Save me from the carrots!
I guess that given the time of year it makes sense that we are getting lots of carrots in the biokisten, and we like carrots, but Andrea pointed out yesterday that we had a couple kilos of carrots in the fridge and that it'd probably be good to do something with them. So I made carrot soup.
I started by making chicken stock from the pieces in the freezer plus a whole chicken I bought yesterday (not the breast, see below), some leek greens [box] I saved, carrots(!), onion, parsley [box], pepper corns, and a couple of bay leaves. I added some white wine at the beginning.
The soup I made based on a recipe for "Carrot Purée" in The New Making of a Cook (time to come up with an abbreviation for that). I left out the sour cream enrichment at the end, but did serve it topped with chervil. The chervil was a nice touch on quite a good soup. Plus I used four big carrots (and that's not counting the two that went in the stock). woo hoo!
In order to have an actual meal, I poached the chicken breast (still on the bone) in some of the stock with another carrot (sweet!), some more leek greens, another bay leaf, more pepper corns, herbes de Provence, and a bouillon cube. I pulled the chicken from the broth when it was just cooked through and let it cool. Just before dinner time, I boned the chicken breast, cut it into 1cm pieces, mixed in some finely chopped garlic and browned it over high heat in a mixture of olive oil and clarified butter (sitting next to the stove from Friday). After pouring off the oil, I added soaked capers, a couple canned tomatoes (cut into large pieces), a pinch more herbes de Provence, a bit of the poaching liquid, a good grind of black pepper, and a couple drops of balsamico. This mixture I heated through (gently stirring to not destroy the tomatoes) and then served. I considered making a sauce from the reserved poaching liquid, but it was just too salty when reduced (the bouillon cube...).
We also had basmati rice topped with the rest of the walnut brown butter from Friday and some rehydrated dried green beans cooked with garlic and some of the poaching liquid from the chicken. Of course there was also a green salad.
All in all it was a very nice meal. AND I used up a total of seven carrots!
Wine: Domaine des Coccinelles 2005 Neuchatel white. This organic chasselas was pretty good and it worked well with the food.
4 comments:
Just found your blog. Good stuff.
FYI, the carrot soup recipe in Sunset's "Homemade Soups" book is excellent (I highly recommend the book)
Smooth & Creamy Carrot Soup
2 tbsp butter or oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 lb. carrots, chopped
2 tbs. each tomato paste and long-grain white rice (we usually skip the rice
4 c. chicken stock
1/2 c. whipping cream (or substitute plain yogurt with a little corn starch blended in to help prevent it from breaking)
salt and pepper to taste
cook the onion in the butter to soften. add carrots, tomato paste (rice) and stock. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover and simmer until carrots are very tender (about 25 min).
blend or process carrot mixture, a portion at a time, until smooth. Return to pan; add cream (or yogurt) and heat until steaming. season with salt and pepper.
I like to season with chopped green onion or snipped chives; maybe a dollop of creme fraiche or sour cream.
Thanks for the comment and recipe. The recipe looks pretty good; It's hard to go wrong with that quantity of cream. :-)
Have you tried browning the carrots a bit before adding the stock? I thought about this last night but wanted to try the recipe "as is" first. It seems like the caramelization of the carrots could add a nice dimension to a soup.
If we get more carrots in this week's box (seems likely), I'll have to give that a try.
yes, a little caramelization works fine. But good carrots give plenty sweetness to the soup as is, so I'd go light.
btw, I usually use the yogurt instead of cream. It still comes out very rich tasting. (the book has a cauliflower soup recipe that is great too -- basically just replace the carrots with a chopped cauliflower and a diced potato, and omit the tomato paste & rice; here you don't want to brown the veggies at all, just sweat them)
another thought along the caramelization line: roasted chunked mixed veggies are a fan favorite. I usually pre-heat my roasting pan in a hot oven, add a little olive oil to coat the bottom, then dump in a mix of chunked veggies (any root veggies, basically, waxy potatoes are usually better than russets for this, unless you start everything stove-top) pre-seasoned with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and rosemary. after the root veggies are about half way, add chunked onion and whole cloves of garlic.
this also works great on the grill in one of those disposable, aluminum pans. add some wood chips to the coals for some nice smoke flavor. (I also really like steve raichlen's idea to smoke whole potatoes on the grill; these make absolutely great baked potatoes)
Yes indeed, roasted vegetables are one of the good things.
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