Category: Soup

Fresh Pea Soup with Pea Jelly

July 12, 2010

Because I have so much food to share and because I haven’t posted many recipes lately, I am kicking off a week of posting everyday.  I also happen to have a husband out of town and a week with no food event in sight, so I have a few spare minutes to write and share.  If I don’t set the goal for myself, it will never happen.  So I hope you’re hungry!

Let’s start with pea soup, shall we?  My brother Michael is dating a young woman who I really like.  She happens to be a terrific photographer and she sold a photo to a magazine.  (Thankfully, she is not a food photographer – otherwise I would feel really embarrassed around her.)  She wanted to celebrate and offered to take him out to dinner.  She is a vegetarian and, rather than watching her suffer through yet another pasta or risotto in a restaurant, he suggested they come to my house.  Cute, right?  I was touched and planned a special menu.

I’ve been eying the recipe for these little pea squares ever since I bought Maria Elia’s The Modern Vegetarian.  If you want to make a special meal to impress, this is a terrific book to explore. Vegetarian cookbooks often fall into predictable patterns.  You will see a ratatouille, recipes using polenta, tians, pasta dishes.  Not this one.  How about Watermelon Curry with Black Beans and Paneer?  Or Fresh Borlotti Bean Cassoulet?  Every recipe is interesting and different.  Not a lot of quick and easy, but really special food.

High on my list of all time favorite foods in the entire world is fresh English peas – also called shelling peas.  One of my earliest food memories is opening up one of the pods and delighting in the peas’ green sweetness.  I have to tell you that is still how I like them best.  Just fresh, raw, and straight out of the pod.  I do occasionally use them in small batches barely cooked. An example would be added to a risotto or a spring vegetable stew at the last minute, just enough to soften them the slightest bit.  But I would never use them in a soup for several reasons.  (You may be nodding your head and saying, “Yes, let’s get on with it Dana”, in which case skip ahead.)

They are expensive for the yield.  The cheapest I ever see these guys is about $3 a pound and sometimes as high as $6.  A pound of English peas includes the pods so you need to buy 2-3 pounds to get 1 pound of actual peas.  Not cost effective for soup.

They take a lot of time to prepare. For something that takes less than a minute to cook, they are a lot of work to shell.  It is easy and meditative work to do, but still.

They aren’t as tasty as frozen. Now don’t cry blasphemy!  A fresh and perfect pea is about as good as it gets.  But so many of them are not perfect.  They have grown too big so the sugar has turned to starch and your gorgeous pea tastes a little like cardboard.  Those guys in the freezer section are flash frozen right after picking so they are almost all sweet.

I always have bags of peas in my freezer and they are definitely what work best in this soup.  I’ve made other versions of fresh pea soup before and really it’s hard to go wrong.  You add a bit of onion, some stock and some herbs, but otherwise you just allow the pure flavor of peas to come through.  This recipe has the ingenious idea to hold back some of the peas until just before pureeing so the soup doesn’t go all split pea color on you.  It stays nice and green.  Love little ideas like that.

Elia calls these Pea Jelly and I think they are sheer genius.  They are very easy to make and look pretty spectacular against this soup, or anything else come to think of it.  Next time, I will make them in a smaller and deeper container so they are even more cube-like for better visual appeal.  So often fancy garnishes disappoint in the taste department but not this one.  It is the pure essense of peas and tarragon – a wonderful combination.  I served the soup with these and then promptly ate every speck of leftover.

One last note.  I’m a bit Goldilocks when it comes to pea soup.  Too cold and the delicate flavor gets totally muted.  Too hot and we go dangerously into split pea soup territory.  I like mine just right, which is to say cool room temperature.

One Year Ago: Vietnamese Tofu Sandwiches

Pea, Basil, and Mint Soup
Adapted from The Modern Vegetarian
Serves 4

If you have an opened bag of really old peas in your freezer, don’t use those.  Do yourself a favor and buy a fresh bag. There is no need to thaw them before using.

