Clamming up to warm the cockles of your heart: cockles, or clams, with fregola

Well, ragazzi, Annalena is trying to wean you all to weekend posts only; however, she has a short break in her day, and the dish in question is well worth having ahead of time (she will have at least one post for you this weekend though.  Trust her).

There comes a time during the winter when the weather is such that the local fishermen cannot get out and bring in a catch.  Too dangerous.  And when that happens, Annalena makes her way to one of the fish markets in the area, searches around for what's good, what's sustainable, and what she and the Guyman haven't had in a while.    In a trip this week, she brought home black cod, and cockles.

You've seen cockles, haven't you?

You can think of them as small clams if you like.   There are various forms of them, but this greenish one is the one that Annalena sees most often.  They are very tender, and very sweet.  If you decide to make this dish with cockles, know that you will need about half a pound of them per person, if this is your  DISH.  As a side dish, perhaps 1/4-1/3 of a pound is called for.   that's a lot of these buggers, but there isn't much in them.

From the big ole island of Sardinia comes a pasta which Annalena loves:  fregola.  One commentator referred to it as "toasted couscous," which it really isn't; however, it is toasted, and it has the sort of shape of a couscous grain on steroids:

This is partially cooked fregola, and we'll get to that below.   One of the dishes that is typical, of Sardinian cuisine, is fregola con vongole, or fregola with clams.   Before you say  "well, OF COURSE," here's a little bit of trivia for you,  which points out the need for cooks to know EVERYTHING, including geography.  Sardinia, while an island, and a big one, does not have a very developed seafood cuisine.  And why is that?  Well, it is because much of the island's coast is surrounded with malarial marshes.  Hence, it is not often safe to fish , especially if you are a loaner.  Clams can be dug, and so you will see things like that, and you will see Sardinian fish dishes, but by and large, this cuisine is meat and pasta, including another favorite pasta of Annalena's, maloreddus  (look it up, and get some).   We won't be using that here though, as we now delve into the recipe.

Ok, for three smaller portions or two larger ones (or, four really small ones), get yourself a cup and a half of dry fregola, a pound of cockles (or, 24 clams, small ones please),  a half cup of white wine, two cloves of garlic, sliced, and one hot pepper.  You might also want some parsley.  That is up to you.

Get a big pot of salted water ready, and cook the fregola, for only about four minutes.  Cook it as if you were cooking pasta, not couscous, where what you're looking for is total absorption of the liquid.  You don't want this here.  Yet...

Drain the fregola, and put it aside (that's the picture  you have up there).  Now, get a big broad pan, and slick it with olive oil - say two tablespoons - and add the sliced garlic mentioned above, together with one hot pepper  . You can add more of these if you like a spicier dish, and you can add more hot pepper at the end as well.   After about 30 seconds, add your cockles, or clams and close the pan tightly.

Cockles will begin to open after only about three minutes.  Scoop them out, with a slotted spoon, and move them to a bowl.  Clams will take longer, but you do the same thing.    When you've got them all out, take that partially cooked fregola, and dump it into the liquid.  Lower your heat, and let it bubble away, for about five minutes.  The pasta is going to absorb all of that juice, or most of it.    Then, add the cockles, or clams, toss them a bit, and:

Pretty dish, isn't it?  You can serve this tableside, or of course, dish it up in the kitchen.  Bowls are really what you need.  You won't need salt, because of  the salinity of the juices from those bivalves, and whomever likes heat the most, gets the pepper.  You can also, of course, put  hot pepper on now, or the chopped parsley if you are so inclined.  You could also work some leftover cooked greens into this if you are trying to get some veggies into your diet.  

Fregola with cockles.  You'll be eating well, ragazzi.  Indeed, you will. 

The cookie without a name, and no cholesterol. : French olive oil cookies

The regular readers of this blog will know that Annalena has a fascination, some would say obsession, with uses of olive oil and wine in desserts.  This, ragazzi, is a subculture of cooking, that we have, at least here in the US, mostly lost, if we ever had it.

