Chupacabra Soup

This isn't quite a non-recipe, in the sense that you can pretty much substitute anything you want in any quantity and it'll still turn out basically the same.

But it is a highly negotiable one, with a lot of options in the meat vs vegan, bean, and chile departments.

Chupacabra might be a bit hard to find in your local grocer's meat department, since one has never actually been caught, at least as far as the USDA and FDA know. But I think the combination of shredded chicken with two cups of Dynamite chile peppers tastes about the same.

(Truth in lending here: I have no idea what a Dynamite chile pepper is. That's all they had left at this little mom and pop farmer's market I just found. Looks like an Anaheim, but I'm assuming from the name it's a wee bit hotter. Yeah, I know ... I was born at night, but not last night ... didn't just fall off the tuna truck, ya know.)

The basic recipe goes like this: shredded chicken plus beans plus a veggie combo of onions and chiles with or without tomatoes plus broth equals soup.

Hints:

• Rotisserie chicken works great here, assuming you can't round up a chupacabra.
  
• Made the last batch with half boiled chicken, half ground Jennie-O turkey. Mixing in a little ground meat was something I tried when I was short on pork loin and I wanted to make a double batch of green chile stew, and I think it adds a little depth to the dish. Same idea works here.
• If you boil the chicken, then you'll already have a pot of brothy-water to make the chicken broth later. I've been hooked on Better Than Bouillon chicken base lately, for it's convenience, price, and most importantly taste. Bon Appetit loved it, and it's ridiculously cheap at the base commissary — about nine quarts of chicken broth for around three bucks, with no cans or cartons taking up space.
• If you're going to add ground turkey or chicken, then brown the meat first and then cook the veggies in the same pot, so that the meat juices work into the onions and peppers.
• Chiles: all I can say is, play around with them. It's always easier to start mild and work your way up. Kinda like unringing a bell, if you over-do the peppers, there's only so much diluting you can do later. This last batch, I used about two cups of Dynamites. I loved it, but it was too hot for M., and she had to cut the soup with sour cream. (Which is so odd, because she nearly always out-hots me under the table.)

Chupacabra Soup

Chicken: One rotisserie chicken, or a smallish over-roasted bird, or a pound or so of grilled chicken (shredded), or a pound or so of boiled chicken (again, then shredded) with maybe a pound of ground turkey, browned.
Olive oil as needed
Two small-to-medium onions, yellow or sweet (I like sweet mixed with chiles, but that's just me), medium to fine dice
3-4 garlic cloves, finely diced or minced
½ to 2 cups chile peppers (depending on your own personal taste and constitution), roasted, peeled, and diced (or, about 14-15 ounces of canned Hatch chiles)
2 cans black beans or 1 can black, 1 can pinto, rinsed
1 Tbs quality chile powder (Savory Spices is a great place to start, or grind your own.)
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp to 1 Tbs Mexican oregano
3 cups chicken broth plus more water if needed

Optional:
1-2 cups of diced tomatoes or 14-28 ounces of canned tomatoes
1 cup corn

Garnish:
Cilantro
Lime
Green onions
Strips of fresh tortillas

First, get your meat ready, either from a rotisserie chicken or by grilling or boiling chicken breasts. If you boil the chicken, then save the water for your chicken broth.

If you're using ground turkey or chicken, brown it in a large stock pot or Dutch oven. If you want, spice the meat with a little chile powder and cumin. Remove and set aside, then sauté the onions in the same pot, using the remaining fat from the meat plus as much olive oil as you need to keep the onions for sticking. Go with about medium heat for 6-7 minutes, and then add the garlic and chiles. Stir gently but frequently. If you have burnt bits on the bottom of your pot, lightly deglaze with a few Tbs of chicken broth (or a splash of wine or beer, if you happen to have some open).

Add the beans and gently stir. Add the spices and gently stir. Add the tomatoes and corn and gently stir (optional items). Then add your broth, and gently stir again before bringing the pot to a boil. Immediately turn it back down to a simmer, giving it 15-20 minutes. Then add your chicken (or chupacabra, if you found one) back to the pot.

Update: I love this technique of thickening the soup with a corn starch slurry at Edible Mosaic.