1 tbsp. olive oil
1 small yellow or white onion, peeled, finely chopped
18 oz. frozen petit pois peas
2½ cups water
Leaves of half a small bunch of mint
Leaves of a small bunch of basil
Pinch of sugar
1 tsp. salt

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan.  Add the onion and sauté until softened and translucent.  Add two-thirds of the peas, the water, half the mint and basil, the sugar, and the salt.  Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes or until the peas are tender.

Put the soup in a blender in batches, adding the remaining peas and herbs, and blend to a smooth purée.  Adjust the seasoning to taste.  (DT: I wouldn’t make this soup too far ahead of serving time so it keeps the color.  Just enough to allow it cool is probably good.  Also, it is quite thick.  If you like thinner soup, thin it with water.)

Pea Jelly

You can find agar agar in natural food stores of Whole Foods.

2/3 cup water
Pinch of salt
4 oz. frozen shelled peas
1 tbsp. butter
1 small shallot, finely diced
2 tbsp. chopped tarragon
4 tsp. cream
½ tsp. agar agar powder or 1 tsp. agar agar flakes
Salt and pepper

Bring the water to a boil, add a pinch of salt and cook the peas until tender.  Drain the peas, reserving the cooking liquid.

Heat the butter in a small pan, add the shallot and cook until softened and translucent.  Add the peas, tarragon, and cream and simmer for 4 minutes.

Measure the reserved cooking liquid and make it up to 2/3 cup, if necessary, with water.  Return the cooking liquid to the heat, whisk in the agar agar and simmer for 2 minutes.  Pour the two mixtures into a blender and blend until smooth.  Pass through a sieve and season with salt and pepper.

Pour into a shallow plastic container and let cool before refrigerating.  Refrigerate until set (about 1 hour), then cut into cubes and serve with the soup.


Category: Quick and Easy, Seasonal, Soup
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The Short List

June 13, 2010

Most people who cook have some kind of short list.  Those go-to recipes that require very little thought, contain ingredients you either have on hand or that can be easily procured from any grocery store, and that taste delicious.  Those are precious recipes indeed and I need a few more in my arsenal.

For now, this Jamie Oliver dish is at the top of my short list which, if I haven’t made it clear, is very short.  No matter – I love this recipe.  I always have onions and garlic plus many cans of chickpeas, almost always have celery, and I have rosemary growing in my yard.  Give me half an hour and I will give you something healthy, appealing to most people, satisfying, and very tasty.  It is also a very forgiving dish so you can either eat it right away or allow it to sit for a bit with the flavor only improving.

The method is simple.  The onions and garlic get sautéed together in a bit of olive oil along with the rosemary, which immediately makes your kitchen smell wonderful.  The chickpeas are next in the pot along with the broth and after those have cooked for a bit, half of the chickpeas are scooped out and reserved while the goodness in the pot gets a quick purée with an immersion blender.  After everything is reunited in the pot, in goes the pasta.  As soon it is tender, you are ready for dinner.  Add some fresh herbs on top (which I always seem to have some remnant of in my crisper drawer) and you have a rich and creamy tasting (but very healthy) meal.

I change this up a bit from the original recipe by adding some red pepper flakes for a bit of heat, and I also add more pasta and broth.  I always seem to need even more broth as the cooking process happens and you can add even more than that if you want the dish to be more saucy.  I don’t think it is possible to screw up this dish, so do what you like.  You will see my changes in the recipe below.  If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can use a food processor instead – just be careful with the hot stuff!

What is on your short list?

One Year Ago: Chilled Avocado Soup
Two Years Ago: Ina Garten’s Outrageous Brownies

Pasta e Ceci (Pasta with Chickpeas)
Adapted from Jamie’s Italy
Serves 4

1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 stick of celery, trimmed and finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, peeled and minced
½ tsp. red pepper flakes
Olive oil
1 sprig of rosemary, leaves picked and finely chopped
2 14-oz. cans of chickpeas, rinsed and drained
3 cups vegetable stock
5 ounces ditalini or other small pasta (such as orzo)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Small handful of fresh basil or parsley leaves, picked and torn

Place a large skillet over medium heat and then pour in just enough olive oil to coat the bottom.  Add the onion and celery and sauté just until tender, about 6 minutes.  Add the garlic, rosemary, and red pepper flakes.  Sauté for 2 minutes, then add the chickpeas and the stock.  Bring to a boil, then lower heat to simmer and allow to cook just until the chickpeas are heated through, about 5 minutes.  Using a slotted spoon, remove half of the chickpeas and set them aside.

