tomatoes

Simple Lessons in Roast Tomato Soup with Mussels & Fennel

26 Dec 2011
Roast Tomato and Mussels Soup

I don't know whether to say I have a cooking lesson or a history lesson to share with you today. Either way it all starts (and ends) with Roast Tomato Soup with Mussels & Fennel, so I hope that much catches your attention and you'll stick around for the lesson.

It's a lesson I picked up from an old book. You see, I like old cookbooks. I grab them when I see them. I have one called Italian Bouquet from 1958 and I turn to it again and again. Though technically it's not a cookbook as it contains very few recipes. It's really more of a food lover's epicurean travel guide to Italy. It offers all sorts of interesting information about regional Italian cooking traditions.

Recently I was flipping through this book and came across the section on Sicily. Many of the foods typical to the region are described here, and since Sicily is an island a lot of space is dedicated to seafood.

Which sets the stage for an interesting culinary technique I learned from this book. It's a great way to add authentic of the sea flavor to soup, without using a whole lot of actual seafood. Which may seem odd. But remember Sicily is traditionally a land of extremes. So when a Sicilian cook's fishmonger was unable to supply her with all the fish she wanted for her brodu di pisci, or the family's budget didn't allow for an elaborate array of fresh fish, she had a trick. She'd use a combination of garlic, parsley, chilies, and salt pounded into a rough paste and then fried in local olive oil. This paste could be added to water and used as a simple stock for soup. The miracle of this method is that it produces a stock that does indeed taste a bit like the sea.

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Roast Tomato Soup with Mussels & Fennel

tomato and mussels soup
By jgreghenry Published December 24, 2011
Prep time: 120
Yield:1 (Servings)

Ingredients:

  • 4 lb roma tomatoes, roughly torn or chopped into big chunks
  • 1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
  • 4 clv garlic, peeled & chopped
  • 1 fennel bulb with stems and fronds, separated
  • 0.75 c olive oil
  • 1 pn each kosher salt and black pepper
  • 4 T flat leaf parsley leaves, chopped
  • 1 red calabrian chili, or similar, with seeds minced
  • 6 c water
  • 3 lb mussels, scrubbed & debearded

Directions

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Put the tomato pieces with all of their juices, the chopped onion, 2 chopped garlic cloves, and the fennel stems and most of the fronds (save the bulb for the soup and a few feathery fronds for garnish) onto a parchment line rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with 1/2 cup olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Toss to get all the vegetables coated in oil. Roast the vegetables about 1 hour and 15 minutes until slightly charred, rotating the sheet halfway through cooking. Remove from oven and let cool somewhat.

Scrape the vegetables and any accumulated juices into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse 10 or 12 times, scraping down the sides once or twice, until a very rough puree is formed. Push the mixture through a fine meshed sieve or tami using a wooden spoon into a clean bowl. Work in batches, discarding the solids as you work. You should get about 2 1/2 to 3 cups of silky smooth sauce, thick enough to coat a wooden spoon.

Quarter the fennel bulb lengthwise then remove the core from each section. Slice the fennel crosswise into thin slivers. Set aside.

Using a mortar and pestle grind the remaining chopped garlic cloves, parsley, red chili with its seeds, and a large pinch of salt into a very rough paste. Heat the remaining 1/4 cup olive oil in the bottom of a large soup pot or Dutch oven. Add the paste and fry until fragrant about 3 minutes. Add the water to the pot along with the fennel slices and bring to a boil. Lower heat and cook until fennel softens somewhat, about 8 minutes.

Add the clean mussels to the pot and cover it with a lid. Cook until the shells open, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and let the mussels cool in the liquid until they can be handled easily. Once cool enough, discard any mussels that did not open and remove the rest from their shells. Discard the shells. Divide the mussels between 6 shallow soup bowls.

Add the tomato sauce to the broth in the soup pot, adjust seasoning. Bring to a boil, then pour some of the hot broth over the mussels in each bowl. Garnish with reserved chopped fennel fronds. Serve hot with crusty bread.