If you were to draw a horizontal line, through a map of Italy, at Rome, you would have what we call the "butter belt."  Cooking above that line, very much relies on butter, rather than olive oil.  Below that, it's olive oil.

There are exceptions of course,  but this is a very general rule.  The same general rule holds for France, although of course, the line is not through Rome.  In Spain,  not so much, and certainly not in Mediterranean Africa.  Be this as it may,  it points to the  need to know geography to understand cooking:  if we are looking at a region which is very much flat, so that animals can graze, we are going to have a cuisine that is based on animal fats and dairy.  If, on the other hand, the land is mountainous, or there aren't very large plots of land to give grazing space, we go to plants.  And one can subdivide as well, into what suits cows (larger spaces), as compared to sheep (smaller ones), and goats (the Masters at "dealing with it," foodwise), and so forth.  So, when you eat a sheep's milk cheese from Italy, ragazzi,  it is almost always going to be from the south.  And when you eat a cow's milk cheese, from the North.

Now what does this have to do with cookies?  Well, if you're not used to Annalena's digressions yet, shame on you.  Read some more.  Last week, she read a recipe from Dorie Greenspan, describing a cookie based on olive oil.  Ms.  Greenspan explained that it was from the Languedoc-Rossillon region of  France (and Annalena will not undertake to pretend she knows  French geography), which put it in the olive oil belt, and it was based on olive oil.

Well... Annalena does not have an olive oil cookie recipe.  As she read on, she was intrigued, because Ms. Greenspan spoke of how while SHE had put vanilla into the recipe, the originals called for orange peel or anise.

Hmmm.  Annalena is getting more and more curious.  And as she read through the recipe, she noted:  no eggs. No butter.  Could this be?  Is this a cholesterol free cookie?

Yes, ragazzi, it is.  Is it healthy?  No carissimi, it is not.  What is it called?

As they say in French Je ne sais pas.  That's "I dunno" for those of you even less literate in French than is Annalena.  She did her research, and could not find the name.  All of that aside, these cookies are good.  And they have an interesting aspect: their flavors change over time.  The Guyman and Annalena ate one, warm out of the oven.  Then another, about four hours later.  VERY different.  At that point, they were still "dessert cookies."  As Annalena writes this, they are more  "something with coffee cookies."

They are easy.   VERY easy.  Just have patience in shaping them.  This is what they look like when they're done:

And here we go.   You need just under 3 cups of flour that you will combine with a half teaspoon of baking powder, and half of that, of salt.  Put that aside.

In your mixing bowl, add 3/4 cup of sugar and the grated rind of one large orange.  Now, get your fingers in there and work them.  Just rub them together, until the oil of the orange has begun to make the sugar somewhat sandy, and you can smell that wonderful fragrance.  NOW, add all that flour, and stir it together.  Pour in half a cup of olive oil.  Here, whatever you use doesn't matter, but for heaven's sake, use something good.  And then add half a cup of sweet , or off sweet , white wine.   At least that's what the recipe called for.  Annalena picked up a bottle of sweet, alcoholic apple cider from Vermont and used that.  It worked just fine.    Finally, add a small, half teaspoon of vanilla.

You are probably going to need your hands to knead this together.  You can use a mixer, but why would you?  In any event, mix it up until you get a  smooth, somewhat soft dough.  It will feel like bread dough.  Then, break off pieces about the size of a walnut.  Roll them into small cylinders, and then , at the ends, press down with your thumb and pinky.  This is counter intuitive, because you WANT to use your thumb and forefinger.  Trust Annalena: you will get better results with the pinky, and you'll improve your manual dexterity somewhat.  After you do that, roll them again, gently, to get a sort of round "belly" in the middle, and then dip the cookie into granulated sugar, before you put it on a baking sheet lined with parchment.

You're going to need two sheets here, because you'll get 36-40 cookies.  They don't spread much, but still you need room.  Bake them at 350 for 20-22 minutes.  Half way through, rotate the sheets.