Purée the soup in the pan with a handheld immersion blender.  Add the reserved whole chickpeas and the pasta, season the soup with salt and pepper, and simmer gently until the chickpeas are very tender and the pasta is cooked, about 10  minutes.  Add more liquid as necessary.

Season to taste with salt and pepper and sprinkle with torn basil or parsley.


Category: Beans, Pasta, Soup, Vegan
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What Randy Doesn’t Like

March 17, 2010

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As I have mentioned here before, we refer to my husband Randy as a “geographical vegetarian”.  In other words, he is a meat-eater who eats veg at home because his wife, the cook in the family, is vegetarian.  I am fortunate to have a husband who is not picky and is an adventurous eater, and who does not subscribe to the theory that all meals have to have a “protein”.  But there are a few things that Randy does not like.  His old list (pre-me) looked like this:

Beets
Brussels sprouts
Cabbage (in spite of the fact that he loves coleslaw and sauerkraut)
Coffee
Lentils
Peas
Split peas
Toffee

Not too bad, huh?  I have since introduced him to the glories thinly sliced brussels sprouts, red lentils, fresh English peas and this soup which has lots of cabbage.  I also helped him realize that he only thought he didn’t like toffee because it rhymes with coffee (read the story here).  He has mostly been converted with the exception of beets and coffee.  (Yes, we live in Seattle.  I know, I know.)

The other night I decided to press my luck and make a split pea soup.  He has always told me that he hates split pea soup, but I got sneaky and used a recipe from my new Clean Food book which stars yellow split peas.  I didn’t try and pull a fast one on him, I told him exactly what it was, but the yellow color made him willing to try it.  I’m happy that I took a chance.  He really liked this soup as did I.  And so did Graham, he ate a whole bowlful without trying to put it in his shoes.  (Name that story reference.)

One Year Ago: Peanut Brittle and Caramel Crunch Ice Cream Pie and Homemade Peanut Brittle
Note: There are a few must-makes on this site.  That ice cream pie is one of them.

Golden Split Pea Soup
Adapted from Clean Food
Serves 8

This soup is very quick to put together but it has to simmer a long time on the stove.  You can easily make it a day ahead and the flavor will improve (like most soups).  It will become quite thick, so thin with water as necessary.  I halved this recipe.

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 large onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 stalks celery, diced
4 carrots, diced
2 cups chopped tomatoes
1 potato, peeled and diced
¼ cup mirin
2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. powdered mustard
4 cups golden split peas
10 cups water
½ tsp.salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 bay leaf

In a large soup pot over medium heat, sauté onion over medium heat until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic and sauté for another minute or so.  Add carrots and celery and sauté for 3 minutes, then add the tomatoes, potato, mirin, vinegar, and mustard and stir to combine.  Add the split peas and the rest of the ingredients.  Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat.  Simmer for at least 4 hours, adding water as necessary to thin.  Remove bay leaf before serving.


Category: Soup, Vegan
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Post-Superbowl Vegetarian Chili

February 8, 2010

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Yes, I realize I am late with this post.  If I had been home last week (instead of hitting the slopes in Sun Valley), I would have made this on, say, Wednesday and posted about it in time for you to make it for the Superbowl.  But let me ask this – how did chili become the Superbowl dish par excellence?  And if the chili is really good, shouldn’t we eat it post-Superbowl and while it is still winter?

