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Thursday, January 28, 2010
5 tips from the Soup Peddler to improve your soup
David Ansel, aka The Soup Peddler, knows that, in Austin, the soup days ahead are limited. Within weeks, the days will be long and the weather warm, which triggers something deep within our bellies to crave food that isn’t made of hot liquid. But before we jump ahead to spring salad days, we’ll certainly have a few more spells of cold and rain that we’ll only get through with a bowl of steaming soup.
Just days ahead of the next cold front, the owner of the Austin soup delivery company offered up 5 tips on how to be a better soup-maker.
“Making soup is like painting,” he says. “When you start a painting, you start with big brushes and broad strokes.” This is the stock, a background color that sets the mood for the whole soup. “As you go along, you do less and use smaller brushes,” and by the end, you’re painting the smallest details, which for a soup is the finishing notes of fresh herbs, sherry or acids like citrus or vinegar.
In this list, Ansel takes the painting metaphor even further and explains why you should always keep a package of turkey necks in your freezer:
1. Be like Bob Ross. “The Bob Ross School of Soup Making is not paint by numbers. It’s encouraging people to develop a feel for soup and not feel like you have to stick to a recipe,” he says. “Soup is ill-suited for recipes.” For instance, “1 medium potato” and “1 medium carrot” are not exactly precise measurements and every stock — just like the palate of the person who made it — is unique.
“Relying on any recipe will generally leave you in a pinch,” he says. Look up at least three different recipes for the soup you want to make to learn the traditional steps and the shortcuts. Combine the recipes according to the amount of time and ingredients you have.
2. Make your own stock. “Don’t cut corners on the stock,” he says. “Even the best stock that you can buy sucks. It’s just smoke and mirrors so that it tastes like chicken stock. It’s cheap and easy to make it yourself.”
This is where the turkey necks come in. To make a pot of versatile and rich turkey stock, bring a pot of water and turkey necks to a boil and simmer for as many hours as you have to spare. (The longer both stock and soup are on the stove, the better, he says.) Strain the stock and spread out the leftover meat and bones, which allows it to cool faster so you can pick out the meat to add back to the stock.
What about onion, carrot and celery, the holy mirepoix that many chefs refuse to leave out of any dish? “I find that (it) just gets in the way. It takes up space where you could have more chicken backs.” Add aromatics along with noodles or rice after you’ve already made the stock, and you’re in for a spectacular soup. “I’ve eaten soup all over the world, but that turkey rice soup is super wow.”
For chicken stock, rotisserie carcasses are fine, but thighs or wings, the cheapest and most flavorful parts of the bird, are even better. You can leave the skins on, but you’ll have to skim the fat, so Ansel recommends removing the skin before boiling. For fish stock, freeze the shrimp shells that you peel at home and ask the staff at your grocery store seafood counter if they have fish bones for sale.
3. Plant your own herbs. Rosemary, oregano, thyme, mint and cilantro are easy to grow in the ground or in pots, Ansel says. Having fresh herbs handy will automatically improve your soups.
4. Use what you have. “Soup has always been a food of necessity, of emptying the fridge,” he says. “Designing a soup around what you have is more in the tradition than going out and buying ingredients.” If a recipe calls for parsley, for instance, and you only have cilantro or mint, go with what you’ve got. Don’t have shallots and leeks? Use garlic and onions instead.
Look at seafood soups such as bouillabaisse: “The best ones were developed in poor cultures by fishermen who were left with unsellable stuff.” If you shop for ingredients, you’re also more likely to use too many ingredients. Less is more: “You should be able to taste what you’re putting in or else you shouldn’t bother putting it in.”
5. Add salt and herbs or acids toward the end. Lemon juice, parsley, cilantro or scallion will brighten any soup, and adding salt too early in the process can interfere with cooking legumes and potatoes. Salt should be added after the vegetables and starches are cooked, but not well-cooked. “You want the chunks to be able to absorb salt.”
If you are going to make a pureed soup, like this Armenian Apricot Soup from Ansel’s book “Slow and Difficult Soups” that 101 Cookbooks blogger Heidi Swanson wrote about in 2005, process it in small batches in a regular blender instead of an immersion blender for a finer texture.
Photos by SonicWalker and Alexik on Flickr.
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Whole Foods to offer bigger discount to healthier employees
Earlier this week, Jezebel posted about a new program for Whole Foods employees that allows them a greater in-store discount if they don’t smoke and have low blood pressure, cholesterol and BMI, or Body Mass Index.
Part of an initiative from CEO John Mackey to reduce the company’s health care costs, the program will allow employees who have a BMI of less than 24, blood pressure of 110/70 and a cholesterol of 150 to get a discount of 30 percent on purchases from Whole Foods. The sliding scale leaves employees with BMIs above 30, as well as those who choose not to participate, with the standard 20 percent discount.
This program comes less than six months after Mackey’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that argued for less government control over health care. “Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health,” Mackey wrote. “This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.”
What do you think? I’m the first to admit that I’d love a discount on, say, the cost of my own health insurance if I can prove a low BMI and blood pressure, but this Jezebel writer has an important point — and please note the sarcasm: “Because if public health research has taught us anything, it’s that reducing people’s buying power totally makes them healthier. Stay classy, Whole Foods.”
Organizations like the Sustainable Food Center work hard to make the public aware that access to affordable healthy food isn’t a reality for many people, most of whom don’t have the luxury of getting a discount at stores like Whole Foods. Everyone knows a burger at McDonald’s costs less than a pound of apples, so how do we make sure that people who are most in need good-for-you-food can afford to buy it?
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment Categories: Chewing the fat, Food in the news
Bloggery Love: Grapefruit Marmalade from the Cosmic Cowgirl
Stephanie McClenny’s food blog, the Cosmic Cowgirl, has only been around for a year, but she says it’s not only revived her passion for photography, it gives her an excuse to spend even more time cooking. Whether she’s cooking tamales with friends or making marmalade from Texas citrus that’s in season, she loves being in the kitchen - camera in hand - creating something delicious for her husband, Houston, who has learned that he can’t eat anything until it has been photographed.
McClenny is a school nurse by day, but when she’s not at school, she’s trying new recipes from her favorite food magazines or other food blogs. The blog also challenges her to take on projects like canning that she hadn’t attempted before. “I’ve never taken a cooking class,” she says. “I like to figure things out myself … and the blog helps me remember how I did it for the next time.”
Texas Ruby Red Grapefruit Marmalade
Honey version:
5 medium-sized Texas `Rio Star’ grapefruit, cut in half horizontally
Juice of 4 lemons
6 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup local honey
Vanilla version:
5 medium-sized Texas `Rio Star’ grapefruit, cut in half horizontally
Juice of 4 lemons
8 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean, split open lengthwise, seeds removed, pod reserved to add to pot
Put grapefruit halves in a large soup pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and simmer, uncovered until very soft, about 2 hours, adding more water from a simmering kettle if needed. Drain and set aside until cool enough to handle. Place a cutting board inside a roasting pan and cut grapefruit into large chunks, removing seeds as you go.
Place chunks (rind, pith, flesh and all) in a food processor fitted with the metal blade, and whirl, in batches, until pieces are finely chopped. Add back to large pot with remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Set pot to simmer and stir frequently until mixture reaches jell point, tasting as you go to see if it needs more sugar. Allow mixture to sit off heat for about 5 minutes, and then stir before filling jars. Process in a water bath for 15 minutes. Makes about 11-12 half-pint jars.
— Adapted by Stephanie McClenny from a recipe by Nigella Lawson
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