Soup

[Anonymous]

If you like curry anything you may like this one. It's called curried salmon soup. You can use another type of fish, of course.

I must apologize for some of my tentative instructions. It's just that I'm quite familiar with these recipes and tend to make them from memory, and I suddenly find myself wondering how much of this or that am I using. Also, are you familiar with European measurements or do you need me to convert in oz and tsp and things. I'll do my best.

For this soup, you'll need:

-some butter
- 2 large onions, chopped
- 4 medium size potatoes, peeled and diced
- 1lb salmon cut into bite-size pieces
- 1 small carton cream (a little over a cup)
- 50cl water (about 2cups)
- 1tbsp mild curry powder
- 1 small can creamed coconut
- 15 cl white wine (about 2/3 cup)
- parsley, chopped
- salt

Put enough butter in a cooking pot to cook the onions on low heat for about 5 min (until they soften). Add curry powder. Fry for 1 more min.
Add the water, wine, creamed coconut and salt. Bring to boil until smooth. Add potatoes and simmer until almost cooked through. They can't be allowed to break down . Add fish and simmer for about 3 min. Stir in cream. Garnish with parsley.

Could I have the sausage and apple soup recipe in exchange? It sounds delicious. :)

[kitchenelf]

YUM that sounds wonderful balibar - for the

SAUSAGE AND APPLE SOUP

1 large onion, chopped
2-3 carrots - 1" pieces
2-3 celery stalks
zucchini (optional)
cabbage (optional)
andouille sausage if you like spicy
favorite smoked sausage otherwise

chicken broth, vegetable broth, beef broth, or water
(sometimes I use a combination but whatever I do I usually add about 1/2-1 cup white wine You want the broth to more than cover everything

butter
salt/pepper
fresh or dried thyme

Cook sausage first in the pot you will be using - I slice in about 1/2" pieces, then remove sausage and saute all veggies in the oil left from the sausage (you may need to remove some of the oil - I like my veggies slightly carmelized). Once slightly carmelized add your liquid of choice and being sure to deglaze the pot. Add your herbs and let simmer until veggies are almost done then add cored, chopped apple, (I usually peel). Cook until apple is done.

I have on occasion stirred in a little pesto when done.

I know this is not much of a "recipe" but I know you'll understand since you write your recipes the same way

Thanks so much for your contribution and I am looking forward to more (as is everyone else!!!!!)

[balibar]

Thank you, Kitchenelf. I'll try it this very week. It's really nice to meet new people and exchange recipes.

[kitchenelf]

Here's another favorite that I forgot about until I started looking through my recipes - (how could anything with a pound of bacon in it be bad??) :P

Italian Bean Soup

1/2 of a small bag of dried navy beans (about 1 1/4 cups dried)
1# smoked bacon, cut in squares
2 TBS brown sugar (not tightly packed)
1 large white onion, chopped
2 heads of garlic, roasted
5 cups water
fresh cilantro
1 TBS dried oregano
1 TBS dried basil
1 TBS dried parsley

To roast garlic cut off tops, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Wrap tightly in aluminum foil and place in 350 F. about 45 minutes. Squeeze out garlic cloves directly into bean mixture before cooking. Sauté onions, bacon and brown sugar until onion is soft. Do not remove the bacon fat unless there is an excess amount. Add water.

Add the fresh cilantro and the dried herbs and roasted garlic. Cook at 15# pressure. When pressure reaches high, turn down and rock gently for 15-20 minutes. If beans are under cooked you can always put lid back on and pressure cook longer. Just don't overcook or you will have Italian refried beans!

Note #2 - Because there was bacon grease left in pot no need to add additional oil. (When you pressure cook beans the oil keeps them from foaming and getting the hole clogged, which then could result in cleaning your kitchen ceiling)

Garnish with fresh cilantro and grated Pecorino, Parmesan, or Gruyere. Serve with some rustic bread and a glass of wine.

[balibar]

And just when I thought - like most Europeans- that people in North America were hyper about fat and cholesterol!
This one sounds very nice as well. I've got a great bean soup recipe at home, an Italian soup called "ribollita". I'll pass it on soon.
Do you get mussels readily where you are? This is mussels country, with just about as many ways to prepare them than we have beers (over 600).
I've got a great mussel soup recipe that I can pass on.

[kitchenelf]

We love mussels - can get them all the time - though probably not quite as "fresh" as yours but certainly still fresh since "most" of them are still living! LOL

Balibar - LOL on the fat and cholesterol - every now and then you just gotta eat some bacon!!!! :roll:

Would love any suggestions for mussels. The only way I really fix them is simmer white wine, a lot of chopped shallots, a lot of fresh time and that's pretty much it. They are good but variety would be very welcome!

[Anonymous]

Good evening, Kitchenelf and everybody else.
Kitchenelf, I'm glad to hear that some of your mussels are alive. No we know you'll be among us for a while yet!
Recipes for mussels are many. Our favorites are "moules au vin blanc" - that's the mussels with white wine that you cook- "marinière" which is the simplest but still most popular way to eat them (slice onions, soften in butter, add some chopped celery and carrot slices + the famous "bouquet garni", i.e. thyme, bayleaf, parsley, lots of pepper, add a little bit of water - no more than a glassful - then add the mussels. Whole thing on high heat with the lid on. Shake about every 5 min until all mussels open). In Belgium, mussels [[/i]must be eaten with fries and the fries absolutely should be dipped in mustard or... mayonnaise. Moules marinière are served with "mussels sauce" which is a sort of liquidy mayonnaise with a lot of mustard in it. When you've finished eating the mussels you're supposed to drink the juice (it's called "juice") straight from the pot with a spoon. Letfover mussels can be used for pasta sauce or added to a cream sauce to eat with fish.
Other ways to prepare them: garlic cream sauce, with belgian endives, with beer, "provençale" (tomatoes, green and red peppers), curried, with ginger, with leeks, etc... Just tell me what catches your fancy.

