Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow

I know it does not look too pretty, but I assure you this soup tastes of...well, the Parisian suburbs.

Many moons ago, I lived in Paris. I had left Auckland to really find my voice, to understand how I felt following the untimely death of my sister. Being at home was too suffocating, and I needed to physically extricate myself from it in order to deal with the loss in my own way. I stayed with a friend and his family - yes, we were just friends; in fact he is going to marry his high school sweetheart in July (awwww...). The time spent in France was amongst the best and worst five months of my teenage years. I had gone with five years of high school French and a very naive outlook of the world. I was welcomed with warm arms into the family and was ushered into French society as though I were part of it. I never once felt like I was being judged for being an English speaker, contrary to every warning I had received before going.

Naturally, the bad times were spent processing my sister's death - confronting it, learning to accept it. In addition to this, as if I needed more to deal with, I struggled with the language, having all but no choice to really speak it every day. I went to bed very early most nights for the first month because I was braindead from the constant concentration required to follow conversations. Of course, this intense focus paid off, for I became and have remained very conversant in the language, even choosing often to read French novels. More importantly, with the language acquisition, I have been able to maintain consistent and meaningful contact with my French friends over the last decade.

I attended high school with my friend whenever I felt like it (my favourite class was philosophy; my least favourite was Spanish because it messed up my French). When he did things with his girlfriend or other friends, I sometimes decided to hang out with his mother instead. In retrospect, she was practically my best friend. We went to art galleries, watched movies, ate out...She really showed me Paris, taught me to appreciate it, as well as some of the lovely countryside South of Paris, such as gorgeous Rambouillet and, much farther South, Toulouse.

Some days I wandered around Paris and Gif-sur-Yvette to my heart's content. Along the winding path behind the many apartment buildings on the way back home I often smelled (I didn't know what it was then, but I know what it is now) the combination of bay leaf and thyme. When I saw the ingredient list for this simple soup, I was hoping to recreate that earthy smell, and I did. I have translated the recipe below, but the only thing the recipe does not disclose is whether to take out the bacon or not after rendering its fat. I took it out; you can choose to leave it in. The recipe makes enough for four healthy servings.

Cream of Green Split Pea Soup
(from Pol Martin's Le Grand Livre de Cuisine)

125g/4 1/4oz bacon
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon basil
1 clove
1 bay leaf
200g/ 1/2lb green split peas
1.2 litres/5 cups hot chicken stock
1 decilitre/1/3 cup hot single cream
salt and pepper

1) In a stock pot, render the fat from the bacon for about two minutes. After doing so, this is when you can decide to leave the bacon in there or take it out.
2) Over a medium flame, add the diced onion, stir, cover the pot, and cook for about two minutes.
3) Add the carrots and spices, stir, cover, and cook for another two mintues.
4) Add the split peas and incorporate the chicken stock. Bring to the boil, partially cover, then simmer on a low flame for about one hour and thirty minutes.
5) Taste for seasoning, add salt and pepper according to your preference.
6) Use either an immersion blender or pour the soup into a blender and blitz until smooth.
7) Add the cream and blitz again.

To serve, add croutons or splosh some more cream on the surface - presumably more artfully than me.

My angelheart Eric and I were fortunate to spend some time in Paris earlier this year, so I introduced him to those gorgeous Frenchies who had accepted me into their home and hearts, and who had helped me come to terms with the tragic death of my sister. Today's recipe comes from a French cookery book published in 1987 that my friend's mother gave to me, knowing how much I love to cook; she had not looked at it herself for years because she already knows by heart the recipes she loves (and her endive salad is still one of the best salads I have ever had in my life). I will never forget the generosity and warmth of my French family and friends who, in turn, have lovingly accepted my angelheart Eric into their lives.

[Okay, no more sappy posts for the rest of the week. I promise.]

Labels: Bay Leaves, French, Pol Martin, Soup, split peas

You do not have to tell me - I already know that it is not Passover and that I'm not Jewish. My angelheart Eric and I have, however, been hankering for matzo ball soup since (a) our (still recent) lunch at Pitchi Poï in the fourth arrondisement in Paris, and (b) last year's Passover at which the divine poetess Suzanne's father's wife made a deliciously light soup. There is certainly a restorative positive externality to good chicken soup, which Claudia Roden calls "Jewish penicillin" because it cures all, a medicinal and spiritual reliever. Though we were not exactly feeling poorly before consuming the soup, we felt incontrovertibly better after each golden spoonful. This was partly because we were able to satisfy a craving, and also because the stock and knaidlach had been made at home.

