recipephile

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup With Graton Ridge Apple Wine and Cider

A few days ago I wrote about my recent trip up to Graton Ridge. Barbara Paul, one of the owners of the winery, shared some of her apple cider from their most recent apple crush that happened in August.

I am a huge fan of their gold medal winning Apple Port and decided that I would find a way to use the wine and the cider in a butternut squash soup that I was preparing for a dinner party.  The end result was fantastic and pretty easy to prepare.

- 2 large butternut squash sliced in half

- Olive oil

- 2 tbsp unsalted butter

- 1 whole sweet onion

- 2 tsp white pepper

- 1/2 cup of Graton Ridge Apple Port

- 3 cups of Apple Cider

- 3.5 - 4 cups of chicken or vegetable broth

- 1 pint of heavy cream

- 6 sage leaves finely chopped

- 2 tsp of lemon zest

- 3 tsp nutmeg

- 2 tsp Kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 375.  Place the squash onto a cookie sheet cut side up (make sure you remove the seeds) and drizzle the tops with olive oil.  Roast for about 45 minutes or until a knife easily slides into the flesh. Remove from oven when done and let cool.

Melt the butter into a large stock pot. Add the onion and cook until translucent. Add the white pepper and stir well. Turn the heat up very high and add the apple port. Let cook down, turn down heat and add the cider and the broth.  Let simmer.  Once the squash has cooled, remove skin and add to the soup in chunks.  Process with a hand held blender or in your kitchen blender (This is challenging, because when you turn on a kitchen blender with a hot liquid it tend to leak out the top. Hand blenders are best.) You will have to process it well to make it smooth so take your time.

Add in the heavy cream and mix well.  Add the sage, lemon zest, nutmeg and salt and stir until combined.

Let simmer for a few more minutes, taste and add more salt and/or nutmeg if needed.

Recession Cooking -- Ham, Barley and Shitake Soup

On Sunday Jeffrey and I visited one of my favorite grocery stores in the city.  New May Wah is located on Clement St. in the Richmond district and has one of the largest selections of Asian foods that I have ever seen. More importantly however is myriad of fresh vegetables, meat and fish that they carry at VERY affordable prices.  When it comes to recession cooking, this is the place to shop.  Honestly however, I think their selection is so amazing that I shop at New May Wah frequently - recession or no recession.

I went with one thing in mind, I wanted to make black bean soup with the ham hocks that I purchased from another favorite Asian grocery store Pacific Supermarket. The aisles however got the best of me and I found myself roaming up and down and oogling all of the products, sauces, beans and things we do not have in our "regular" grocery stores. Then it appeared, a bag of pearly barley and my mind took me back to a restaurant in Pittsburgh that has the best barley soup.  Snatching them up I quickly dialed Jeffrey's mother for her thoughts on how I should make the soup and I was on a mission.

Her wisdom came quickly and she advised making a broth from the hocks using carrot, celery, onion, a bay leaf and peppercorns.  Cook it for a while and then add your barley.  I hurried to the fresh veggies and gathered what I needed, but the Shitakes stopped me dead in my tracks and so I snatched those up too (they were only $2.79 a lb. -- NO LIE).

Making our way to the meat department Jeffrey spotted a chicken carcass display. $0.59 for a chicken carcass?  What?  A can of broth costs more than that.  We knew immediately what needed to be done.  We grabbed four.  Three for chicken stock and one to put into my soup.  An important lesson that I have learned while shopping at Asian groceries is that they use every part of the animal in food preparation. I've seen lamb testicles, pork uterus, fresh blood... Seriously.  This was the first time I saw a carcass display and it was truly a thing of very affordable beauty. 

I highly encourage you to break your regular stride and discover new places to shop.  If you are in the Bay Area and looking for a place to shop you will find a list of Asian groceries here.

I also suggest you try this soup.

