Soup Up My Soup

Dear Soup Development Team,

Barack Obama isn’t the first president to take over in a time of crisis. In January of 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt assumed the President’s office in the midst of The Great Depression. Due to the circumstances, most of the ceremonies for Inauguration Day where canceled, save for a simple buffet for family and a few friends, and a reception in the early evening, which FDR didn’t even attend.

Although not considered a picky eater, FDR quickly grew tired of the meals that were prepared by Mrs. Henry Nesbitt, the White House housekeeper at the time, who believed in plain food plainly cooked, and apparently was very difficult to get along with. FDR is reported to have said, “my stomach positively rebels and this does not help my relations with foreign powers. I bit two of them yesterday.”

Because of his disability, FDR seldom ate out. Fed up with Mrs. Henry’s cooking, he eventually brought in his former personal cook and had a kitchen installed on the third floor, where she cooked two meals for him daily. This was successful right up until when America was put on an austerity program shortly after World War 2, and the White House needed to follow it like everyone else. During this time, the diet consisted of an egg, one slice of toast, one slice of bacon, and coffee for breakfast, and simple lunches and dinners. Staff were even required to bring their own sugar to work if they wanted to use it in their cooking.

FDR is the only president to have presided over the country for more than two terms, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945, eventually being succeeded by Harry Truman. His plan for tackling The Great Depression, called The New Deal, is largely considered to have been a success, as well as his leadership throughout World War II. There’s little doubt Obama and his team will be closely studying the policies of FDR’s administration as to figure out how to steer the US through the next couple of years.

FDR’s favourite soup was Martha Washington’s Crab Soup. I’ve taken the gist of this soup and updated it a little. So this is for those who didn’t want to spend $50 making A Tribe Called Bisque a few months back, but want to enjoy the deliciousness of a good bisque.

Bisque Markie (Just a Friend)

Serves four or five

For delicate soups like this (as well as for things like melting chocolate) try to use a double boiler, however you can make a makeshift one with a large sauce pan, a smaller sauce pan, and a strainer (see picture at the bottom). The idea is that you want to cook the thing in the inside pot, using the heat from the boiling water of the outside pot. The inside pot should be just sitting on top of the water level of the bigger pot.

In the top of a double boiler (or the inside sauce pan if you have a makeshift one), add:

2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp all purpose flour

When mixed well together, add:

2 hard boiled eggs, mashed
zest of one lemon (or one lemon peel grated if you don’t have a zester, which is just a very fine grater)

Stir in and cook on medium heat, until thickened up a bit, about 10 minutes:

4 cups of milk, or light cream (the heavier the milk/cream the better the taste)
1/4 cup of pureed rice (cook whatever rice you like to use and then puree it in a blender with some of the milk

Add and cook for another 5 minutes:

1.5 pounds of crab meat, I used soft shell because it’s much easier to get the meat out, but you can use whatever kind you want

You can also add some shrimp in there as well, or shallots, or any other seafood

Add:

1 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup of sherry (used Orion 2001 Chardonnay Sherry, was the only bottle they had at The Wine Rack and I wasn’t driving all the way to the LCBO)
paprika to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Cook for another 5 minutes or so and then serve.

Jayro in the News

If you’re looking for something to do next weekend, I’ll be giving a cooking demonstration on Saturday in Markham, Ontario, showcasing a few of Susur’s French Chinese fusion recipies. Starts at 1, see attached poster.

Track of the Week

Yip Harburg’s “Life is a Bowl of Cherries” was one of the defining songs of the Great Depression. Although Judy Garland’s career came a bit later, her version is still my favorite. Give it a listen and get some perspective yo.

Cheers,

Jayro
“made from scratch”

Dear Soup Development Team,

I’ve always had somewhat of an inferiority complex towards the French. Maybe it’s because the girls behind the counter would always laugh at me when I would try to order crepes en Francais on our grade Eight trip to Quebec. Or maybe because I knew the girl of my dreams for years, Audrey Tautou, by way of the 2001 film Amelie, would never go for a guy who couldn’t even order crepes in her mother tongue. Or perhaps it was because of the fact that after seven years of compulsory French class, I couldn’t articulate my thoughts much further than “I am tired,” or “I would like four cheeseburgers.”

It took me a while to overcome this lack of confidence, of which I still have yet to fully recover. However, one thing is for sure; if you want to learn how to really cook, you need to embrace French culture in at least some capacity. They basically invented haute cuisine. In North America, for the last half of the 20th century, gourmet cooking was synonymous with French cooking, and everything else was just “ethnic.”

Below is a simple recipe for French Onion. I like it a lot, and it’s easy, unlike many other French dishes.

French Onion feat. 2 Live Croutons

The key to French Onion is in the carmalization of yellow onions. Some people will get hard core and have them sit on low heat for hours over the stove, but you really don’t need more than 40 minutes, 15 on medium-low and the rest on low. Also, to stay true to the recipe use Gruyere cheese and not the mild cheddar you probably have sitting in the crisper. It’s worth the trip. French bread can be substituted with croutons, or even just regular toast.