If you eat them when they are warm, they will be very soft and the orange flavor, faint.  Later in the day, the edges will be crispy, and the orange will come out, big and strong.  The next day, everything crisps up, and the orange becomes a bit less prominent.

And there  you have it.  America wrote a song called "A horse with no name,"  and now, Annalena has given you a cookie without one.   But if you CAN give her a name for these ( a real name, ragazzi, not Pierre or Rousseau or something silly), please lte her know.

NOT gluten free: seitan marsala

Ragazzi, Annalena has to get something off of her not inconsiderable chest.

She recognizes, that some of you out there, are unfortunately afflicted with Celiac's disease, a HORRIBLE autoimmune disease that is stimulated by gluten.  This recipe is not for you.  There are many of you, however, who will say  "well, I'm gluten intolerant."  Annalena will get in trouble here, but here goes.  No you're not.  There is an ever growing body of literature that shows, convincingly, that what is passing for gluten intolerance is just either something having to do with preservatives, or something that the medical community, in its wisdom, has provoked.  Just like it did with other conditions, and fads (who remembers wheat bran?  Echinacea?    And so we go).

Civilization has been eating gluten for a long, LONG time.  Gluten, in the form of seitan, is a major component of the diets of vegetarian monks in Asia.  Trust  her, if there had been a problem in the world of the monks, Annalena would have known about it.  She is unaware of it.  She is unaware of stories of monks developing afflictions from eating various Buddhist dishes based on gluten. Hence, to a very large extent she says  'GET OVER IT."

Ok, send the hate mail.   Go ahead.  Annalena knows what to do.

For those of you who do not know what gluten is, here's a very simple explanation:  when wheat flour is kneaded, molecules are knocked together, and a protein, called gluten, forms.  This is the molecule that allows bread to stretch and rise.  It's found in wheat, and in some other grains.  Other grains do not have it.  That is why, for example, if you make rye bread, you must either add some wheat flour, or plan on a very low, very dense bread.

You can make gluten yourself.  Annalena has.  Her bud Ray has.  It is a time consuming process, with a small yield - leave it to the monks to develop something like that.  For those of us, however, who have other things to do than meditate and make gluten from scratch, one can buy gluten flour:

And this is why you want it:

Seems like a good thing, doesn't it?  It is.  And here is how you make it:  put two cups of the flour in a bowl, and add two cups of warm (body temperature) water.  Get your hands in there, and squish it around.  It will be like a sponge.  Knead it until all the flour has disappeared.  Now, break off pieces and roll it into logs.  Annalena usually does 3-4.

Put this into a pot with a few tablespoons of soy sauce, tamari, etc, and a couple of molasses.  You can use all soy if you like.  The point is to get some color.  Most recipes, including the one on the package, call for dried spices.  Don't bother.  Cover the stuff with water, bring it to a simmer, and let it cook for an hour.  The seitan is going to expand, so be ready.  And when an hour has passed, let it cool. 

This is going to give you plenty to do lots of recipes.  Here's one. 

Take about six cups of sliced seitan, and in a nonstick pan, slick the bottom with vegetable or olive oil, and give the seitan a sear.  It does in fact cook, just like meat.  It will take a bit of time, but it's worth it. 

Move the seitan to a bowl, and now to the same pan, augmented with more oil if you need it, a sliced onion, and a cup of chopped celery.  Cook that until the veggies begin to soften.  Move them out of the pan, and add a  pound of mushrooms.  Annalena used a mix of button mushrooms, and black trumpets.  Use what you got.   When the mushrooms have begun to give up the liquid,  add a big teaspoon of salt, and add the veggies and the seitan back in. 

Now, something you may have to shop for:  marsala wine.  Get the dry one, which isn't very dry, but it is drier than the sweet one, which is like cherry juice. Pour out at least half a cup, perhaps 3/4.  Add the wine in 1/3 increments.  The first batch will disappear into the air:  just completely vaporized.  And as you add more, the liquid will stick around.  When you're done, lower the temperature, and simmer for about ten minutes.  Check your seasoning.  You should have the decided taste of marsala in the dish, and if you don't, add more. 

