the mixture into approximately 50 meatballs. Keeping your hands moist will enable you to create a smooth surface on the meatballs. If there are visible cracks, the meatballs will split when cooking.

Final assembly

Skim the fat from the broth. Add water to make 6 quarts of broth. Bring the broth to a boil.
Meanwhile, coarsely chop the escarole.
As the broth comes to a boil, adjust the salt and pepper.
Add the chopped escarole. Return to a boil and cook at a moderate boil for approximately 5 minutes.
Add the meatballs. Return to a boil and boil gently, so the meatballs don’t break, for 10-12 minutes.
Add the shredded white meat chicken and return to a gentle boil.
Adjust salt and pepper. At this point, slightly over-salt the soup as the dry pasta will reduce the saltiness of the soup. The soup can be made ahead to this point. Return to a boil and add the pasta just before serving.
Add the pasta and boil gently until pasta is cooked, approximately 10 minutes.
Adjust salt and pepper.
Serve with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Mom’s Lentil Soup

4 Comments

January 26, 2018

My father liked soup. Actually, my father really, really liked soup. Every few weeks my mother would make beef noodle soup as it was one of my dad’s favorites. Beef noodle is the soup we had most often. Goulash was the “stew” we had most often. In fact, I don’t remember my mother ever making an American-style beef stew.

The first American-style beef stew that I ever made was from a recipe that my sister started using after she got married. It was definitely not one of our family recipes, though it was good.

After the beef noodle soup that my mother made on a regular basis, other soups were just occasional affairs, though soups of various types appeared often on our table.

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Italian “Wedding” Soup was a favorite but not something that we had more than a three or four times a year. Everyone in the family really loved Wedding Soup but, honestly, it’s a lot of work. It’s coming to the blog next month but today we have my Mom’s Lentil Soup.

Let’s face it, lentil soup isn’t something people swoon over. At best it is good comfort food. That’s exactly what this is for me.

It’s also easy to make. A few minutes of chopping and some stirring off-and-on are rewarded with a really good pot of soup.

My mother’s lentil soup was unusual in that she put enough black pepper into it to create a distinct bite. The first time I tasted it, as an adolescent, I was surprised by how peppery it was but I loved it. Whether or not you add that much black pepper is entirely your choice but, in my mind, it’s the black pepper that sets my mother’s lentil soup apart from the pack.

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Consistent with my mom’s low-and-slow philosophy, this soup is cooked longer that would be typical, for the average American cook at least. Despite the long cooking, the lentils remain intact though soft. They don’t really fall apart the way that dry beans might.

This soup freezes well so a big batch shouldn’t be a problem.

While a ham bone makes great lentil soup, it’s not something that most households have on a regular basis but a handful of baked ham or a few ounces of bacon make an awfully tasty soup.

Mom's Lentil Soup

When my mother made this soup, she added enough black pepper to give it a distinct bite. The addition of a bay leaf is my only modification of the original recipe.

Course

Soups and Stews

Cuisine

American

Prep Time

10 minutes

Cook Time

2 1/2 hours

Servings

people

Ingredients

1 pound green lentils
1/4 pound bacon or ham diced, or a meaty ham bone
1 cup celery finely diced
1 carrot
1/4 onion finely diced
1 clove garlic minced
1 bay leaf optional
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper preferably freshly ground or more to taste
3 quarts water

Course

Soups and Stews

Cuisine

American

Prep Time

10 minutes

Cook Time

2 1/2 hours

Servings

people

Ingredients

1 pound green lentils
1/4 pound bacon or ham diced, or a meaty ham bone
1 cup celery finely diced
1 carrot
1/4 onion finely diced
1 clove garlic minced
1 bay leaf optional
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper preferably freshly ground or more to taste
3 quarts water

Instructions

Wash and pick over the lentils then drain.
Shred the carrot on the tear-drop side of a box grater.
Put all the ingredients in a large stock pot.
Cover and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer partially covered for 2 to 2½ hours.
Adjust salt and pepper to taste.
The soup should be thick and the lentils soft but intact.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Roman Beans and Kale

5 Comments

January 12, 2018

I don’t remember my mother making Roman Beans and Kale till I was in my late teens.

The first time she made it, I remember her talking about her mother making it. For something she really liked, she waited an awfully long time to make it. But then, again, I did the same thing with her pasta è fagioli.

There were some dishes from her childhood that she talked about but never made. Tiella is the one that I remember most. It took me multiple tries over many years to recreate it from her description.