- 1 very large stock pot
- 5-6 ham hocks
- 1 chicken carcass or collection of chicken bones
- 4 medium carrots
- 4 celery stalks
- 2 medium onions
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tbsp peppercorns
- 2 cups of pearly barley

- 4 cups of Shitake mushrooms, cut into strips
- Kosher salt

Place the ham hocks, chicken carcass, 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks,1 onion (remove skin and chop in half) and the bay leaf and peppercorns into the stock pot. Cover with water, add about 4 additional cups of water and cook on medium heat until the liquid has reduced by half (2-3 hours).  About 30-45 minutes into cooking you should skim the top of the soup removing the foamy muck that presents itself during the cooking process. 

While the broth is cooking clean the remaining veggies and dice into small pieces.  Cut the mushrooms into strips. Set aside.

Once the liquid has reduced, remove from the heat and strain the broth into another pot. Remove the ham hocks and chop off the cooked meat. Add the meat, veggies, mushrooms and barley to the pot with the stock and cook until the barley is tender.

Taste the soup and add salt as desired.

 

Butternut Squash and Ginger Soup

Today's recipe is compliments of my very good friend Jeffrey.

My favorite Sunday pastime is going to the farmers market with Michael, picking up all kinds of fresh and delicious-looking local vegetables, cooking the day away, and then sharing our victuals with friends.  We made many dishes on Sunday for a change-of-seasons dinner at Courtney's house.  We were primarily inspired by a pile of beautiful and fragrant white sage at one of the market vendors' booths, and used it in two of our dishes.  This creamy soup dish started off the meal, and is one of my favorites to make.

This is Michael here... I must say that this soup was absolutely incredible.  Butternut squash soup has a tendency to get a little thick and viscous, but Jeffrey's was smooth and creamy and loved by all.

2 medium butternut squash (about 4-5 pounds)
4 Tbsp. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, chopped
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. curry powder
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
2 Tbsp. fresh white sage, minced
3 Tbsp. fresh ginger, shredded
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1/2 of an apple, peeled, cored and chopped
10-12 cups vegetable stock (more to thin later if necessary) 
salt and pepper to taste
sour cream and fresh chopped Italian parsley to garnish

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Slice the squashes, and scoop out the seeded area. Lightly oil the exposed halves and place face-down on a foil-lined baking sheet.  Use a jelly roll pan or something with a good lip to it.  Bake for 1 hour.

While the squash is baking, heat oil in deep soup pot at medium to medium-high heat.  Add garlic and onion and sautee for 4 minutes, until the onions begin to bleed and become a bit translucent.  Add the brown sugar, curry powder, bay leaf, cinnamon, sage and ginger.  Saute an additional 3 minutes.  Add carrots and apple, followed by the vegetable broth.  Bring to a low boil and simmer until the squash comes out of the oven.

Remove the squash, peel off the skin (it should be easy), and dice into 1" cubes.  Spoon into stock mixture. Simmer another 10 minutes or so.  Remove the cinnamon stick and bay leaf.  Using an immersion blender or working in batches with a traditional upright blender, puree the soup.  It's fine for chunks to remain. I like some texture to it rather than the soup being super-pureed. The immersion blender works very well to accomplish this.

This can be prepared ahead of time and reheated. When serving, garnish each bowl of soup with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of parsley. I also garnished with a fresh sage leaf last night right on top of the sour cream - - a lovely presentation but not a great idea. Unless it is fried or otherwise tenderized, sage leaves are chewy and fibrous, and thus not such useful as garnishes. Lesson learned - just use a sprinkling of chopped Italian parsley.  Otherwise, an amazingly yummy and easy dish.

Waste Not Want Not -- Crab Soup

During my first year of college I attended university in Washington DC at Catholic University.  The school was about 45 minutes away from my cousins who lived in beautiful Annapolis, MD.  Just about every weekend I would head up to Annapolis to work at my cousin's restaurant the Oxbow Inn. Lou Lou and PJ, my cousin and her husband, had me working as a bus boy (I preferred table engineer) and at the end of each evening of work I would have a bowl of Roberta's amazing crab soup.  The soup was not creamy crab soup, but more like a Manhattan clam chowder. Tomato base with vegetables and big hunks of crab meat. 

