French Onion Soup (revamped repost)

Back when I was on a member of an online dating website (yes that happened and seriously I suggest it to anyone single who wants to meet new people they wouldn't otherwise) I wrote in my profile to answer the prompt "I am good at  ______" that I was good at making french onion soup.  I subsequently got multiple messages from nearby single men asking details about how to make french onion soup. Now I am sure these were just conversation starters,  but it really must show that people out there are interested in this right? And since it is in fact so, so easy to make a decent french onion soup, it seems like this knowledge needs to be shared.

In case you were wondering how to make a basic french onion soup, and perhaps haven't found any girls on dating websites to address the question to, here is a bit of instruction on how I make it.

I actually posted a french onion soup recipe  on this site in October of 2010. I decided it was time to revamp and update that post with new pictures and some slight revisions, as well as to bring it out from the depths of this site's archives.

I made this french onion soup recently, using a similar method to my original with only a few small changes. The ingredients are simple and inexpensive,  and the outcome is pretty good if I do say so myself.

If you are wondering what changes I made since last posting this recipe, they were mostly based on simplifiying and making the original even easier to make, with fewer ingredients to go out and buy. Things like using dried thyme instead of fresh, cutting out the rosemary, and using only red wine instead of both red and white, in place of the traditional sherry. I also increased the amount of garlic, and reduced the amount of bread, which I chose this time to serve on the side.

Next I photographed it in the natural light from a sunny window, and not on an ugly orange placemat. Big changes, guys. But really, this post needed some attention. The single men of Boston want to know how to make french onion soup, and they don't want to see photographs that look like this:

And here's what you need to know to make the recipe:

Simple French Onion Soup

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 large onions, sliced

1 TBS olive oil

2 tsp dried thyme

3-4 cloves of garlic- minced

3 cups beef or chicken broth

3/4 to 1 cup dry red wine

salt and pepper to taste

2 tsp worcester sauce

Plus:

4 slices of bread- I used challa, but french bread is classic

1 cup of shredded cheese- Greyere and Parmesean, Swiss, or even Cheddar- whichever is your favorite. I found a Cheddar-Greyere blend at Trader Joes that worked well and was inexpensive

Process:

1.Halve and slice each of your onions. Try not to cry too much. Chew on some bread, it will help.

2. Heat your oil in a large pan. Once hot, add the onions.

3. Heat the onions in a covered pot until they begin to caramelize, stirring occasionally. About 20 minutes.

4. Add garlic and thyme. Cook 5 more minutes.

5. Add wine to deglaze pan, then stock (and water if you need more liquid)

6. Add worcester sauce, and salt and pepper to taste.

7. Simmer and allow the liquid to reduce a bit and get delicious. 

8. The End.

except for this part:

MEANWHILE: 

1.Heat the oven to 400. 

2. On a baking sheet lay out your slices of bread, topped liberally with cheese. 

3.Bake until the cheese is bubbly. 

4.Serve alongside the soup. 

PS- I hereby promise to try really hard to make my next cooking post not be soup related. Sorry.

Tom Kha Gai

Thai food is one of my favorite cuisines. When I go out for Thai food the part of the menu I get most excited about is the soup section. This probably isn't surprising to any of you who have been reading my blog for any length of time...I seem to be a bit obsessed with soup. I once joked that I should officially change my food blog into a soup blog. In fact, a quick search shows me that the word "soup" was mentioned in 17 of my 45 cooking related posts.  17 is the same number of posts in which I mention the word "flour" in the baking section, and actually several more mentions than the word "project" in my home and DIY themed posts, which I often feel ridiculous for overusing. What can I say, I am a lover of soup.

Should I officially convert this into a soup blog, guys? Do you all love soup like I do? Think of all the possibilities...I have never even posted a chilled soup, such as cold cherry soup or gazpacho! And I have never posted a chicken matzo ball soup recipe (what kind of nice jewish girl am I?)  But anyway, back to Thai food, alright?

I can never decide if I prefer Tom Yum Goong, with its spicy-sour broth and decadent shrimp, or Tom Kha Gai with its lively coconut milk, cilantro and lime combination.   I have made Tom Kha Gai at home several times, and have yet to attempt Tom Yum...maybe soon! I think I would rather not choose a favorite. I will just settle to like them both equally. 

If you, like me, dig Tom Kha, and its aromatic coconuty broth, I think you'll be happy to know that making it at home is really quite easy. I had success finding most of the ingredients I needed by going to a big asian supermarket near my house, Super 88 (psst...click that link to read an old post I wrote about Super 88 and omelets...it also includes a funny Japanese commercial), but in my search for recipes I also discovered a lot of helpful substitutions which may come in handy if you don't live around the corner from a mammoth Asian specialty grocery store.