Roman beans and kale might seem a little unusual to many American palates due to the length of time the kale is cooked. There is a point where it becomes silky but most definitely not mushy. Southerners, though, would find the kale in this recipe cooked in a familiar way. It is much like the Southern low-and-slow style of cooking greens of various types, such as collards or mustard greens, until they achieve the requisite tenderness.

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Texture is an important part of this dish. The beans should yield but not be falling apart. The kale should not provide any resistance the way it would if it were just quickly sautéed. The pasta, however, should be al dente.

Beans, kale and pasta are all pretty mellow-tasting in my estimation. The garlic, olive oil, and Parmesan cheese are what give this dish its flavor oomph! At the table, I add crushed red pepper but it shouldn’t be cooked into the dish.

Roman beans are also called Borlotti or Cranberry beans. Depending on where you live you might have to order them. In a pinch, though, you could use pinto beans or Anasazi beans. (If you’re a bean savant, you’ll notice that I used Anasazi beans as I was unable to find Roman beans after searching market shelves in two different cities for a couple of months. Though I could have gotten them online, I didn’t think the huge price premium was worth it.)

My mother’s approach to cooking most foods was definitely low and slow. It’s classically Italian and so NOT French, which often aims for “high and fast!” Though culinary education is now more inclusive and not so heavily French, we have a strong cultural bias away from slow, leisurely cooking due to the strong French influence of the past decades. There are exceptions however, largely based on strong regional traditions, barbecue, for example. But for the most part, mainstream America, and certainly mainstream American food and cooking publications, just don’t “get” low and slow.

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There are some foods that don’t benefit from low and slow, at least when cooked traditionally; steaks for instance. My mother’s approach to these was that they should be well done, even though that state was achieved quickly. In our house steaks were most often seasoned with olive oil, garlic, oregano, basil, salt and pepper and broiled. I think it’s a wonderful flavor combination. But it wasn’t until my late teens that I developed an appreciation for rare beef.

I remember one meal where my sister and I cooked the steaks for ourselves and our dad. They were medium rare, as I recall. Even though our mom didn’t have a hand in cooking them (and cooked her own steak well done) she spent the entire meal feeling like she had served us bad food. The fact that we liked it didn’t seem to matter. She had very definite opinions about what constituted good food, and something that was bleeding onto the plate didn’t fit!

Recently I bought sous vide equipment. I haven’t tried it yet but I’m itching to do so. Steaks will be first. The food gets vacuum sealed and then cooked slowly…for hours…in a hot water bath that is maintained at the temperature one wants the food to achieve. The meat is cooked uniformly throughout…low and slow! For steaks, one would want to quickly sear the outside before serving but many foods, like fish, poached eggs, and even hollandaise sauce can be used right out of the water bath.

For now, though, let’s try a slow-cooked pot of beans and greens…Italian style!!

Roman Beans and Kale

The beans should be cooked through but not falling apart. The kale should take on a silky texture but not be mushy. The pasta should still be a bit “toothy." This is even better if made a day or two in advance and refrigerated. If you are doing this, you will want to undercook the pasta so that it is not too soft after the dish is reheated for serving. Alternately, you can omit the pasta when mixing the beans and kale, then add it when reheating. Depending on where you live, you might not be able to find Roman beans. Roman beans are also called Cranberry or Borlotti beans. If you can’t find Roman beans, you can substitute Pinto or Anasazi beans.

Course

Beans, Nuts and Legumes, Mains, Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces, Sides, Soups and Stews, Vegetarian

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

2 1/2 hours

Servings

people

Ingredients

1 pound dried Roman beans
2 bunches kale
2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups small dry pasta such as ditalini, optional
salt to taste
black pepper freshly ground to taste
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese grated, for serving

Course

Beans, Nuts and Legumes, Mains, Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces, Sides, Soups and Stews, Vegetarian

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

2 1/2 hours

Servings

people

Ingredients

1 pound dried Roman beans
2 bunches kale
2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups small dry pasta such as ditalini, optional
salt to taste
black pepper freshly ground to taste
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese grated, for serving