For the soup:
- open mussels on high heat. Remove mussels from shells keeping a few for decoration. Set mussels aside. Strain juice. Sauté some chopped scallions until soft (not brown), add mussel stock + Some fish stock.
Add some saffron and 2 crished garlic cloves + 1 bay leaf. Bring to the boil. Cook for a few minutes until slightly reduced. Add cream + mussels.
Place a few mussels in their shell on soup plates, pour soup over the lot, decorate with a few sprigs of thyme.

Now, if you've got a good chicken soup recipe, I'd be grateful for it.

[kitchenelf]

That sounds great - and I notice you are "guest" again - I was having trouble awhile back and had to sign in each time I logged on - apparently you have to now do that too. Be sure and check the box that says automatically sign me in - but like I said, it didn't work for me for a long time but now it does :?

I really want to try curry mussels!!!!

I do have a chicken soup "recipe" - (my son and husband hate it because I use whole chicken pieces and when they bite into the cartlidge by mistake they just about pass out!! LOL So, I have revised it for them but what I do below is what I used to do)

whole chicken pieces
large onion, chopped in large pieces
celery, peeled and chopped into about 2" pieces
carrots, peeled and chopped into about 2" slices
thyme
basil
marjoram
rosemary
tarragon
obviously, water to more than cover so you have lots of broth for the added veggies below
chicken base or a good broth may need to be added

Cook until chicken is almost falling off bone then add:

box of frozen broccoli (fresh is fine)
box of frozen cauliflower (fresh is fine)
box of frozen Brussels sprouts (fresh is fine)
1 can of corn or fresh cut off cob
canned or fresh green beans - cut in 1/2" pieces
Sometimes I use a box of cut okra too


more herbs if needed
butter (the amount depends on how big the pot but I am NOT afraid to add the amount needed for the flavor )
and a heavy splash of white wine
this is when I will add some fresh, chopped basil, thyme, rosemary or just tarragon if I'm in that kind of mood
if necessary some chicken base for a more intense flavor

Now, if I feel like a creamy (but it's not really what you would call a "cream" soup) kind of soup I will (in place of paragraph above) heat in a sauce pot 1 to 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup with about 1/2 - 1 can of white wine and a stick of butter along with about 1 TBS each dried basil, parsley, thyme, marjoram (all the sweet herbs). Heat until butter melts and add to soup pot along with all of the broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts, etc. Heat until veggies are done. If you are using fresh veggies of course they will take longer to cook.

Needless to say this makes one very large pot of soup!!! LOL But it does hit the spot. Of course, the next day it's even better and contrary to what people think, the Brussels sprouts do not make this soup taste funny or bitter or whatever it's supposed to do to it! If I do this without the cream of mushroom soup I leave the chicken pieces whole for sure (they look so good in the bowl for some reason) but if I do the cream of mushroom I usually take the chicken off the bone - most times anyway.

Now, if I am really making this late in the day I will go to the grocery store and buy a rotisserie chicken already cooked and pick it off the bone and use that instead of poaching one myself.

I hope this "recipe" is understandable - I'll have to go back and read it before I post it! LOL

I will add these same vegetables to by vegetable soup or vegetable beef soup - maybe change some of the herbs but I will add a dash of nutmeg or cinnamon. (and I don't do the mushroom soup, of course).

[balibar]

Well, Kitchenelf, I posted an answer to your latest post from another computer and , guess what? it didn't show at all! :?
These machines are really confusing.
Your recipe is very clear. I think I'll try it tomorrow when I will be home and have enough time to boil the chicken. My husband wouldn't faint if finding what qualifies as "weird stuff" in the soup, but would arrange said weird stuff carefully on the side of his plate. My son would hold it up for inspection and rejoice if it looked particularly gross because he could torture his sister with it (yerk, look, snail slime!") and my daughter would squeal and profess to be disgusted and have lost her appetite. So I'm always extra careful that only politically correct pieces of meat go in my pots.
I'll tell you how it turns out. I've never thought to use canned mushroom soup, but it seems like a good idea.

For curried mussels; same recipe as "marinières" except fry your curry before you sauté the onions (chopped smaller). Open the mussels on high heat. Remove the mussels. Strain the juice. Add to curry and onions, bring to a boil. Sometimes, I add a few slivers of ginger. Remove from heat, add cream. Stir. Put back in large pot, add mussels, shake well.
All this pot switching is due to not wanting the cream to boil. Clotted cream sauce! Now, that's gross!

Soup to make with mussels. After you've cooked them, remove from pot and shell the mussels saving a few in their shells for deco. Strain the juice, add saffron, lots of pepper, salt if need be (depends on how salty your seawater is), some fish stock, a spalsh of white wine, a few sage leaves. Bring to a boil. Remove sage. Add cream. Add cooked mussels. In soup plates, arrange mussels in shell, pour soup, decorate with chopped green onion.

Bon appétit!

[balibar]

The chicken soup recipe was fabulous, Kitchenelf. Thanks a lot.