Back from hiatus, two soups to keep you warm

Happy New Year, and buon capo d'anno ragazzi.  Yes, it is  the strega in the kitchen.  Four months from her last blog, when she thought she would retire, Annalena returns.  One could draw SO many parallels to folks who have come out of retirement, perhaps wrongly.  Let's be nice, darlings.  Annalena is back, but on a different schedule. Her attempts to post daily, to be honest, spent her old body and mind desperately.  Hence, she'll probably be here once a week, probably on Sundays, with the recipes she has found most pleasing during the week.  And today, we will look at one of Annalena's favorite categories of food, soups.  And we will be tying in many themes which Annalena uses, or overuses.

Thorough readers of Annalena's blog will know of the concept, stolen from Nigella Lawson, of "temple days."  These, ragazzi, are the days when you do a bit of repentance for the excesses of the past. And January might very well be called "temple month," since so many of us are trying to undo the , ahem  "damage" of the past six weeks.  Soup can help you with that.  One of the wonderful things about soup, is that you can make it as rich as you like, or as lean as you like.  And we'll explore that below.  Another wonderful thing about soup is that if you know what you are doing, you can transform very cheap ingredients (or, "economical" ones), and make them into something that is splendid.  To wit, let's investigate the first soup, which is celery.  NOT cream of celery , ragazzi, but CELERY:

Annalena thinks of celery as the tuba of the vegetable world.  Yes, another one of her odd metaphors, but she will explain.  At one point, Annalena listened to a recording that was prepared with, and without the tuba part.  It was a classic piece (perhaps something by Beethoven), and the difference was palpable.  Now, if one didn't know that the tuba was missing, one wouldn't  know the tuba was missing; however, something WAS.  And that is the case with celery, ragazzi.  It is one of the bass notes in so may dishes.  Annalena thinks of it as "grounding" recipes.  Leaving it out will not destroy a dish, but it will not be the same.  Just think of any Creole dish without celery in it (celery is part of the "holy trinity" of Creole cooking), and so on, and so forth.

But as with the tuba, there are very rare opportunities for celery to be the star.  Annalena admits to guilt in not featuring this vegetable on her table; however, confronted with many stalks of it from her CSA, she needed to do something before it went the way of all compost.  Magically, a recipe for celery soup appeared in one of her cooking magazines.  TO THE STOVE she went.  And this dish, the color of a luna moth (which Annalena has never seen live; only as specimens, and also in a hallucination when she was on pain killers following an operation - let us not go there),  resulted.  (And if anyone ever wishes to invite Annalena to a viewing of the live specimens, she will make you this soup).  So, let's go and cook.  Annalena made a lean version,  as you will note from the recipe.  Make the richer one at your own choice.

You will need half a stick of unsalted butter.  You also need enough leeks (yet another neglected vegetable), such that you have 2-3 cups of  thinly sliced, white and light green ones.  The number of leeks you need will vary, because of their size.  Try to stay away from the ones that you could use to beat someone to death with, but all else is fair game.  You also need two onions, coming in at about a pound, total,  3 cloves of garlic, and one bunch of celery.   The whole bunch, leaves and all.

Your stock here shall be water.  So, slice the leeks thin.  Then peel and chop the onions.  Then chop the celery.  And peel and slice the garlic cloves.    Put the celery aside for a few minutes, as you add everything else to the butter in a large heavy pot.   Add salt and pepper.  Cook at medium.  Try not to brown these veggies, but get them soft.  It will take about 10 minutes or so.  Now add the celery, stir it all up and cook for three minutes more.  Add salt and pepper, and then 8 cups of water.  Bring this to a boil, then lower the heat, and simmer for about 45 minutes.

When this is done, let it cool down, and puree it in batches.  That will give you the soup you see in the picture above. To Annalena's taste, this had a very rich mouth feel, and made a wonderful start to a meal.