Musical Marinated Shell Beans with Roasted Tomatoes, Sounds Good To Me

30 Nov 2011
Marinated Shell Beans with Roasted Tomatoes

Beans, beans, the musical fruit
The more you eat, the more you toot
The more you toot, the better you feel
So eat your beans at every meal!

I hate that little ditty. If I were a bean I'd sue.

Though I realize my legal action might be considered a frivolous lawsuit. Because I know full well that it's hard to prove libel when the scandalous statements are true. Beans make you fart.

You can pretend like they don't (and I do). But beans make you fart.

They contain the sugar raffinose, which isn't something we humans are able to digest properly. When these sugars reach your intestine in their improperly digested form, the bacteria in your intestines– whose job it is to tackle whatever crap (pardon the pun) we gulp down our gullets– has to work extra hard to send it packing out the other end. The by-product of all that hard work is gas. But p'shaw. Who cares, right? So what. I love beans. After all, what's a little flatulence between friends?

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Marinated Shell Beans with Roasted Tomatoes

Marinated shell beans with roasted tomatoes
By jgreghenry Published November 28, 2011
Prep time: 90
Yield:1 (Servings)

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb fresh shell beans in any combination, such as borlotti, black eyed peas, christmas lima, flageolet, cranberry
  • 1 T olive oil
  • 1 T kosher salt, plus more for tomatoes
  • 1 lb cherry tomatoes
  • 0.5 c flat leaf parsley, leaves only, chopped
  • 0.25 c fresh oregano, leaves only, chopped
  • 0.5 c lemon vinaigrette

Directions

Put each type of bean in a separate saucepan and cover by 2 inches with water. Bring the water to a boil over high heat, add 1 tablespoon salt to each pot and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook until the beans are tender, but are not so soft as to be mushy. Between 20 and 45 minutes. Add more water while cooking if necessary. Each type of bean will require a different cooking time so monitor them closely. When cooked turn the heat off and let the beans cool completely in the water.

Meanwhile. Adjust oven rack to the center postition, then preheat to 300 degress F.

In a medium bowl, roll the tomatoes in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and a big pinch of salt. Place a wire rack onto a baking sheet and spread the tomatoes out onto the wire rack in a single layer. Place in the oven and roast until the skins are shrivled but they are still plump and moist, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Remove from oven and let the tomatoes cool to room temperature.

Combine the cooked, cool beans in a large mixing bowl. Add the parsley, oregano and the vinaigrette. Season with salt and pepper, then carefully stir the beans to combine the flavors. Let the beans sit and marinate at least an hour. Transfer to a serving plate, top with roasted tomatoes and more black pepper to taste. Serve at room temperature.

Source: Inspired by Mozza

A Creative Take on Duck: Sliders with Fig Ketchup

19 Oct 2011
duck sliders with fig ketchup

Today's journey to Duck Sliders with Fig Ketchup was a group effort. Part of that group includes my brother Grant who paired this recipe with Trimbach Gewurztraminer 2009.

But there is more to the story than that. You see, I have had duck burgers in restaurants. Both times I found fault with the preparation. Let’s face it; duck can be fatty, and rich. I love fatty… and rich too. But a 1/2-pound of fatty and rich on huge buttery brioche bun makes me a little queasy.

The other version of a duck burger I shunned was closer to duck confit on a bun. More like a Sloppy Joe than a proper burger. Had they called it a Dirty Donald or something similar and served it open-faced with poached duck egg I might have dubbed it genius. But alas, they served it with lettuce and tomato. I ended up just feeling sorry for that once proud confit.

So I set off to invent my own. The lessons I learned are two-fold. One: less is more, and Two: burgers have rules, and evidently I can be a fanatic about those rules. One of the rules I fanaticize about is simple. I like burgers to have the proper condiments. Burgers like ketchup. People like burgers with ketchup. My ground duck concoction would have ketchup.

But not just any ole Heinz will do. Duck is a fairly complex flavor, to avoid getting tagged with the "gamey" moniker it's best to augment its assets. I think duck pairs nicely with fruit and spice and sweet. It can stand up to bold acidity too. Ketchup is all those things– fig ketchup is all those things and more.

Sippity Sup Continues »
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