Here is the thing about vegetarian chili.  It’s just so obvious.  This is a food blog written by a vegetarian – of course there is a vegetarian chili recipe, right?  Well, I’ve been writing this blog for over a year and a half without ever talking about it.  I have nothing against vegetarian chili, actually I quite like it, but to me it’s like having all my recipes feature eggplant and mushrooms because they are “meaty”.  Chili, even if it does not contain meat, is “meaty” which is why some carnivores think we vegetarians eat nothing other than chili, eggplant, mushrooms, and salad.  And pasta.  Sheesh.

I have made my fair share of vegetarian chilis.  Some have been good and some have not.  I have followed recipes that instructed me to use many different kinds of beans and one that used just kidney beans (which made me realize that I don’t like kidney beans).  I’ve added bulghur, tempeh, and TVP and didn’t like any of those additions.  My go-to recipe became the one in The New Basics but over time I decided that the chili just ended up being too busy.  The list of ingredients is a bit long and, for me, the flavor gets muddied.

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Last week, after a day on the slopes in the sunshine (sorry), my lunch of choice was a baked potato with vegetarian chili poured over the top of it.  Does that sound weird?  It’s not for two reasons.  One, if you have never had an Idaho potato in Idaho, it is worth the trip just to eat one.  They are huge and they are tasty and those Idahoans know how to bake them perfectly.  Two, I know people who eat chili over rice and given the choice between those two starches, I’m suggesting you pick a potato.

The chili in those beautiful mountain lodges was not half bad.  The faults were as follows:  too salty, too soupy, and not enough spice.  I knew that as soon as I got home I had to make a pot and make up the recipe myself.  I decided to keep what I liked about that Sun Valley chili (corn, chickpeas, very tomato-y broth) and improvise the rest.

I’m very happy with how my post-Superbowl but still winter chili came out.  Most chilis aren’t smoky enough for me, so I worked hard to get that flavor into mine.  We like spice in our house so my version was quite spicy, you can make yours more mild easily. Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce are found in the Mexican foods section of your grocery store.  They are an intoxicatingly smoky (and spicy) little pepper best used with caution of you are sensitive to heat.  For last night’s verison, I used two of them plus about a teaspoon of the sauce and next time I will only use one (which I have instructed you to do below).  Once you have opened the can, you can put the remaining peppers and sauce into an airtight container in the refrigerator where it will keep for a month or more.

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One Year Ago: Mushroom Enchiladas

Spicy Smoky Chili
A Dana Treat Original
Serves 4-6

My rule of thumb for chili is that all the vegetables be no larger than the beans.  I don’t like big chunks in my chili.  I used crushed tomatoes here for that reason but feel free to use diced (or even whole) if you like chunks.  I like my chili served with a dollop of plain yogurt but feel free to add any and all topping that you like.

Olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tsp. chile powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. coriander
½ tsp. smoked paprika
1 tsp. dried oregano
½ cayenne pepper
1 tsp. salt
1 small red bell pepper, diced
1 28 oz. can crushed fire roasted tomatoes
1 chipotle pepper in adobo, minced, plus ½ tsp. sauce
1 cup water
1 15-oz. can black beans, drained
1 15-oz. can chickpeas, drained
1 4-oz. can diced green chiles, drained
½ cup frozen corn

Place a large pot over medium heat and then drizzle in enough olive oil to coat the bottom.  Add the onion and cook until softened, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook for another 3 minutes.  Stir in all the spices and stir well to coat the vegetables with the spices.  Drop in the red pepper and cook for 3 minutes.  Pour in the canned tomatoes and water and bring to a boil.  Add the chipotle pepper and sauce and turn the heat down to a simmer.

Add all the beans, corn, and the green chiles and cook at a simmer, partially covered, until thickened and all the vegetables are cooked through – about 20 minutes.  Like most soups and stews, this can be made in advance and its flavors will deepen.  It will also become more spicy so, if you are making it in advance, you might want to add just a bit of heat while you are cooking it and add more when you re-heat if necessary.