Here are some of the ingredients I used:

fresh cilantro, scallions, lemongrass, thai peppers, galangal, coconut milk and lime

I also used: chicken broth, chicken breast, sliced white mushrooms, fish sauce, a bit of brown sugar, and some thai curry paste. They didn't make it into the picture.

If you are worried you won't find thai specialty ingredients, I urge you to be optimistic! Check your local grocery store in the international section. My local Stop&Shop carries thai curry paste (which can be used in place of the thai peppers), coconut milk, fish sauce, and a whole slew of other basic thai ingredients. I have found lemongrass at whole foods in the past, and occasionally thai peppers, too. In the past I have had trouble finding galangal (though I got lucky this time) an aromatic root similar to ginger, but more floral. I have substituted ginger in its place on two occasions, and though it may not be the most authentic, it still came out delicious. So never fear, substitutions can be made. 

I have unfortunately never been successful in finding Kefer lime leaves, so  I end up leaving them out, and including a little bit more lime juice than the recipes I have found call for. Believe me, it still turns out delicious. 

Because when I make soup I don't usually stick to a recipe but rather a guideline, here is the basic process I followed. Taste as you go, and alter things as needed...don't be afraid to experiment a bit!

Ingredients:

2 cans of coconut milk

thinly sliced chicken breast

juice of 1 or 2 limes (at least 3 TBS)

fresh cilantro

lemon grass, (just the bottoms, bruised)

galangal, roughly chopped

thai chili peppers

chicken broth

scallions

white mushrooms, sliced

fish sauce (roughly 2 tablespoons)

Process:

• Start with the aromatics- Chop up some galangal (I used about an inch by inch piece, chopped roughly) and put it in the bottom of your soup pot over medium heat with a bit of oil. Add a few pieces of lemongrass, bruised to bring out the flavor, and chop a couple of thai peppers, removing most of the seeds and ribs, or throwing them in whole, depending on the level of spiciness you desire. Add a little bit of chopped cilantro, too. 

• Cook until fragrant, adding the chicken broth, one can of coconut milk and fish sauce at this time. Give the liquid some time to simmer, and then strain the broth to remove the aromatics. 

• Next add the remaining coconut milk and mushrooms. 

• In a saute pan, lightly cook the chicken in thin strips, then add to the soup.

• Remove the soup from the heat, add the lime juice, taste and add brown sugar, more chili peppers or curry paste if desired. 

• Serve hot, garnished with plenty of sliced scallions and chopped fresh cilantro, and some thai peppers for color and extra spice. 

Have you made Thai food at home before? Have you experimented with cooking a new cuisine lately, or tried to figure out what to substitute for ingredients that are hard to come by in your region? Are you obsessed with soup? What is your favorite thing to order at a Thai restaurant? Let me know in the comments, maybe I will try to make your favorite dish next!

Egyptian Lentil Soup

 

Lentil soup will heal you. It will make you whole. And fix all your problems. And find you lasting love. And lower your cholesterol.  Ok, only the last statement has been scientifically tested, to my knowledge. Well, and to be even more fair, I should mention that I made this soup a couple of weeks ago, and it has yet to find me lasting love. But it totally fixed all my other problems. And it was delicious.

I went to the grocery store hoping to find brown lentils to make a lentil soup recipe by Martha Stewart, to tack on to the end of "Martha Stewart week" (a theme I may have to revisit...I didn't even do any paper crafts, or creatively set a dinner table!) Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately!) the grocery store was out of both brown and green lentils, and only had red. Now anyone who is worth their salt in lentil-knowledge (does this sentence make anyone else chuckle a bit...I did while writing it, but that's probably just me) knows that brown and green lentils each keep their shape much more while cooking, while red lentils tend to be...fall apart-ish or mushy. So a soup like the one I had picked, which intended the lentils to hold up, would not be a great choice for substituting red lentils. That being said, even though mushy, red lentils are particularly delicious- just think of your favorite lentil heavy Indian dish.

So I got home intending to find a recipe for a soup using red lentils, and most of the other ingredients I had brought home with me. This is best part, guys. I got home to find my most recent Food & Wine Magazine open on the kitchen table. I hadn't read it yet, so one of my roommates must have been looking at it there. The page it was open to? Egyptian Red Lentil Soup. Seriously. It was a sign from somewhere. And besides the ingredients I had already picked out, the only other things it called for were things I had on hand, like lemon and plain yogurt, and certain spices. Meant to be.