BUT... if you want to push the envelop... ok, here we go.  Let's cook four ounces of diced bacon or pancetta until it begins to crisp.  Get it out of the pan, and let it drain on some paper towel. Remove most, but not all of the fat - leave about a tablespoon - and add two more tablespoons of butter.   While it's melting, cut up three slices of country style white bread, and fry them in the fat.  

You might think "we're done." No, we're not.  You first swirl some creme fraiche into this soup, or sour cream (half a cup to the pot), and when you serve it forth, you add the croutons and the bacon or pancetta.

So, ragazzi, you can go "whole hog" on this, or you can use one or more of the add ons.  In January, however, let us all be real:  we need as much filling, lower calorie stuff as we can get. So, Annalena suggests you try the soup "as is," first.  And then come back and play with it.  And if you do add more "stuff," share with us, please.



And now we go to another soup, featuring a few neglected vegetables, and one that people don't really use, which isn't really a vegetable:  we're going to make carrot fennel chestnut soup:

This is another one which is really easy, and good. And if you really can't find chestnuts (which means you did not look), then you can leave them out.  You will need about 12 ounces of fennel: that is one standard bulb, or two organic ones.  You will not be using the fronds or the stems, so save them for when you cook fish, if you like, and then slice the bulb thin.  No surgical precision is needed here.  Then you need one onion, maybe four ounces in weight, peeled, and sliced thinly, as if you were making topping for a focaccia or diet onion rings.   Add a couple of soup carrots (the big ugly ones), that you've peeled, and chopped.  Finally, a potato of about 3 ounces size, peeled, and cut in half, a couple of sprigs of thyme, and a bayleaf. 

Now, you're at a stage where you need to be selective about your pot.  Theoretically, you will not be browning the vegetables.  In Annalena's view, who cares?  But if you do, use a smaller pot.  If you don't care, or you're going to be watching the pot, use a bigger one.   Add  four tablespoons of butter  to the pot, together with all those vegetables you just chopped and sliced.  Add salt and pepper.  Heat this at MEDIUM (very important here), until the butter melts, and then lower the heat to VERY low. Add salt and pepper, then cover the pot, and go away.  Come back every ten minutes or so, and stir it up.  If you are seeing browning, drop the heat, unless you don't care.   You're going to let these cook for 45 minutes.  Preventing veggies from browning with 45 minutes of cooking is challenging in a big pot, easier in a smaller one.  

After 45 minutes, you'll look at these vegetables with a frisson of horror:  they will look terrible.  But don't we all when we haven't finished "doing" ourselves?  And we will do these vegetables good.   Trust Annalena.    Now, you're adding liquid.  The original recipe called for vegetable stock, which Annalena does not have in the house (although she has resurrected one of her all time favorites, and at some point, she will pass this on to you),  so Annalena used 2 cups chicken and 2 cups water.  You can use whatever liquids you like.  Just put them in, cover the pot again, raise the heat to medium, and cook for ten minutes.  This time you are basically cooking the potato.  

Again, let this sit to cool, and puree it in batches, in a blender.  You may very well be astounded how smooth it is (Annalena was, but then again, she needs a life).  

When Annalena tasted this, she thought it was good, but this was one when the rich making ingredient was needed:  creme fraiche.  About half a cup, stirred right into the soup (not as a garnish as called for).  Annalena also left out the maple syrup, but those of you who want sweet rather than savory, go right ahead. 

Finally:  the chestnuts.  Now, Annalena made the point above because we should all get familiar with these wonderful little orbs.  You can buy them, vacuum packed, in small packages (3 ounces).  Get one of those, and chop the chestnuts roughly.  Toss them into the soup.  Or use less.  Or don't use them at all - Annalena will not be offended.  But you'll have a second soup. 

Annalena and the Guyman sucked this down with some toasted cheese breads. Annalena felt that the flavors had been transformed, and she felt like she was eating pizza soup.  One has always wondereda about the girl's mind, so there it is.  If you make this, let her know what you think of the flavors. 

Ok, ragazzi, that's it for this round.  We may come back with a rice pudding recipe  without any pictures of it,  so let  Annalena know that you've seen this, you've read it, and you missed her. She's an attention sponge, you know.