Category: Dana Treat Original, Soup, Vegan
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Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

January 29, 2010

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If you are going to live in Seattle, you must know something very important.  If at all possible, you have to get out of town in the winter.  Preferably February.  When the dark and the gloom is more than you can bear, it’s time to go find the sun somewhere.  (Personally, I think it is also necessary to skip town in May.  That’s the time when it is actually spring in 90% of the country and our trees are blooming in the Northwest and the days are long, but the rain is often still sticking around.)

My parents love to ski and all three of us kids learned how at an early age.  Our winter escape was going to Sun Valley to ski.  Now, I recognized at the time how fortunate I was to get to go on such a nice family vacation.  I also recognized (and here is where you will want to cue the small violins) how desperately I wanted to go to Hawaii or Arizona or somewhere warm.  Because yes, Sun Valley is sunny, but it is also snowy and I would have rather spent a vacation (and still would rather spend a vacation) on a beach than on a mountain.

Well, it’s almost February and guess where we are going?  Sun Valley!  We went to Hawaii last year and Randy loves to ski more than anything and my parents now own a time share there, so snow and cold – here we come!  I am actually really excited and think the boys will have a total blast.  We plan to try Graham in ski lessons and put Spencer in some kind of daycare so we can actually get a couple of days on the mountain, hopefully in the sun.

So, I’m off for a week.  I will still have a post or two for you while I am gone.  In the meantime, I leave you with this soup.  Butternut squash soup is everywhere on menus these days.  I love butternut squash soup but I almost never order it in restaurants because it is usually just a big cream festival.  I love the flavor of winter squash – why would I want to drown it out with cream?  I prefer to make my own soup.  My old go-to recipe was from Bon Appétit and was very simple and very delicious.  This one is a bit more complex, still very simple, and even more delicious which I didn’t think was possible.  Roasting the squash brings so much flavor to the soup and the generous amount of curry and bit of honey gives you tremendous depth of flavor.  Sweet, salty, spicy is an intoxicating combination.  The original recipe calls for a cup of cream but I cut it down to a half-cup of half-and-half and it was still plenty creamy, but the flavor of the roasted squash really came through.

One more note.  On the whole, I find garnishes to be kind of fussy.  They make for good photographs but often times I feel like the are an added step when I really just want to get dinner on the table.  Don’t skip the garnishes here.  They take the soup from quite lovely to quite lovely and really interesting.  If you don’t want to shell out for crème fraîche here, you could use sour cream.

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One Year Ago: Two Favorites.  My tried and true Guacamole and Lentils with Capers, Walnuts, Walnut Oil and Mint

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Lime Crème Fraîche
Adapted from From the Earth to the Table
Serves 6

2 tbps. unsalted butter
1 large onion, chopped
1 large butternut squash (enough to give you about 3 cups after roasting)
Olive oil
6 cups vegetable stock
1½ tbsp. curry powder
¼ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1 tbsp. honey
½ cup half-and-half
3 tbsp. dry sherry
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Toasted pumpkin seeds or almonds, and chopped chives for garnishing
Lime Crème Fraîche (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 400°F.  Cut the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out all the seeds.  Brush the cut surface generously with olive oil and place on a baking sheet.  Roast in the oven, cut side up, for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the flesh is very soft and very lightly caramelized.  Allow to cool, then scrape out the flesh and set aside.

In a large dutch oven or soup pot, melt the butter and sauté the onions until very soft but not brown.  Transfer to a food processor and process in batches if necessary, the onions and roasted squash.  Return mixture to soup pot and whisk it together with the stock, curry, nutmeg, and honey.  Bring to a simmer and cook 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Stir in the half-and-half and sherry.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve in bowls garnished with the pumpkin seeds, chives, and a drizzle of the Lime Crème Fraîche.

Lime Crème Fraîche

1 cup Crème Fraîche
2 tsp. freshly grated lime zest
1 tbsp. fresh lime juice
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a medium bowl, mix the crème fraîche, lime zest, and lime juice.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Refrigerate for at least an hour for flavors to develop.  Can be stored, refrigerated, for up to 3 days.


Category: Soup
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