So I made this soup. And I ate it. And it healed me.

Egyptian Lentil Soup
From Food & Wine Magazine February 2012


Special Equipment: A large soup pot (I used my beloved Mario Batali dutch oven, which is currently on sale, FYI), an immersion blender (though if you only have a standing blender you could blend this in batches*)

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, finely chopped
• 3 celery ribs, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• Salt to taste
  
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander 
• 1/2 teaspoon ancho chile powder
• 1 pound tomatoes, seeded and diced  (I used a can of diced tomatoes. It worked out great)
•  2 cups red lentils (14 ounces)

•  Plain yogurt, lemon wedges and warm pita, for serving 

1. Start your cooking process by preparing a mirepoix-  heat the butter in the bottom of your pan, add the chopped onions and cook for a few minutes, then add chopped carrots and celery, and lastly garlic. Cook until both onions and celery become translucent and somewhat soft. About 5 minutes.

 2. Add the spices to the pot, and heat until fragrant

 3. Add the tomatoes to the pan

 4. Add the lentils and the water

 5. Simmer for 30 minutes or more, until the lentils become very soft. 
 6. Removing from heat, use your immersion blender* to blend the soup until smooth

 7. Serve with a dollop of plain yogurt and a squeeze of lemon

 

Black Bean Soup & Sweet Potato Biscuits

When people ask me what my favorite thing to cook is, I almost always answer with some sort of soup. French onion some days, butternut squash, perhaps a lively and spicy black bean soup, like this one. To me, cooking soup seems like a nearly magical process. Brown a few simple ingredients in the bottom of a large pot, perhaps onions cooked until translucent and lightly sweet, garlic and herbs, add liquid, a few other choice ingreidients, cover the pot and... Magic happens. Water becomes flavorful broth,  dense root vegetables become soft and sweet. Herbs and spices mingle on your tongue, and the whole thing can be sopped up with a nice piece of hearty bread.

We have had our first few days of true fall weather recently, the rare moment in time where 50 degrees feels just chilly enough to curl up in a blanket on your couch with a book and make every excuse not to leave the house, or run all the errands you need to. (Or is that just me?) As the months wear on, we will grow accustomed to the colder weather, and a 50 degree day will seem like such a luxury, a moment to take back out our summer clothes. But at the end of the summer, with the certain crisp air only fall can bring, 50 degrees means it's a time to make soup; to comfort yourself.

I made this soup with my (lovely and pretty) friend Sophie, one of my oldest friends, whom I met in pre-school. We attempt now to cook dinner together every Friday (before settling in to watch Fringe-- any other Fringe fans out there? WHERE IS PETER BISHOP??) and her regular email to me "What should we make this time? Should I bring wine?" has been a great motivator of many of my food posts on this blog.

This time around, unsure what to make, I linked Sophie to my pinterest board for food inspiration. She responded pointing out that many of the recipes included sweet potatoes, and it had her thinking about the African Sweet Potato Stew I often make. Since I have already blogged that recipe, I suggested making a different sort of soup, and pairing it with the Sweet Potato Biscuits I had pinned and had been wanting to try. I suggested black bean soup particularly for a few reasons:

1. I love black bean soup

2. I love the way black beans pair with sweet potato- like in this recipe

3. The ingredients for black bean soup are cheap- no lies, this is always a good motivator for me

In the end we both loved the combination, and the leftover biscuits were great for breakfast the next day, too.

too bad I can't master the perfect sour cream dollop at the moment

Since we followed the recipe with no alterations I am not including the steps in this post, but you can head over to this link to see the original recipe- it's easy and delicious, they turned out flaky and just a tiny bit sweet. Like with pie crust, the key is to keep the butter cold and handle minimally. We ended up having to handle our biscuit dough more than we intended, but even so they were tender and flaky.

The only note I would make about the above recipe, is if you are short of time, peel and poke some holes in your sweet potato, then microwave it for about 3 minutes before mashing instead of baking it. We also chose to keep our sweet potatos mashed in a chunkier style, I liked the chunks of sweet potato in each bite that this created.

And for the soup...

This soup was adapted from a recipe from Eating Well. The recipe I started with was very basic, but gave me just the guidelines I needed. I supplimented it with 2 large cloves of garlic, more lime and cilantro than it called for, and where they asked for prepared salsa I used Trader Joe's Habenero Lime salsa which really added a lively kick. If you don't have a salsa like this available to you, I would suggest adding some diced fresh hot pepper and doubling the lime juice.

