celery

Real Men Eat Watercress (Soup!)

10 Jan 2012
watercress soup with sage

Move aside quiche there a a new super food in town and men love it.

Real men like Napoleon Bonaparte and (yep) Sippity Sup! And we're not the only super-dudes in love with this peppery green bite. It’s said that Hippocrates, the father of medicine, built an entire hospital next to a patch of the stuff because he recognized early on the health benefits it could provide to his patients. Gruff Greek soldiers ate watercress to increase their masculine vigor. Even Roman Emperors said it enabled them to make “bold decisions”. I can vouch for that. I ate Creamy Watercress Soup with Sage and decided to write this super-charged tribute.

In Victorian times elegant ladies jumped on the watercress bandwagon too. It could be purchased in parks and street corners, gathered into posey-style bundles. These daintly little nosegays could be nibbled upon, like an ice cream cone while strolling.

And what a nibble watercress seems to be. It's said to have more vitamin C than oranges, more calcium than milk, more folate than bananas, and more iron than spinach.

But its real attribute is that manly men like it. The Romans even believed it could prevent baldness. Now I ask you what man wouldn't eat watercress with that kind of information available to him? Still, even if you have a full head of hair (or are in fact a lady) eating watercress still has delicious benefits. Most notably it has a peppery crunch that elivens this vibrantly colored creamy soup made with leeks, and potatoes called potage au cresson. My version is a simple (but manly) take on the classic. GREG

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Creamy Watercress Soup with Sage

watercress soup
By jgreghenry Published January 9, 2012
Prep time: 30
Yield:1 (Servings)

Ingredients:

  • 2 T unsalted butter
  • 2 leeks, halved lengthwise, cleaned, white and light greeen parts roughly chopped
  • 1 medium potato, peeled and diced
  • 1 clv garlic, peeled & minced
  • 3 stalks celery, roughly chopped
  • 3 c chicken stock
  • 2 bn watercress (about 1 pound), leaves only, plus more for garnish (optional)
  • 6 leaves of fresh sage, rinsed and chopped
  • 0.5 c heavy cream
  • 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
  • 1 pn each, salt and white pepper, to taste

Directions

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan set over medium heat. Add the leeks, celery and garlic, stirring to coat. Lower the heat and cover the pan, cooking the leeks until softened somewhat, but not yet colored, about 4 minutes. Add the potato and chicken stock. Simmer, uncovered until the potatoes are tender, about 12 minutes. Remove the pot from the pan and stir in the watercress and sage. Set the pan aside to cool somewhat.

Meanwhile mix the cream and egg yolks together in a small bowl. Set aside.

Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until very smooth. The strain the soup with a fine meshed sieve discarding any solids. Return the soup to the pan, setting it over medium heat and bring to a boil. Remove the pan from heat and stir in the cream and egg yolk mixture. Season with salt and white pepper. Garnish with watercress (optional). Serve warm.

Fat and Happy Acorn Squash & Turnip Soup

23 Dec 2011
squash soup

Would you like something rich and creamy? How about Roasted Acorn Squash & Turnip Soup? Sounds good, huh?

I like creamy soups. In fact I love creamy soups. Except sometimes I seem to like them even better when there's no cream in them. Does that make any sense?

Sure sometimes a touch of cream will elevate a recipe. That's because fat binds flavors together. It creates a sum that is greater than its parts. So I have no problem with cream. But there are other fats that do the job just as well as cream. Like butter. I have no problem with butter. In fact wasn't it Julia Child who mockingly said: "If you are afraid of cream, just use butter."? Or was it the other way around? Oh well. No matter. My point is– I am not one of those people who is afraid of fat, in any form. So if fat is called for in a recipe, and I believe it will make it better, I scream bring it on. No fear here.

In fact I am far more afraid of chemically altered processed foods that are deemed "fat free" than I am of any of the fats that God gave us. Because whenever I see "fat free" printed in big bold chemical ink on my food I have to wonder what they replaced the fat with, and how the hell they got it out. Oh, and particularly– where in God's name did they put it? But that's a digression.

I wanted to talk about "health food" my way. It's not a new concept but it has certainly fallen out of fashion.

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Roasted Acorn Squash & Turnip Soup

Acorn Squash Soup
By jgreghenry Published December 22, 2011
Prep time: 90
Yield:1 (Servings)

Ingredients:

  • 1 (1 1/2 lb) acorn squash, halved lengthwise and seeded
  • 1 pn each, salt & white pepper, or as needed
  • 5 T unsalted butter
  • 2 leeks, cleaned, halved lengthwise and roughly chopped
  • 1 stalk celery, roughly chopped
  • 1 carrot, roughly chopped
  • 2 clv garlic, peeled & smashed
  • 1 t sugar
  • 0.5 lb turnips, pelled & roughly chopped
  • 6 c chicken stock
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 pn ground coriander
  • 3 T brandy
  • 0.25 c celery leaves, as garnish (optional)

Directions

Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Season the squash with salt and white pepper. Place 1/2 tablespoon butter into each cavity and place the squash halves on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake until tender and caramelized, about 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let it cool on the tray.

Melt the remaining butter in a medium soup pot set over medium heat. Add the leeks, celery, carrots and garlic. Sprinkle the mixture with sugar. Cover, and cook for 10 minutes, until softened. Add the turnips, stock, bay leaf and coriander then bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, season with salt and white pepper. Cover and cook another 20 minutes, until the turnips are very tender. Remove the bay leaf.

Scoop the flesh from the cooled squash halves straight into the soup pot. Using an immersion blender puree the mixture until very smooth, or use a standard blender working in batches if necessary. Return the soup to the soup pot (if using a standard blender) and add brandy. Bring the soup to a simmer and adjust the seasoning. Garnish withe celery leaves. Serve warm in individual bowls

Market Matters: Creamy Salsify Soup with Salmon

12 Dec 2011
creamy salsify soup

This week at the Hollywood Farmers Market I was on my weekly crawl to find something interesting. But I had a secret; I actually had a plan this time. I had my sites set on salsify.

What is salsify you ask? Maybe you know it better as oyster plant or goatsbeard. No?

It’s an ancient plant, long utilized as food. It is related to the sunflower and is in the family Asteraceae, which makes it, basically, a wildflower. But this information probably does not help you identify it because we don’t eat the flowers. Or at least I don’t eat the flowers…they’re just too darn pretty!

As a food, salsify is primarily a root vegetable. But the green grass-like leaves and stems are edible and often sold still attached to the root.

The root looks a lot like a big, skinny, hairy, parsnip. It is between six and twelve inches long. It is a cream colored with lots of little rootlets sprouting out of it in all directions. There is a black version, but botanically they are not closely related. Personally I have never seen the black type.

But why salsify...and more particularly why salsify now? Shouldn’t I be on the look out for mandarins or walnuts?  These are typically the prizes of the December harvest in Southern California.

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