Stealing AGAIN: celery root and boston lettuce soup

I can't help it. I really can't. When I have something at a restaurant that I really like, which feels like something I can make, I have to try it. That way I know, if it never shows up at the restaurant again (a REAL possibility), I can have it anyway.
Normally, I do this with main dishes and desserts. Not soup. Why not? Well, I almost never order soup in a restaurant. And why not? Ok, I will 'fess up, it's a weird thing. In my mind, I consider soup a rip off. I always think that I'm going to get a bowl of something that cost about a quarter to make, but for which I'm going to be charged 10 bucks or so.

It IS true that in restaurants soup IS up there on the profit meter. Normally, the pay off on a bowl of soup exceeds anything except maybe coffee or a drink. This is so even though soup is usually the l east expensive item on the menu. It's a kind of weird "catch 22." In most places, soup is almost an after thought, or so it would seem. It's the same soup in every restaurant (for one stretch that I remember, every single restaurant I went to, for two weeks, had butternut squash soup of one kind or another. On another occasion, it was potato leek). When someone works on a budget and goes out to eat, however, the soup is appealing because it's cheap and more than that, it's filling. (in fact, many guides to home dinner planning advise NOT serving soup, because it is so filling).

So what does one do? I am not sure. I guess if the soup sounds like something you would like to eat, have it. If it does not, spend 2 extra dollars and have the salad that does sound good. Maybe if there is a "revolt" against bad soup, the restaurants will pay attention.

A week ago, we were at one of our favorite restaurants (Savoy), and the soup DID appeal. It was "celery root boston lettuce." Now, at this time of year, celery root soup is pretty ubiquitous. We're going into fall, the green things are waning, and celery root has an inherent creaminess, like potatoes, that make it taste richer than it is. I'm fond of celery root soup, but not overly so. The addition of lettuce had me intrigued. Most people don't think of lettuce as a vegetable that they can cook , and that's a shame. It makes a really good cooked vegetable, although it does cook down more than just about anything else. Young lettuces sauteed with peas in butter are wonderful. Moving to soup, years ago, I found and made a recipe for "bacon lettuce and tomato soup." That, too, was good. I heard that it was the winner of a contest that Campbell's sponsored. They bought the recipe for 5000.00 ( a lot at the time), but it never went to market because - DUH - they couldn't figure out a way to make the bacon stay crisp and the lettuce not get brown and disgusting.

this soup was NOT brown or disgusting. It was good. As the chef, Ryan and I are friends, he came over to chat and I asked about it "Oh, nothing much. You know how to do it. Just use milk instead of cream."

OH. Okay. I didn't know there was either in it. Shows you what kind of palette I have. But what I interpreted him as saying was that it was a basis vegetable soup, pureed, with a broth base.

Now, I got all that from "Oh nothing much. You know how to do it." Well, he was right.

Here's how I constructed mine. First, I knew I wanted some flavor from the broth, but I didn't want to use chicken stock. I wanted to share the soup with my friends Mark and Jeremy, who both do not eat chicken. In my experience, any pre-prepared vegetable stock is disgusting, so I use water . Not this time. I felt like there needed to be a deeper base than the one that water supplies, so I had to make my own vegetable stock. I made it by chopping up an onion, two stalks of celery, two carrots, and a large beefsteak tomato that was past its prime. The tomato was unusual, but it was a good choice. I covered a soup pot with olive oil and added the vegetables. I let them cook, without stirring until they browned. Then I stirred to brown them some more, and when that was done, I added two quarts of water, and a few sprigs of thyme.

While this was going on, I cleaned and roughly chopped three large celery roots. I also took all the leaves off of one head of Boston lettuce, and the older, greener leaves of a second one. I let the stock cook away for ten minutes, tasting every few. When the flavor was pronouced - good strong notes of thyme and tomato, I was done, and I drained it.

The careful reader will wonder why, as I usually puree my soup base into my final soup. I did it this time, because I did not want to overload the celery flavor. It CAN get overwhelming. I poured the strained stock into a pot and added the celery root, and a BIG teaspoon of salt. Probably closer to two. Then I let this cook away, uncovered, for just over half an hour. Twice, the water level dropped and I added more. I tested until the celery root was tender enough to fall apart when I jabbed it with a knife. When I had that, I added my WASHED lettuce leaves, and let them droop into the hot soup. (if your lettuce is clean, you don't need to do this, BUT CHECK). And if your celery root is cut smaller than mine was, you'll need less time.

When the stuff had cooled to luke warm, I pureed it in the blender - a good choice, because the blender got it smoother. It emerged an incredible emerald green color. Just gorgeous . Just like the restaurant. I tasted it, and now I saw why Ryan had said to use milk. The flavor was very "brassy" and strong. The milk - about a cup of it, stirred in, calmed everything down. The color was less green, but still beautiful

So, how does it taste? Well, I bet if you didn't know there was lettuce in it, you wouldn't know there was lettuce in it. It is definitely a celery root soup, with a taste of fresh, clean herbs. It's a good thing to have on hand, as we go into the winter months. We will be eating a lot of roots and squashes and tubers, and lettuces are almost always available in some way . If you want to lighten up your heavyweight cold weather soups, and give them the taste of spring, here's your ticket. Try it.

And if you go to Savoy, thank Ryan