Soup - - Page 11

by gansie

Momma Says, Drink Your Vegtables

Editors Note: We broke her! Vi has finally come around to blogging! I first showcased Vi’s cooking prowess on her swordfish dish. But I was the one that had to take the picture and transcribe her recipe. This time around—and out of the fucking blue—she sent me pictures and a full blown blog entry. We’re very excited to finally show off Vi’s creations.

Oh, and the soup she’s referring to—yes, I’ve had it. It’s awesome. She made this with some crazy um, Moroccan/North African/Indian (clearly I forget) meal that was quite spicy. She also pan-fried flat bread – from scratch. I know. She should totally have her own blog. Welcome, Vi.

byline: Vi

I love to cook. It is my creative output when I get home from sitting in front of computers all day. Most of my cravings come from home cooked meals that my mom has made me and still will make me when I go home to visit. Reinventing these meals, even when I have her recipe in front of me or her on the phone, always falls short of my memory of the dish. This is one of the recipes that took me forever to attempt, knowing that it would not meet my memory of the crisp and refreshing soup that I would drink during my summers in Vermont. I mean, how could it be? It calls for cooked lettuce?

Written on scrap paper, this recipe—for all I know—could be from the Joy of Cooking. Anyway,the second time I made it I more or less just threw the ingredients in without measuring. I also used veggie broth instead of chicken broth to make this soup all vegetarian. I also added dill. Lots of dill. Feel free to make this soup your own.

Recipe post jump

by rooms

Follow the Follower: Is it Chowder?

So, my hubbie brought home a recipe from a coworker one day that was a take off on the Olive Garden‘s “Tuscan Soup”. I am not a frequenter of the Olive Garden, but had already had a recreation of this soup at a friend’s house and enjoyed it thoroughly. We started making it more or less from the recipe and have loved it for over a year now. Sometime in the last couple of months we lost the recipe. So now that I am making it from out of my head, and have tweaked a little here and there, and this last time we made it, the soup came out the best ever, I’m pretending it’s my ~~recipe~~ version.

I will share the deliciousness with you post jump, and you can help me come up with my own name for it and answer the question, “Is it a chowder?”

in Pig / Recipe 4 comments

by BS

Momofuku You, Too

Check out my article over at Wired about the pure craziness surrounding getting one of the 12 seats at Momofuku Ko.

So much has already been written about the food at Momofuku Ko, so I won’t bore you with yet another full rundown of the 10-course tasting menu. But I did manage to snag a reservation (don’t ask how!) so I do of course have a few points I just have to share.

– The first thing they serve you is an English muffin. I shit you not. They even call it that. Of course it has pork fat slathered on top. Naturally.

in Uncategorized 6 comments

by BS

Who Cooked It Better? Tony Bourdain vs. Hezbollah Tofu

In last week’s Who Cooked It Better?, Giada De Laurentiis put some serious smackdown on Rachael Ray. With more than 340 of you weighing in, Giada’s prosciutto-wrapped scallops are preferred to Rachael Ray’s by a whopping 86% to 14% margin.

Speaking of RayRay, she may be on the market for a new nemesis, because her frequent sparing partner, Mr. Anthony Bourdain, has a powerful new enemy.

You may remember that Bourdain earned the ire of the vegetarian/vegan community with this quote:

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.”

Well the folks over at the new Hezbollah Tofu blog are putting their money where their morals are. They’re cooking their way through Bourdain’s classic Les Halles Cookbook, in an attempt to prove that his fatty, meat-y, extra cheesy recipes can be just as tasty sans the animal products. Hezbollah Tofu’s first challenge is one of the Les Halles mainstays: French onion soup.

Bourdain’s version, on the left, starts with a meat-heavy broth that calls for both chicken stock and bacon. Complicating life for the vegans is a whopping six ounces of butter. This delectable mess is topped with crispy baguette croutons and grated Gruyere cheese. (Real, imported, Gruyere, obv.) If that’s not enough food snobbery for you, the recipe calls for a Bouquet Garni (that’s chef-speak for parsley, thyme and bay leaf). Complete recipe here.

It obviously won’t be easy for Hezbollah Tofu to top Tony B’s gooey bowl of goodness, but she gets downright creative on Bourdain’s ass, losing the bacon and subbing in black trumpet mushrooms blanched in a sherry/vegetable stock mixture. And this is no bland, tofu-based fake cheese – tahini, nutritional yeast, lemon juice and more go into this delicate un-cheese. In a final attempt to out-fancy Bourdian, the vegan FOS is topped with toasted almonds. Complete recipe here.