The restaurant has now closed, but the memory of my weekends with my cousins and the great food we always ate together lives on.  So for the last two weeks I have been recreating many of the dishes we prepared together.  I am out on Fire Island right now and have access to some great fish.  A few nights ago I purchased a whole red snapper and had the fish monger fillet the fish for me and save the carcass so I could make fish stock. I try to NEVER miss out on an opportunity to make stock from the bones of a meal.  Your food can go a very long way if you think about it.

As the stock was simmering I could smell hints of Roberta's crab soup and without any hesitation I headed back to the grocery to get the fixins for some crab soup.  We just ate the first batch last night and it was incredible.

For the fish stock
- 1 whole fish carcass (I used red snaper)
- 3 whole carrots (cleaned and peeled)
- 3 celery sticks
- 1 whole yellow onion (chopped in half)
- 1 tbsp of black peppercorns
- 1 bay leaf

Combine all of the ingredients into a large stock pot, cover with water and let simmer for about 5 hours.  At the beginning of the cooking process make sure to skim off the scum from the top of the stock.

Remove from heat, strain the stock and place back on the stovetop.

Now you will need:

- 1/2 stick of butter
- 3 cloves of garlic, diced
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 3 carrots, diced
- 3 celery sticks, diced
- 1 can of corn
- 2 small cans of diced tomatoes
- 1 tbsp Colemans mustard
- 2 tbsp Old Bay
- 1 lb of lump crabmeat
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan and sautee the garlic, without burning, for about a minute or two. Add the onions and cook until translucent.  Add the carrots, celery, corn and tomatoes and continue to cook until the veggies are cooked (they can be a little al dente). Add in the Coleman's and Old Bay and mix well.  Transfer the ingredients to the fish stock, add the crab meat and let simmer for about an hour. 

Taste the soup and season with salt and pepper to taste.  You may want to add some additional Coleman's and Old Bay, but this will depend on how spicy you want the soup to be.

Serve with crusty bread and a big glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

Creamy Carrot Ginger Soup

Over the last few weeks I have been traveling with friends throughout Asia.  We visited Tokyo, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand (I was supposed to travel to Vietnam as well, but I lacked the necessary Visa so had to stay in Bangkok). 

My absolute favorite place during our entire trip was a small island that we rented as a group.  Pulau Pangkil (www.pangkil.com) is a small island in the Indonesian Archipelago.  It measures at about a 1/2 mile long and 1/4 mile wide and takes about 10 minutes to walk from one end to the other.  The picture is one of the "driftwood palaces" where I slept for the five amazing days that we spent on the island.

Each and every day the staff prepared delicious meals for all of us.  From freshly caught and grilled fish to curries and even sauteed tempeh the selection was always vast and the portions plenty.

On one particular evening they served us a chilled creamy carrot soup that was out of this world.  It was prepared with lemongrass, which gave it a nice bite and lemony flavor.  The chef and I chatted (as best we could given the language barrier) about the recipe and preparation and when I arrived back in the states I tried my hand at this delicious soup.

Immediately on my arrival back to San Francisco I had to head home, shower, change, re-pack and jump on a flight to New York.  My good friend Christian was out of town so he let me use his apartment in Chelsea, mighty close to a Balducci's, one of New York's finest grocery stores.

Thinking that I would be able to find all of my ingredients at this foodie paradise I headed over and began to shop.  To my surprise, no lemongrass.  So I had to improvise and opted for ginger thinking that this would impart a similar flavor profile as the lemongrass.

I was amazed at how easy it was to prepare this soup.  Here is what you need:

What to do With Lobster Shells...

Last summer my very good friends Crispin and Brian tied the knot in Toronto and then again in Fire Island. My gift to the two of them was a rehearsal dinner for about 25 of their closest friends and family members. The party was a blast and the meal was a big success... except for when it started raining and we had to carry and re-set the entire table on the inside of the house. With a little team work and fast on our feet action the table was re-set inside.

On June 3rd of this year we celebrated their 1 year anniversary and ordered live lobsters from Mr. John Haviland, the most amazing lobsterman. John sent 11 lobsters to Fire Island. We steamed the lobsters and served them with corn casserole and a big tasty salad.

We ended up with a bunch of leftover lobster shells and thought... "mmmmm lobster bisque."