Here's what you get:

Annalena wil not insult you and say it "tastes just like chicken" or that it "tastes just like veal," because it doesn't.  It tastes like seitan, and that's a good thing.  

If you don't have marsala but wish to go forward, use red wine.  Zinfandel is Annalena's favorite.  You can, of course, use white wine, but then Annalena suggests you put some citrus into it, or perhaps do a  version "a l'orange," which Annalena will share with you, if you like.  Just let her know. 

Stewing over it: beef stew.

It's cold, ragazzi, isn't it?  No, it's brutally cold.  And most of us just want to be warm:  toasty warm.  We want simple, delicious, warming food.  Which means, of course, one of us has to get up, buck the inertia, and make something.

So, why don't we make something that really isn't a lot of work, makes a lot, keeps us warm, and is just pretty darn good:  how about some stew?

Interested?  Well, let's get to "work" if you can call it that.    This is a beef stew recipe, ragazzi, but if you would prefer to use pork, or lamb, or even chicken,  go for it.  Careful with chicken though.  Annalena will lead you through the process.

First, when you make a stew, you have to choose the proper cut of meat.  It cannot be too "fine" because, duh, the meat is going to "stew."  Hence, you need something that has a bit of body to it:  what the professionals call a "worked muscle."  Annalena bonded with a butcher over this.  She saw nothing that looked "good," and spoke to the butcher (which is something you should ALL learn to do, once you find a good one).  She said , "I wanted to make beef stew and I was thinking..."  In unison , she and the butcher said "chuck."  Annalena knew she had a friend.  And yes, she and Pablo have become buds of a sort.  

For the stew Annalena made, which made about 16 cups (trust her, you won't be sorry), you need three pounds of beef chuck, cut into cubes.  (Incidentally, ragazzi, unless you REALLY trust the butcher, do NOT buy "stew meat."  It's nasty.  If you are using lamb, or pork, ask for shoulder, and pay the dollar to have the butcher cube it for you, unless you feel ambitious.  If you are using chicken,  anything skinless will do.  If you use breasts, use the whole breast, and cut the pieces into bigger chunks.  Thighs can stay as they are.  You can even keep the bone in. 

The hardest thing we are going to do here, is brown the meat.  You know how to do that, don't you?  Get the pot in which you will be making the stew, and cover it with olive oil.  When the oil begins to smoke, add cubes of salted meat, patted dry, and leave them be, for at least 3 minutes.  Then turn them.  Get as much color as you can.  Keep on doing this,  and while the meat browns, first check your oven racks, and adjust them so that your pot will fit in the oven, and then turn the temperature to 250  (not a misprint, amici:  250:  a low temperature).  

When all of your meat is browned, pour off the fat, and turn off the heat.  Add a half cup of red wine, so that you can get all of the brown bits dissolved.

As you have time, start cutting up root vegetables.  You can use what you like.  Annalena's stew featured carrots (the bigger ones), potatoes, peeled, celery root, a large turnip, a parsley root, and yellow beets.  Yellow ones, because the red ones might give an unpleasant color to the stew, but if you are not visually concerned, used red ones.  Vary these vegetables as you see fit.  You want a volume of veggies that is about 2-3 times that of the meat.  Toss them with a tablespoon of salt.   You'll have a full pan:

Add a couple of cups of chicken stock to this, and then,  cover it, and put it in your oven.  You're going to cook this - for four hours.  Yes, four hours.  And if, like Annalena, you need a life, you will be fascinated by how it develops.  For the first hour, you will see... NOTHING.   Nonetheless, put some gloves on your hands, and stir it.  After two hours, you will begin to see the liquid develop.   Stirring just got easier.    At three hours.... YOU HAVE STEW!   But that fourth hour brings it all together.  That's when the meat begins to fall apart, the hardier roots begin to give up enough to thicken the liquid, and it all comes together.    If you want, at this point, you add a couple of cups of peas that you acquired from the farmers market in warmer weather, and froze....