So, dear readers…
[poll id=”8″]
Photos: Chowhound, Hezbollah Tofu.

in Bacon / Celebs / Cheese / Contests / Veggie 59 comments

by gansie

Sunday Dinner, Part Two

I’m proud to report that I made some progress in “not cheating” for Sunday night dinner. Although I didn’t whip up something intense, I actually did so some prep work, as opposed to the shame that was last week.

I obviously spent the day sleeping in, watching football (Eli continues on?!?!) and this terrible commercial 700 times (although for some reason, 80 loves it,) reading a good amount of the Wash Post* (that’s me to the right) and, of course, eating.

*Okay, let me rant for a second. I hate/do not believe when people say they read the whole paper every morning. That’s a lie. The paper is HUGE. It’s absolutely impossible to read the entire paper every morning. You’d have to start reading the second it was delivered (4-5 am? and shoot-off rant, you know you’re in trouble when you get home from a night partying and the paper is already delivered, but that can be a rant for another day) to be done reading it by the time you had to go to work. Sure, some people are animals and get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and drink coffee and read the paper and save the world, but I’m sooo not one of them. And anyway, they’re lying. 80 and I spent three hours tag-teaming the paper and we still couldn’t get through the whole thing. Regardless.

So for dinner, 80 and I flirted with the idea of ordering from Goodys, one of those all encompassing delivery places. They serve everything from fried rice to buffalo wings to burritos to chicken parm subs. And, during the end/beginning of the year, they also give a complimentary calendar/menu (see left) along with the food. The calendar kicks ass, it features the Chinese Zodiac (or peacocks or pandas) as well as their extensive menu, ensuring easy ordering all year long. But, we decided instead to find something in the kitchen because god-forbid one of us has to actually leave the apartment and go downstairs to get the food. Leaving the couch was hard enough.

Continue reading for the startling conclusion to Sunday night eating.

in Cheese / Sandwich 12 comments

by gansie

Chilin’ Wit Da Electorate

BS’s famous presidential unendorsements inspired 80 and I to make some down-home chili and watch the caucus last Tuesday. Chili‘s great for a TV night. Prep work is minimal and once all the ingredients are simmering away in the pot, there’s barely any work to be done, except for the occasional stir. So while it’s ridiculously warm out in the Nation’s capital, think about all those poor New Hamshireites (sp) that are braving the cold to pledge their allegiance to the candidate of choice – and eat some chili for them. (And, if we have any NH-ers in the building – click here for the latest ES undersorsements.)

And yes, pictured above are actual caucus go-ers. 80 is so obsessed with his new camera that he’s started taking photos of the television. Swear!

Also, and this may be controversial, but I tagged chili as “soup.” Now, I know you’re probably thinking: “You ES-ers have sooo many categories already that no one will even notice if you if you add in ‘chili.’ ” But I do try to fit things in to our pre-existing tags if possible. So I think I’m going to stick with chili as a soup on this one. Leave it in the comments if you think it’s an absolute atrocity that must be stopped immediately.

Recipes (for chili and accompanying corn bread products) and many pics, post-jump.

in Red Meat / TV 7 comments

by BS

Christmas Balls

Being a Half-Jew , Half-Catholic (just like Robert DeNiro and Christopher Columbus!), I’ve always taken a rather cavalier attitude towards both Christmas and the High Holidays. Of course, the high point of both revolves around food, whether it’s pink ham or challah bread.

My fellow half-Jew friend Bethany and I recently attended the Beloit College Alumni Matzo Ball Eating Contest at Ben’s Deli in NY. We were both shocked be the yellow-yellow color of their balls – much more colorful than my aunt’s bullion instructions could possibly account for. When pressed, the chef admitted they added yellow food coloring for the extra effect. Why, I don’t know – I personally don’t like my Hanukkah feast to look like urine, but to each his own I guess.

Anyway, it gave us the great idea pictured above and below. Since Hanukkah is already over, we made our matzo balls Christmas-y, with red and green food coloring. I have to admit, Beth was the chef, I was mostly just creative director, and we followed my aunt’s recipe, which worked superbly. Full disclosure: we bypassed the chicken fat, and everything seemed to still work OK. Obviously, ES officially endorses the chicken fat version.

I also made some tasty latkes, following the recipe from the Notorious K.O.D.

Below, the super-colorful balls, cut open, for full effect.

in Fowl / Holiday 4 comments