Making chicken stock could not be easier: Boil chicken, clear scum, add veggies, then let simmer for a few hours. I would have wound up with more stock had I not forgotten the buoyant nature of the veggies and not therefore assumed the soup pot was full of liquid. I still ended up with just over two quarts, which was enough for the soup and three or so cups for future recipes that require chicken stock. Now that I have made it once, I think I should make it weekly because there is nothing like having homemade stock, for you can see what has gone into it and you know what you're adding to the recipes. And short of raising the chickens and growing the veggies myself, this tastes (in the best of possible meanings) very homegrown. (I don't mean to sound condescending, for I am not the great hero Levin of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina toiling and making produce from his own land, but this brings me a step closer to understanding the romanticism with which some people view the world agrarian.)

I turned to Claudia Roden's ground-breaking (because of the scope and research into the subject in addition to her fine writing) The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York. (I often turn to Ms. Roden whether or not I'm thinking of what to make with what my angelheart Eric and I have on hand, if not for her in-depth focus but for her nourishing and informative prose. Everyone who is seriously interested in food should at least have The Book of Jewish Food and The Book of Middle Eastern Food, though I also have others of hers.) I admit to altering but a few things for the stock. I used 1 chicken carcass and 6 chicken wings where Ms. Roden suggests 1 stewing chicken weighing 5 lbs (around 2.5 kgs) or one chicken carcass and two packages of giblets weighing 1 lb (500 g). I also increased the level of liquid because I used a big pot, so that also allowed me to double the dosage of ingredients. Additionally, I added fennel because I forgot to get leeks and turnips from the market, and I used black pepper instead of white. Towards the end of the simmering period, the fennel was really coming through, and I was childishly excited about the faint, sweet trace it would leave in the soul-warming soup.

The recipe below yields 2 quarts (2 litres).

Chicken Stock
(adapted from Claudia Roden's recipe for Chicken Soup in The Book of Jewish Food)

Chicken in any of the combinations above stated (just be sure that there are bones to yield a gelatinous substance that insulates and protects the stock when frozen or left the chill and flavor; the giblets lend an "essence of chicken" flavor)
1.5 large onions, quartered
4 carrots, cut into big chunks
2 fennel bulbs, quartered
4 celery stalks, cut into big chunks
4 sprigs of parsley
salt
pepper

1) Put the chicken in a soup pot, which is filled with water.
2) Bring to a boil and remove scum.
3) Add vegetables, parsley stalks, salt, and pepper.
4) Simmer, covered, for at least 2.5 hours (I went just over 3 hours on account of the added volume, but not much over because I have a cast iron pot that retains heat really well).
5) If using a whole chicken, take it out after an hour so as not to overcook it. Remove meat from it, then add carcass to the pot.
6) Once simmered enough (again, at least 2.5 hours), strain the broth into another vessel. If you are concerned about the fat on top, soak it up with a paper towel, or make the stock (or broth if going on to make a traditional chicken soup) one day in advance, let chill in the fridge overnight and then remove congealed fat from the surface in the morning.

At this point, I put three cups into the fridge to cool completely and then freeze for future use. The remainder was left covered on the stove top while I prepared the knaidlach.

Now, there is an art to making knaidlach, and I certainly have not yet learned it. I found it was very difficult to shape the mixture into balls because it kept sticking to my palms, so I wound up using spoons, resulting in irregular shapes, akin to ovals, or, if being blunt, flat rhomboids. There is hardly anything in this mixture, which yields light and fluffy knaidlach, but one could also add chicken fat, ground almonds, beef marrow...I'll try a variation next time.

Knaidlach
(from Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food)

2 eggs, separated
1/2 cup (75 g) medium matzo meal (I ground matzos in a blender)
salt

1) Beat egg whites until stiff.
2) Fold in the lightly beaten yolks, followed by the matzo meal and salt until unified.
3) Chill, covered, for 30 minutes.
4) Roll into 3/4" (2 cm) balls, if you can manage it.
5) Drop balls into plenty of boiling salted water.
6) Simmer for 20 minutes.

Matzo Ball Soup

1) Boil desired amount of homemade chicken stock.
2) Add matzo balls, and boil for but one minute if balls are already warm (if not, reheat in the water that they were boiled in before adding to stock - they absorb a lot of liquid).

Labels: Claudia Roden, Soup