Instructions

Rinse and pick over the beans.
Cover the beans with six cups of water.
Simmer the beans until almost fully cooked, adding 2 teaspoons of salt and black pepper to taste after the beans have cooked for an hour. If necessary, add a bit of boiling water from time to time to keep the beans just submerged. The beans will cook for about 10-15 minutes more after the kale is added so don't overcook them.
Meanwhile, cut out the center ribs of the kale.
Kale ribs about to be discarded.
Cut the leaves crosswise into large pieces.
Rinse and drain the kale.
Bring a quart of salted water to a boil.
Add the kale. The kale should quickly wilt enough to be covered by water. If not add a bit more water to just cover the kale.
Simmer the kale, covered, stirring occasionally, until cooked to a silky texture, approximately 1 hour.
While the kale is cooking, crush the garlic with the side of a chef's knife.
Slowly brown the garlic in the olive oil.
Once the garlic has browned, remove the oil from the heat. Discard the garlic. Reserve the garlic-infused oil.
If using pasta, bring two quarts of water seasoned with 1/4 cup of salt to a rolling boil.
When the pasta-cooking water comes to a boil, add the pasta. At the same time, add the kale and its cooking water to the beans. Keep the beans and kale at a simmer.
Cook the pasta in boiling water until it is still a little crunchy on the inside.
Drain the pasta and add it to the pot with the beans and kale.
Add the garlic-infused oil.
Taste and adjust seasoning.
Cook everything, uncovered, until the pasta is al dente, just a few minutes longer.
Serve with grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Cannellini and Fennel Soup

White Bean Soup

4 Comments

June 2, 2017

The weather is turning warmer in fits and spurts here in Santa Fe as I write this in early-May. I’m writing these posts a few weeks in advance due to upcoming travel. Warm days and cold nights, alternating with cold days and colder nights make me think of soup. Filling, warm, humble soup.

There are few soups that I like better than bean or lentil.

Although a ham bone is a classic way to start a bean soup, smoked turkey works well too. I had a smoked turkey carcass in the freezer from a bird that I smoked a few months ago. That and the combination of the cold weather made me think of making this classic American bean soup. It made a really great dinner along with a platter of my grandmother’s potato cakes, the recipe for which will be appearing here in a few days.

This soup is assembled from very basic ingredients, many of which are almost always on hand.

With warm weather approaching, however, this will probably be the last time I serve such a hearty soup until autumn.

Which brings up an interesting topic: the effect weather has on our cooking and eating habits. We tend to gravitate toward heartier, richer foods in the winter and lighter foods in warm weather. Our caloric needs don’t really change appreciably from winter to summer so if we’re not gaining or losing weight, we’re probably eating about the same number of calories. But it often doesn’t feel that way.

Eating seasonally is a good strategy for a number of reasons. Locally grown, in-season, produce tastes better than produce shipped from far away. Many fruits and vegetables start losing nutrients as soon as they are picked. The shorter the time from farm field to table the more nutritious they are.

Did you ever think about what it takes to have “not from concentrate” orange juice available all year given that oranges are a seasonal crop? Take a look here and here. It will give you a sense of what is done to our industrialized food supply. To be sure, we have ready access to more and cheaper food than has probably ever been the case in human history. I’m not suggesting we abandon that, just that we become better informed consumers and make active choices about what we eat and why.

In addition to tasting better, and being more nutritious, eating seasonally brings back a sense of anticipation and, dare I say, romance, to eating. Tomatoes are at their best in the summer so we eat lots of tomatoes then, for example. Often times, lunch on Saturday in late summer will be thick slices of fresh tomato, fresh mozzarella cheese from The Old Windmill Dairy in Estancia, New Mexico, a few torn basil leaves from our garden, a sprinkle of salt and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil along with some homemade bread to sop up all the juices. Unless it’s from a can and going into something that’s cooked, you’ll rarely see a tomato in my kitchen the rest of the year.

The same sort of anticipation holds true with many other foods. Some that come quickly to mind are zucchini blossoms (which I dip in batter and fry) and basil (which I turn into pesto and use to season quick-cooked tomato sauces all summer long but never use at other times of the year).

Seasonal eating isn’t limited to summer, however. There are traditional winter crops and winter foods. Cavolo nero, Tuscan kale, tastes better after a frost and is traditionally eaten in the late fall. My mother-in-law pickles turnips each autumn which we eat in the winter made into a thick soup with cotechino, a Northern Italian sausage.

Traditionally, my mother-in-law’s pickled turnips would be made in the autumn. That’s not only when the turnips are ready if you eat seasonally but that’s also when grapes are crushed and pressed for wine. The turnips would be packed into a barrel with the solids left over from the grape pressing and allowed to ferment. These days she makes a reasonable facsimile by simply pickling turnips in red wine vinegar though I keep hoping to find a winemaker in New Mexico who will sell me some crushed grapes to give the original recipe a try.