Black Bean Soup

Adapted from Eatingwell.com

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 onion, diced

1 tablespoon chilli powder

1 teaspoon cumin

2 or 3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 15oz cans of black beans, rinsed

3 cups of water

1/2 cup prepared salsa- I used Trader Joe's brand Habenero & Lime Salsa

Salt to taste

Juice of one lime

fresh cilantro chopped, plus some additional for garnish

Sour cream to garnish

Process:

1. In a large pot heat the oil. Add chopped onions and cook until translucent- less than 5 minutes

2. Add to pot: cumin, chilli powder, minced garlic, stir and cook 2 minutes

3. Add rinsed beans, salsa  and water. add salt to taste, and adjust spices as needed at this point (remember that the heat of the soup will vary depending on what salsa you use)

4. Using a traditional or immersion blender, blend mixture minimally so that some chunks remain.

5. Add the lime juice and cilantro before serving, add additional cilantro to garnish, as well as a dollop of sour cream if desired.

Serve with cornbread, biscuits or something else delicious. Feel happy. Go watch Fringe.

Carrot, Apple and Ginger Soup

Um, this was delicious, just saying. A fragrant, quick, vegetarian soup that is light, comforting, and a great starter for a late winter meal. Garnished with apple, carrot and fresh mint, and with flavors of ginger, nutmeg and allspice, I am sure this will become a classic I make again and again much like the butternut squash soup with pears and cumin, sweet potato and peanut stew, roasted garlic soup and kale and white bean soup I keep coming back to.  

I guess I am a soup person, because really, nothing could make me happier. I served this as a starter, but it could also make a great lighter meal, served with hearty whole wheat rolls and a green salad sprinkled with some chickpeas for extra protein. And, don't forget, carrots will help your eyesight, right? Which actually I could use as I am finding I have to wear my glasses more and more these days. Heh.

Kale & White Bean Soup (and the Dead Kennedys' "Soup is Good Food"?)

I did mention that this is actually becoming a soup blog, right?  After all as the Dead Kennedy's song says, soup is good food (OK, the rest of the lyrics of that song really, really don't apply- but every time I make soup, I can't help hearing that song in my head for a moment).

This soup is as simple as could be, but made with a flavorful homemade chicken stock, studded with firm canellini beans and curls of bright green kale, it felt healthy and healing after a near OD on Halloween candy (the mini butterfingers and york patties are my favorites, FYI).

West African Sweet Potato & Peanut Stew

I made this stew the first time last winter. The flavors were so intriguing to me,when I saw the recipe I just had to try it. The primary ingredients of this soup are sweet potatoes and natural peanut butter, flavored with hot chile pepper, allspice, ginger and garlic, and garnished with fresh cilantro. Now doesn't that sound like a  refreshing, hearty and unusual combination of flavors?

Meatless Cassoulet

This recipe from Gourmet for a vegetarian cassoulet (a hearty casual french stew-like dish traditionally compromised of meats and/or sausage and white beans cooked to delicious oblivion and topped with breadcrumbs) was recently featured on the kitchn, where it caught my eye. I was fresh out of my first night of  French cooking classes, and but 6 words into the recipe's description was a new word I had learned only that night. I looked at the word and felt such pride in myself. Mirapoix! I know what that is! How sophisticated it sounds; how french!

There was yet another draw to this recipe for me, besides its french name, simple ingredient list, and use of the word "mirapoix" in the description: this was likely to be a dirt cheap meal. And I am the kind of girl who really appreciates a cheap meal. Does that sound bad? Well, it's true. My trip to the grocery store for the ingredients for this meal totaled at $6 (at Whole Foods, even!). I will likely be eating this for lunch for a week. Time to pat myself on the back for being so frugal.

I made a few changes to the recipe as I cooked. First, though leeks may just be my favorite vegetable, I replaced them with onions to keep my costs low.  I prefer to cook instinctively: taste and add and taste and add, rather than actually sticking to a recipe. In this way I ended up adding butter, a couple tablespoons of red wine, rosemary, and chicken stock (oops, no longer vegetarian! oh well.). I made the bread crumbs using 2 types of bread I had on hand: 7 grain sandwich bread, and some of the spinach-herb bread I made earlier in the week.

What comfort food this is, a hot garlicky stew with tender cooked onion, carrot and celery (that's the mirapoix, by the way) fresh and dried herbs and white beans. It is filling and hearty, yet gives a person the distinct feeling that they are eating something healthful and nutritious. My final product used quite a lot of butter, so I knew that the sense of healthfulness from the vegetables and white beans was certainly a  ruse (not to be confused with a roux, if we are talking basics of french cooking).