The below makes about a quart, serves four as an app or two as a main, if you actually think soup could ever be a main dish. If you do, I will be ordering four cheeseburgers on my way home.

Add the following to a saucepan on medium-low heat:

1 tbsp of butter
1 tbsp of olive oil

Add:

2 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced, no more than ¼ inch thick

Turn the heat up to medium. Stir occasionally, so as to not let the onions burn. When they start to brown turn down to medium-low, or about 15 minutes in. After another 25 mins with the heat on low, add:

1 tbsp Cognac

Turn up the heat to high until the cognac has evaporated. Then add:

2 cups of beef stock (or vegetable stock if you are one of those people)

Bring to a boil, then simmer, for about 20 minutes. Then add:

Salt and pepper to taste

Put one (or two, or however many you need) bowls onto a baking sheet. Add on top of the soup:

2 Live Croutons (or two slices of toasted French bread)
3 tbsp of Gruyere cheese

Broil (means the heat is coming from the top of the oven) until the cheese is melted, not too long.

Serve.

Housekeeping Notes:

If you haven’t made plans for New Years yet, I’ll be on the 1’s and 2’s this year at Brazen Head in Liberty Village. Tickets are $50 for dinner + party $25 for the party. Come say hello, or buy me a jaggerbomb and request your favourite track, it should be good times. Facebook page is below:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=67241546608

Track of the Week:

As a new feature, going forward I’ll be pairing the soups with a song. I’ll do this for a few months at least and then maybe make a dj mix out of them. This week I thought I would pair French Onion feat. 2 Live Croutons with a track from the French-inspired Hotel Costes series called Getting Closer by Hird. Extra credit goes to people who make the soup and download the song to their Ipods. If you are reading this from the blog and not in the email and would like to be added to the newsletter so as to get the music, drop me an email at soupupmysoup@gmail.com and I’ll add you.

Au Revoir,

Jayro
“made from scratch”

Dear Soup Development Team,

To borrow a line from Will Farrell, tasting lobster bisque is like “looking into the face of God and seeing Him smiling back and saying, “you are my most wondrous creation.” While on my soup fact-finding mission back in August, I also had my fair share of bisque in Brewster. I’ve only made it a couple times since, but the below is the best recipe I’ve come across yet. I recommend running a half marathon prior to cooking, it will remove the guilt of consuming such an obscene amount of butter (and Cognac).

A Tribe Called Bisque

The below makes about four servings

Put two live lobsters into a bottom-heavy stock pot. Try not to look at their faces. You are about to do something horribly wrong, even illegal in some parts of Italy.

In another pot, boil enough water to cover the lobsters.

Do the deed. It should take about 2 minutes.

Remove the lobsters and place on the cutting board. They should have a red tinge. Detach the claws (they are cooked enough already) and put back in the water for 5 minutes to cook through the meat.

Take them out of the water. Remove the meat from the tail and claws. Youtube it if you’re not sure how, or call me. Reserve the lobster meat, and lobster shells in two separate bowls. Some people will tell you to add the tomalley (the greenish part inside the actual body), but I would avoid it.

Prepare about 6 cups of fish stock. You can just use the bullion cubes here, it makes little difference

Chop 1/4 cup of carrots and 1/4 cup of onion into a fine dice, add three tbs of butter and put in a small pot. After a couple minutes, add four stems worth of chopped parsley, a pinch of thyme, and 1 oz of tomato paste. This collectively is called the “mirepoix,” pronounced “mir-phuahh”

In a separate pot, cook 1/4 cup of rice until soft, about 15 minutes. Then, take some of the fish stock, the rice, and put in a blender to puree. Then add it all back to the stock pot. This is a general way to thicken bisque.

Put the mirepoix into the stock, along with the lobster shells and 2/3 cup of wine.I used Wayne Gretzky Estates 2007 Unoaked Chardonnay, but you can use whatever you want. I use the above because it was near the check-out counter.

Burn half a pint of Hennessy in a pan. Then pour into stock pot. (make sure you make this soup on payday).

Heat 1 cup of heavy cream in a small pot (wait until very end to add)

Simmer the stock pot contents for about 15 more minutes.

While the stock is simmering, put a lot of butter into a frying pan, maybe half a stick. Once it’s melted, add the lobster pieces and poach for about 5 minutes. It’s probably unhealthy as it sounds, but just go with it, it’s friggin’ delicious.

Strain the stock. This will get rid of the shells, carrots, onion, etc. Place into a pot.

Add the butter-poached lobster meat and the heavy cream into the strained stock and serve. You shouldn’t need any salt or pepper, but add if you want.

Note that you only need a 2/3 cup of white wine and 1/2 a pint of Cognac to make this recipe, however you will need to purchase a 750 ml bottle of wine and a 375 ml bottle of Henny from the LCBO. If you manage to stay sober and make it through this exercise without polishing off the said wine and Cognac you are a stronger person than I.

Cheers,

Jayro

“made from scratch”