It would really be better to eat this the NEXT day, because stew is always better after a sit and reheat, but if you must, you must.  Annalena and the Guyman ate this with brown and white rice, which is not traditional, but it sure was good.  Polenta sounds good to Annalena here.   So does pasta, but pasta ALWAYS sounds good to Annalena.

You can freeze this stuff, or even better,  you can share it with your friends.  Remember, someone else is cold, so do it, ragazzi, have a good meal together.  Nothing better than that.

You can do it! Everyday porchetta (sort of)

Ragazzi, all of you are familiar (Annalena hopes), with that amazing Italian dish, porchetta.  When this is done well, it will make you forget about the risk to your cholesterol, the calories, and any other worry you might have.  Sit, eat.  Say to someone "oh, I couldn't possibly eat more," and then go and look for some more skin.

You're shaking your head in agreement, yes?  You should be.  If you're not, you're lying.

Alas, making porchetta honestly requires a great deal of commitment, a great deal of skill, and a great deal of time.  One or two of Annalena's readers may possess all of those, but she doubts most of us do.  She certainly doesn't.  So when she saw a recipe for "weeknight porchetta," she lunged at the chance to make it.  Animals fled, ground shook,  but it was triumphant:

That looks good now, doesn't it?    Indeed, several of you have seen this picture and commented on it already.  Annalena is particular fond of Jess' response which was:  "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck."    That's a good thing.   And if you want to get similar reactions,  make it.  Yes, you can.  Here we go.

First, we gather the materials which we are going to use to "dress" our pork.  You will need four cloves of garlic, chopped as finely as you can.  Then, you will need a  nice branch of rosemary.  Get the needles off, and chop them.  Put the rest of the rosemary in the bunch aside:  you're going to use it.

A full tablespoon of fennel seeds.  Crush them as best you can.  A good knife used in chopping format will do it, but you can also use a rolling pin (roll  over them ragazzi, don't bash them unless you want to send them flying).   And, last but not least, half a tablespoon (or , a teaspoon and a half), of kosher salt.

This is a snap of the elements, waiting to be exploited:

Now, mix all of this together in a bowl, with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, so that you get a nice paste.    You're going to apply this to a pork tenderloin.  And you're ok with this, because you eat pork tenderloin because as far as pork goes, it's so lean...

Well, we're going to fix that REAL soon.    Annalena's recipe called for a pound and a half tenderloin.   Truth to be told, ragazzi, it is very difficult to find a pork tenderloin that large, especially if you use artisanal, or humanely raised, pork (and you should be). Hence, her tenderloin weighed just over a pound.    You rub the paste all over this tenderloin, and then, ideally, let it sit in the fridge overnight, or for the day. 

When you're ready to cook, preheat your oven to 425.  Now, get some bacon  .  This, ragazzi, is what caused Jess' reaction.  Use good quality stuff, and cover the tenderloin.  Annalena's recipe said that four strips would do for a pound and a half.  WRONG. Annalena used four to barely cover the smaller one (always remember, ragazzi, that recipes are approximations.  What the writer used may have been bigger than what Annalena had, and so on , and so forth.  Remember the purpose:  WHY are you using the bacon?  If you cover the tenderloin in 3 strips, fine.  If you need 5, also fine.  DO NOT get anal retentive and say  "IT SAID FOUR STRIPS FOR A POUND AND A HALF.").

So, this is what you get for putting in your oven:

You now take that remaining rosemary onto the bottom of a glass baking dish in which the tenderloin can sit, easily,  and then put the meat on top of it.  Into the oven, for 45 minutes. 

For about ten minutes, you will wonder if this is working. Then, you will smell the rosemary.  In Annalena's mind, NOTHING smells quite as good as rosemary roasting.  It is intoxicating.  It truly is.  After about 20 minutes, you will begin to smell the bacon.  Annalena is not so fond of this smell, but it is what it is.  