Red wine vinegar is always available, and mostly so are turnips. Why don’t we make this at other times of the year? Mostly it’s because of the association of pickled turnips (brovada) and cotechino with winter. We try to maintain the seasonality even when we have the ability to circumvent it. Doing that means there are always favorite foods to look forward to each season that we haven’t had in almost a year.

If it’s too warm where you live to have a hearty bowl of bean soup, tuck this recipe away for a few months and give it a try in the autumn.

White Bean Soup

This white bean soup is easy to make and very nutritious. If you have the carcass of a smoked turkey or the bone from a baked ham, use my recipe for Roasted Turkey Broth, substituting the smoked turkey or ham bone, to make the broth for this soup. With a turkey carcass you definitely need to make broth otherwise you’d have lots of bones and bits in the final soup. While this isn’t the case with a large ham bone, I still prefer to make broth in advance so that I can skim off the fat. There is a link in the notes that follow this recipe to my recipe for Roasted Turkey Broth. Even if you don’t have a smoked turkey carcass or a ham bone you can make this soup. My supermarket sells various smoked turkey and pig parts. Just use them to make the broth. Be careful, though, as these products can be much smokier than a turkey or ham that was smoked to the right degree for eating. Failing all of that, use whatever broth you have on hand (or even water) to begin to cook the beans then add ¼ pound of chopped up bacon with the remaining ingredients.

Course

Soups and Stews

Cuisine

American

Prep Time

20 minutes

Cook Time

3 hours

Servings

people

Ingredients

1 pound Navy or Great Northern beans
3 quarts ham or smoked turkey broth
1 fresh bay leaf
2 cups chopped carrots
2 cups chopped celery
1 large onion diced
3 cloves garlic minced
1/2 cup minced parsley
1 x 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup white wine
2 teaspoons salt plus more, to taste
black pepper freshly ground, to taste
1 piece Parmesan rind if available
1 1/2 cups chopped ham or smoked turkey.

Course

Soups and Stews

Cuisine

American

Prep Time

20 minutes

Cook Time

3 hours

Servings

people

Ingredients

1 pound Navy or Great Northern beans
3 quarts ham or smoked turkey broth
1 fresh bay leaf
2 cups chopped carrots
2 cups chopped celery
1 large onion diced
3 cloves garlic minced
1/2 cup minced parsley
1 x 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup white wine
2 teaspoons salt plus more, to taste
black pepper freshly ground, to taste
1 piece Parmesan rind if available
1 1/2 cups chopped ham or smoked turkey.

Instructions

Wash the beans. Cover with several inches of cold water. Refrigerate overnight.
The next day, drain the beans.
Combine the beans, broth, and bay leaf.
Cover and bring to a boil.
Cook, partially covered, at a medium boil for one hour, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, prepare the other ingredients.
Slice the carrots in quarters lengthwise.
Cut the carrots crosswise into 1/4 inch pieces.
Cut the celery into strips approximately the same size as the carrot strips.
Cut the celery strips crosswise into 1/4 inch pieces.
Dice the onion.
Mince the garlic.
Mince the parsley,
Dig around in your freezer to find a Parmesan cheese rind that you froze with the intent of using in your next pot of soup.
Ready a can of diced tomatoes.
Combine all ingredients except the chopped ham or turkey with the partially cooked beans.
Simmer, partially covered for another hour or two until beans are soft and vegetables are cooked. The cooking time will depend on the type of beans, their freshness, and your elevation.
Adjust seasoning as needed while cooking.
Add the chopped ham or smoked turkey during the last 10 minutes of cooking.
Serve with grated Parmesan cheese, if you wish.

Recipe Notes

As good as this soup is when it is made, I prefer to let it cool then refrigerate it for at least a day before rewarming and serving.

To make the broth, substitute a ham bone or smoked turkey carcass (or other smoked meat) for the roasted turkey in my recipe for Roasted Turkey Broth.

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Recipes

Turkey Noodle Soup

4 Comments

May 24, 2017

Soup!

If my mother said she was making “soup” without any qualifiers, it meant her beef noodle soup.

She would cook a good-sized piece of beef in her soup pot along with large pieces of carrot, celery and potato till the meat was falling apart.

She would cook thin egg noodles separately.

To serve the soup, everyone would get a bowl of broth with pieces of carrot, celery and potato. The large piece of beef would be in its own serving bowl and the noodles in another.

At the table, everyone added beef (shredding it with a serving fork) and noodles to their bowl of broth for the ultimate customization.

