Spice Smuggler Lentil Soup

When my friends travel, they often bring me back gifts (nice people, my friends). Because they know that I love to cook, these gifts often take the form of chocolate, herbs, or spices. Recently, I came into possession of some curry powder from Singapore, and some unlabeled 'Ottoman pepper' from an Istanbul market. I used both of these in my version of Heidi Swanson's lentil soup from Super Natural Every Day. She uses green lentils or split peas, my version went with red lentils, but the finished version, augmented with coconut milk, and curry-infused butter, was rich and creamy, and still oddly green.

The soup recipe can be found here, and it's only one of many excellent recipes and ideas in the book. I think of this as the soup smuggled from afar. Not that my other spices came from any place any nearer, but it's the principle of the thing.

French Fridays with Dorie: Mushroom Soup

Photo by Matt Korahais.

So far, my foray into Around My French Table has been almost uniformly successful (we'll see how I feel when we get to the smoked fish), but this book really shines in the soup chapter. This week's soup, a rich mushroom, was perfect both for eating and for adding to other sauces. I made it even richer by adding Marsala instead of the white wine called for. While I ran out of mushrooms before making the little raw mushroom salad garnish Dorie recommends, it didn't much signify because I hadn't pureed most of the soup (house preference is chewy things in broth, rather than uniform mush). We're still eating it, and it's perfect for a snowy Friday, especially one when Matt's flying away to Paris and I'll be left alone at the end of the night. Still, we're so lucky, and this year is starting out very, very well. Lisbon in two weeks, and for now, there's mushroom soup.

French Fridays with Dorie: December Round-Up

Since it's January, it does seem like a good time to clear the decks on the December cooking from Around My French Table (did everyone remember that I was in that cooking group--I did). Back in November I decided that I wasn't going to let cooking clubs take over my blog quite as aggressively as they have my life, and thus I would only do monthly roundups of my French Fridays with Dorie cooking. Somehow that seems to have translated into losing most of the pictures, so this round-up will be mostly text-based, an overview for the curious.


There were five recipes for the month, of which I made four. The butter-glazed carrots will have to wait, but not too long, if I know the carrot fiend with whom I live.

Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts, page 18 -- Made 'em last night.

Photo by Matt Korahais

An egg white, a little sugar, some spice (more and bolder next time), some salt, and as some people in the blogosphere say, causing me to giggle hysterically every time--"Walla!" You know how Bush mentioned the internets and now they're called that? Yeah, unfortunately it's like that. Voila!

I covered the bowl, ate one, and then went back and uncovered it for another. This may go badly. Also, note the lovely bowl, courtesy of Stacey.

My Go-to Beef Daube, pages 244 and 245 -- I bought beef for you, Dorie, and I never buy beef. I made stew for you, Dorie, and I love making stew. My version was a bit quick and dirty, but it was eaten. Stew rarely goes astray. I found it a little acidic for my palate, which is odd given that I eat unripe fruit and suck lemons. But there you have it.


Leek and Potato Soup, pages 66 and 67 -- My Christmas weekend dinner, breakfast, lunch, snack... Somehow, Matt never got any, nor any chance to photograph. I had it all. I made the basic recipe, garnished it with parmesan croutons (from SCRATCHbread's country parma loaves). Then I added more potatoes, because it was like a delicious warm milk. I think perhaps a potato weight would have been helpful. But then I've been whining about the fact that this book doesn't have weights in general, so chalk me up for a whiner and move on. The soup was great.

Photo by Matt Korahais.

Speculoos, pages 406 and 407 - Not my favorites, only in that they were like yet unlike the fiercely spiced, barely sweet gingerbread that I crave. No fault of the cookies themselves, which I had great fun shaping in many shapes. I have a great many cookie cutters and they don't get put through their paces enough.

Photo by Matt Korahais.

Looking forward to another month with this book, which is more than the sum of its parts, making these recipes.

Everybody in the Pot: FFwD's Vietnamese Blend

 What do you get when you pour almost everything that you like to eat into one pot and slurp? Some would say ramen, and I wouldn't disagree, but almost every cuisine has its version of a hot, restorative, noodle soup, and I happen to think that the Vietnamese do it very well indeed. I've rarely met a pho I couldn't get along with (we won't talk fishballs now), and Dorie Greenspan's pho ga/la sa ga hybrid was no exception. 


Matt doesn't do coconut, so I waited until he was on tour before pouring an entire can of coconut milk into some chicken broth, simmering with aromatics including cilantro, anise, and chiles, and poaching some chicken thighs in the broth. One of the things that can make Southeast Asian cooking difficult is the long ingredient lists--even a 'simple' soup is apt to have ten flavoring elements and fifteen add-ins, but in this case I found that almost all of the flavoring elements have become pantry staples for me, and that the CSA had provided many of the herbs I don't always have on hand, including cilantro and Thai basil. There were glass noodles in the cupboard, and the whole thing just came together remarkably...simply. When it was steaming, I filled a bowl with bean sprouts, chopped basil and cilantro, and sambal oelek, and poured it in.

And continued to do so for lunch and dinner for the next few days. Matt was gone, and Jill, who was staying with me, doesn't eat meat, so I hoarded the whole batch for myself. And slurped and slurped. And will have some more soon. With such a loose and elastic recipe, I found myself unintimidated by the ingredient list, and looking forward to adding, subtracting, trying the variation with curry and lemongrass (which I just found at the farmer's market, hurray!), throwing in some black mushrooms, and making each day's soup a little different.