And at 45 minutes, you have what is at the top of this entry, but for those who missed it:

It's worth seeing a second time, isn't it?  Let it rest for about ten minutes, and then slice down.  One of the criticisms of pork tenderloin, is that it dries out when it's cooked. Well, the bacon wrap takes care of that.  Another criticism is that it has no taste.  Well, we took care of that now, didn't we? 

Annalena plans to make this again, and is wondering about using citrus peel and juice in her rub.  She'll let you know.  In the meanwhile,  go and cook Kinder.  It's cold, and cooking will make you happy. Yes, it will.

Annalena goes subcontinental, with Sakkarai Pongal

At the start, ragazzi, let Annalena say that she and "Indian" (we will come back to that in a minute) food do NOT have a good relationship, in the kitchen .  In restaurants, it is another matter, but in terms of cooking it, Annalena has NOT had great success.  Yes, she can make a curry - or  more correctly, she can use curry powder.  That does NOT make an "Indian" dish  .  Sicilians use curry powder too (you didn't know that did you?).  And she has made her share of chutneys, but overall, she leaves these dishes to the pros.

This year, for the annual New Year's bash that Annalena and the Guyman give, Annalena gave a try to t his rice pudding dish,  "sakkarai pongal."  AND IT WORKED!!!!   Annalena was so proud of this, she could barely stand herself.  In fact, she almost ate the whole pot of it before she brought it to the table.  And there was a LOT of it.   So, she's thrilled to add this to her recipe.

Now, to return to the use of "Indian" above.  This is a TAMIL dish, which does NOT make it Indian.  There are Tamils in India; however, larger populations live elsewhere, especially in Ceylon.  According to her research,  Annalena found that there are 77 MILLION people who call themselves "Tamil," and it is the largest ethnic group that does not have a nation of its own.

Did you know any of that?  See what you learn, on the way to a rice pudding?  Annalena expects you to share any prizes you win as a result of this information with her.  SHE will know.

You need one ingredient that you almost definitely do not have in your kitchen:  that is moong dal.  These look like very small yellow split peas - but you most certainly may NOT substitute the latter for the former.  Go on amazon and buy some.  And then use the rest to make dhals.

Let's get to work.  This is easy but you need to be attentive.  Put a quarter cup of those split peas into a bowl, cover them with cold water, and let them sit for half an hour, while you collect the other ingredients you will need:  a cup of long grain rice, like basmati or texmati, 3 cups of milk, a stick of cinnamon (go get some if you don't have it),  a half stick of butter (since you don't have ghee on hand),  about 3/4 cup or more of cashews (roasted and unsalted are best),  and a third of a cup of golden raisins (Annalena gives you permission to use dark ones if you don't have the golden ones).  You also need a hefty cup of light brown sugar.  (The source recipe calls for jaggery, which is available in Indian food stores, but you don't have it in your kitchen, and WE WANT DESSERT).  Finally,  2 teaspoons of ground cardamom.  Some of you LOVE cardamom.  This is a potent spice though, and you should proceed with care, especially if your spices are fresh (and if they aren't, why aren't they?).

Have all your ingredients?  GOOD.    Let's put the rice, the drained moong dal and 4.5 cups of water in a big pot.  Bring it to a boil, lower the heat, and cook for about 12 minutes.  The rice is going to get very, VERY soft.  Now, add the milk, the cinnamon, and cook, at low heat, stirring every now and then to keep things moving.  The rice will stick if you don't.  That's good if you are making paella and you want a soccarat, but not so good for this.  Let this all cook for 20 minutes, and watch it turn into this beautiful, pale white "mush," that you KNOW is going to be good, because of the way it smells.

On an adjoining burner, melt the butter, and add the raisins and cashews, for 2-3 minutes.  Add this to the rice with the brown sugar, the cardamom, and cook for another 3 minutes or so.   And... we have  DESSERT.

In Annalena's experience, rice pudding fans are fanatics.   So they love getting a new recipe.  She hopes this is a new one for you.  Eat it at room temperature, or cold.  It's good both ways.  Eating it right out of the pot, however, is not recommended. You WILL hurt yourself.

In honor of her return, Annalena offers:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upR7GQ5ToCs

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.