I haven’t had soup this way since my mother died. I actually don’t ever remember being served soup in the same manner by anyone else, anywhere, ever. If you’ve ever heard of, or had, soup being served this way, I’d really like to hear about it.

The other soup my mother made frequently was what is sometimes called “Italian Wedding Soup.” It is a rich chicken broth with pieces of chicken, small meatballs, carrots, celery, pasta (typically, acini de pepe), and escarole.

Occasionally my mother would make Slovak Mushroom Soup, with dried mushrooms and potatoes, or Potato Soup with potatoes, milk and onions. More often, however, we’d get these when visiting my grandparents. Early on, my grandmother would make soup, but when she got older, Aunt Ann or Aunt Mary would make it and bring it to my grandparents’ house.

On a Sunday, when my father, his six brothers, and all of their spouses and children would visit my grandparents, a lot of soup could be consumed. Mind you, there was no guarantee that there would be soup, but if there was, it needed to be an industrial quantity.

In the winter, my grandmother would keep the soup in a big pot in the root cellar in the basement. It was the same root cellar where she would make sour cabbage but that was before I was born. I know because my father and all of my uncles never tired of talking about my grandmother’s sour cabbage soup, or kissel. They bemoaned the fact that nobody made it any longer. I don’t have her recipe and while I can find recipes for soups that sound similar, none of them sounds exactly like the soup my father described.

Today’s soup, however, is not one that I grew up eating. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my mother thought the carcass of a roasted turkey wasn’t intended to be reused. I first had turkey noodle soup, made with roasted turkey leftovers, when I was in college. The soup was made by Mary Lou d’Aquili, the wife of my college advisor and, many years later, the person with whom I went into psychiatric practice, Eugene d’Aquili.

Ever since then, I’ve turned the bones of most roasts into broth.

We have an array of fresh herbs year round thanks to the greenhouse. I have totally given up dried bay leaves in favor of fresh ones. They’re really easy to grow and the taste is incredible. California bay leaves are stronger than Mediterranean bay leaves so if the balance of flavors in a dish is critical, and you’re using the former, opt for about half the amount called for in the recipe. For most dishes, it’s not a critical distinction, however, and you can just substitute California for Mediterranean bay leaves.

Here’s a picture of our Bay Laurel plant, pruned down and ready to start its seasonal growth spurt. In the fall I’ll harvest the leaves to make an Italian Bay Laurel Liqueur, Liquore al Lauro or Liquore Alloro.

The following recipe for Turkey Noodle Soup starts with the Roasted Turkey Broth I posted a few weeks ago.

Turkey Noodle Soup

Save the bones, skin and shreds of meat from a roast turkey to make broth for soup. You can freeze the bones and make the broth later. You can also make the broth and freeze for future use. What you don’t want to do is to freeze the turkey noodle soup. I prefer not to freeze the soup, as the vegetables become too soft. If you must, however, freeze it before adding the noodles and peas. I keep a container of Parmesan cheese rinds in the freezer so that I always have them available to add to soup or other dishes to amplify the savoriness.

Course

Soups and Stews

Cuisine

American

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

1 hour

Servings

people

Ingredients

1 recipe Roasted Turkey Broth see note below for a link to the recipe
3 stalks celery sliced
2-3 carrots sliced
1/2 medium onion diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 bay leaf preferably fresh
1/2 teaspoon dry marjoram or other preferred herb
1 piece Parmesan cheese rind optional
2 cups coarsely chopped cooked turkey
2 teaspoons tomato paste
1 cup frozen peas
1/2 pound dried egg noodles
6-8 sprigs parsley leaves only, chopped
salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Course

Soups and Stews

Cuisine

American

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

1 hour

Servings

people

Ingredients

1 recipe Roasted Turkey Broth see note below for a link to the recipe
3 stalks celery sliced
2-3 carrots sliced
1/2 medium onion diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 bay leaf preferably fresh
1/2 teaspoon dry marjoram or other preferred herb
1 piece Parmesan cheese rind optional
2 cups coarsely chopped cooked turkey
2 teaspoons tomato paste
1 cup frozen peas
1/2 pound dried egg noodles
6-8 sprigs parsley leaves only, chopped
salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Instructions

Bring the broth to a boil.
Meanwhile, slice the carrots.
Slice the celery.
Dice the onions.
Mince the garlic.
Dig a Parmesan cheese rind out of your freezer.
To the broth, add sliced celery, carrots, onions, minced garlic, bay leaf, marjoram, cheese rind, and salt and pepper to taste.
Return to a low boil and cook, partially covered for 30 minutes.
Taste and adjust seasoning.
Add cooked turkey and tomato paste. Cook at a low boil for another 15 minutes.
Taste and adjust seasoning to your preference then add an additional ½ teaspoon of salt. (Remember, you’re about to add unseasoned peas and noodles.)
Add the noodles. Bring to a boil.
Add the peas. Boil gently till noodles are done.
When noodles are cooked, taste and adjust seasoning. Stir in chopped parsley.
Serve immediately.
Pass grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Pecorino Romano cheese at the table.

