November 8, 2010 in
soups
My South African cuisine series continues today with a cauliflower-curry soup. I have never had cauliflower soup before attending this class. In fact, when I think about it, I haven’t had that much cauliflower in my life. Back at home, in Poland, the standard way of eating cauliflower, involved boiling it and drowning it in browned butter and bread crumbs (very delicious indeed). All other ways of cooking cauliflower were completely ignored and since one can only eat so much of boiled cauliflower with butter, in the past decade, I did not have cauliflower too often… which is a shame, because while doing some research on cauliflower, I have discovered that it is one of those magic foods, with extremely high nutritional content and all sorts of anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. In short, even if you are anti-cauliflower, it (together with its buddy, broccoli) should be a regular staple in your diet. Cauliflower shouldn’t be boiled for too long, in order not to lose its nutritional value… it is, of course, difficult to get away with not boiling it when you make a soup. So let’s just say that this soup will be featured for its taste, while I’ll look into preparing cauliflower in other ways.
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One of the soups that I remember fondly from my childhood is the Sorrel Soup with a hard-boiled egg. Sorrel, also known as, Spinach Dock, is a leafy garden vegetable, cultivated across Eastern Europe and mostly used in soups and sauces. It resembles spinach but is much more acidic in taste. I have never seen sorrel in any of the stores in the West, but maybe only because I wasn’t paying attention. The other day, though, when I was leafing through an old issue of my German food porn, I saw the recipe and the accompanying luscious photo of the cream of spinach soup with a boiled egg. The yummy memories of sorrel soup came back to me in waves, and since I couldn’t find sorrel in the supermarket (I will now be on the lookout), I decided to make the spinach soup version. Although I am not a huge spinach fan (correction, I like it raw, but not cooked), it seemed like this soup had it drowning in white wine and cream anyway, and how could that ever be a bad thing? After I made the soup, it turned out that I was very right, wine and cream can do no wrong. This spinach soup must be one of the tastiest soups I ever made, it is very rich but at the same time, it is extremely satisfying. It sounds weird but when I eat this soup, I feel like it satiates some primal, deep-seated hunger in me.
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So Dusseldorf continues to exhibit signs of weather schizophrenia. One day it’s cold and rainy and then it’s sunny and warm, only to get really cold in the evening and to rain on occasion. Every morning I wake up to grey skies but then around midday, the most beautiful, sharp, blinding sun comes out and shines till the late afternoon. I come out on the balcony, to bask in the sunshine and I realize that it’s really, really cold. This city and its weather are thoroughly confused. I’m not confused. I know what to cook when capricious weather strikes: soups, pots and pots of soups. Wintertime is like a culinary soup school for me, it allows me to broaden my soup repertoire. So I look in my numerous cookbooks, wrap myself tightly and go shopping for soup ingredients. Yesterday, I made a delicious red lentil soup with coriander. It instantly put me in a good mood, because it looked like a ray of sunshine in a bowl, and it tasted really good, too.
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It’s a dreary winter here in Düsseldorf, with plenty of rain and snow. Also, it’s very, very cold, which always puts me in a nasty mood. To the surprise of everyone I know, I intensely dislike being cold. Throughout my life, whenever I complained about the cold weather, someone was bound to say: But you’re from Poland, aren’t you used to it? The answer is: No, I’m not! Being from Poland does not equip you with a furry skin or any supernatural resistance to low temperatures. Just because we have unforgiving winters does not mean that people enjoy them. What they do enjoy, is warming themselves up with vodka and eating plenty of hearty soups. I like soups. They’re my secret weapon against below zero temperatures and overall misery they induce in me. Also, soups are very forgiving dishes, you can throw anything in and they’re almost always guaranteed to taste good. And they taste even better the next day when the flavors had some time to mix and marry. Yes… soups are the best thing about suffering through winters.
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February 25, 2010 in
soups
I come from a country where beetroot soup is sacred. We call it “barszcz” but the name has been internationally butchered and bastardized and you may know it as “borscht”. We usually eat it for Christmas with little mushroom-filled dumplings, which we call “uszka” (meaning “little ears”). Barszcz is probably my favorite childhood soup and, understandably, messing around with other beet soup recipes feels like a sacrilege or a betrayal of sorts, not to mention, it could get you disowned by your grandma… but when I saw this recipe in yet another cookbook gifted to me by my awesome parents-in-law, I knew I had to try it, if only because there is almost a whole year till next Christmas.
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February 20, 2010 in
soups
Tim is claiming to have a cold. He looks pretty healthy to me, but then again, he sighs dramatically, insists that he has a headache and that he needs some tender loving care. Still, he’s quite endearing when he’s sick, which is something that cannot be said about me in the same circumstances. I, normally, turn into a red nosed, irritable, whiny, aggressive and completely unbearable sneezing-wheezing-coughing bag of germs. And the way it usually goes is as follows: Tim gets his cold first and then graciously shares it with me, only by the time it gets to me, the bacteria usually would have developed a mean streak and decide to come down with all the vengeance. Ah, the joys of marriage and its joint marital colds. By now, I have the cold alert procedures worked out. Due to the dislike and the disbelief in the healing power of cold medication, I rely on my patented, highly effective and scientifically proven way of curing colds: Mom’s chicken soup. Hectoliters of Mom’s chicken soup to be exact. And you know what? It really works. My theory is that chicken soup is pure love, it is warmth, it is home, it is a feeling that someone really loves you; it’s all you need to feel better. [Either that, or terrified by the prospect of another bowl of soup, the patient recuperates on the spot]
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