Recipe Notes

Here is the recipe for Roasted Turkey Broth. You should have 3 quarts of broth.

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Recipes

Slovak Caraway Soup

9 Comments

April 26, 2017

Growing up with an ethnically Italian mother and an ethnically Slovak father, we mostly ate Italian food with Slovak food appearing on the table every week or two. On Sundays we usually went to visit my father’s parents and got a bit more Slovak food.

There were some classic American dishes that appeared on our table, too. But, honestly, not that often. The only thing my mother made that I didn’t like was hamburgers. Well, that and liver.

But even my mother didn’t like liver. She made it because my father liked it. There was never the expectation that anyone else would eat it.

When she made liver…and that process involved running from the living room, through the dining room, to the kitchen to turn the liver as it sautéed and then running back to the living room to avoid the smell…she always made something else for the rest of us. Well, that wasn’t so unusual either. Remember…Southern Italian mother…food is important…everyone needs to eat. There were nights when she would make one meal for my father, one for my sister, and one for me. She would eat one of the three.

We always ate dinner together as a family and, despite the comment above, we usually at the same meal. Sometimes, though, we each got individually catered food.

But back to hamburgers for a moment. My mother was a great cook. I know she used really good beef for her hamburgers. She usually picked out a whole cut and had the butcher grind it. She never bought ground beef that I recall. I still follow the basic blueprint of her hamburger recipe today and enjoy it. So, I can’t really tell you why I thought her hamburgers were awful. But I did.

Soup was a big deal in our house. My father really liked soup. Interestingly, I don’t remember having Caraway Soup more than a few times while growing up. I do know, however, that while I was in college I got the recipe from my mother after it appeared on our table one day. It seemed like a revelation.

It has been a regular on my table ever since.

Slovak Caraway Soup

This is a light, refreshing soup based on a vegetable broth for which the ingredients are almost always on hand. I like serving it as a first course though it works equally well for lunch or as a light supper. Grating the vegetables on the large holes of a box grater was one of my mother’s tricks. It makes fast work of prep and the small pieces quickly flavor the broth.

Course

Soups and Stews

Cuisine

Slovak

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

1 hour

Passive Time

45 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

2-3 carrots
3 stalks of celery
1/2 onion
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon Freshly ground black pepper
2 quarts water
1 tablespoon caraway seed
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 onion minced
2 tablespoons flour
2 eggs
1/3 cup water
salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Course

Soups and Stews

Cuisine

Slovak

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

1 hour

Passive Time

45 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

2-3 carrots
3 stalks of celery
1/2 onion
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon Freshly ground black pepper
2 quarts water
1 tablespoon caraway seed
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 onion minced
2 tablespoons flour
2 eggs
1/3 cup water
salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Instructions

Shred the carrots on the teardrop holes of a box grater.
Shred the celery on the teardrop holes of a box grater.
Thinly slice half an onion.
Combine carrots, celery, sliced onion, 2 teaspoons of salt, ½ teaspoon of black pepper and 2 quarts of water in a stock pot. Cover. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
Add the caraway seeds. Cover and simmer another 25 minutes.
Strain the broth. Discard the solids.
Return the broth to the stock pot. The soup can be made several hours ahead to this point.
When your ready to finish the soup, return the broth to a bare simmer.
In a heavy-bottomed stock pot large enough to hold the soup, sauté the minced onion in butter until soft but not brown, about 3-4 minutes.
Add the flour to the sautéed onions and cook until lightly colored, about 2 minutes, stirring almost constantly.
Stir the hot broth into the onion-flour mixture a ladleful at a time, stirring well while adding the broth to avoid lumps.
After about one-third of the broth has been added, the remainder can be added all at once.
Bring to a boil and boil gently for 1-2 minutes to thicken. Adjust salt and pepper.
While the soup is boiling, beat the eggs with 1/3 cup of water. Season the eggs with salt.
While constantly whisking the stock, drizzle in the eggs to create shreds of egg.
Serve immediately.