The key to this soup is managing your chiles. Too many of a too hot variety and you have jet fuel. Too few of a too mild, and you have nursing home cafeteria soup.

Bookmarking a few for later

Gotta save these before I forget them:

World's Greatest Mac-n-Cheese, from Denver's Rackhouse Pub

I need some green in my mac and cheese, so I added some roasted broccoli and chile peppers, the broccoli from the grocery store and the peppers from M's mom's CSA.

Tips on how to spice seeds and nuts, from Sur la Table

Candied Walnuts, from One Perfect Bite

Bourbon Pumpkin Pie, from Gourmet

Curried Chicken Salad with Garam Masala Biscuits, from Food and Wine

Butternut Squash Cake with Walnut Icing, from the Gastronomer's Guide

Roasted Apple and Squash Soup, from Chef Louise

Chicken Noodle Soup with Cheddar Scones ...

... that's really more of a stew than a soup. Actually, it's more of a casserole, except that it's not baked, in that it could almost be eaten with a fork. In fact, in the original recipe, it called for whole chicken pieces, but somewhere along the way we decided to shred the chicken.



It's still technically winter, and meteorologically (word? should be) it's typically the coldest part of the winter these days. Still flu and cold season, and everyone's Granny knows chicken soup is good for what ails you.

So here's an in-between chicken soupish concoction that can be slapped together in a moment's notice, when nothing else soups good and you need a bowl/plate of something hot that smells like home.

About 45 minutes total, which includes 25 minutes of simmer time where you can work on something else. I like this particular one because you put the chicken breasts in whole, so you don't have to worry about cross-contamination with your knives or cutting boards. Just one less thing to worry about, and one step closer to sitting down to eat.

We also like the frozen egg noodles, which are a bit gummier than dried noodles and soak up the chicken flavor.

4-5 cups of chicken stock
1 medium onion (yellow or sweet)
3 celery ribs, sliced down the middle and then cut medium-fine
3 carrots or one bag of baby carrots, cut into 1/4 inch chunks or medium-fine slices
1 bay leaf if you have it

One package chicken breasts, 3-4 breasts, 1.5-2.5 pounds or so
2 teaspoons dried sage
1-2 teaspoons salt
.5-1 teaspoon black pepper (both to your taste)

1 pound frozen cavatelli, dumplings, or egg noodles.

2 Tablespoon each butter (slightly softened) and flour. You can get these two out at the beginning, and the butter should be soft enough by the time you need it.

In a large Dutch oven or stock pot, simmer the chicken stock, onion, celery, carrots, and bay leaf for about 5-10 minutes. Add the whole chicken breasts, sage, and salt/pepper. Simmer for 25-30 minutes covered or partially covered. Flip the chicken a couple or three times to make sure it cooks evenly.

Once this is going, cook the frozen noodles according to its instructions. This usually takes about 15 minutes — 5-10 minutes to get the water boiling, then 10 minutes of cooking time.

At this point, you can opt to serve the chicken breasts whole, which means you'll need a knife, fork, and spoon when it's eating time. Or, you can take two forks and pull the chicken apart into bite sized pieces.

Mix the flour and butter until smooth. Push as much of the chicken and veggies as you can to the side of the pot and spoon the butter/flour into the liquid in the middle. Stir or whisk into the soup, and then add the noodles. Simmer for a couple more minutes so the noodles absorb some of the flavor and everything is evenly heated. Serve in soup bowls or shallow pasta bowls.

Let's go back to the simmer time. Once the soup / stew is ready to simmer, you can either clean up the kitchen or whip up some biscuits. If you choose the latter, here you go.

Dry ingredients, can be prepped ahead of time:
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp sea salt or kosher salt
6 Tbs butter, cold, cold, cold
1 cup shredded Cheddar

Preheat the oven to 450º. Mix the flour, sugar, powder, and salt, and then cut in the butter and add the shredded cheese. Lightly combine.

Mix and stir in:
1 cup butter milk *
1 egg, beaten

* No butter milk? One cup of plain yogurt works, or put one Tbs of either vinegar (white or cider) in a measuring cup and fill with milk to the one cup line. Let it stand for 10 minutes to thicken.

Pour the liquid into the dry and very lightly combine just until mixed. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or not) and scoop 1/4 cup of the batter for each biscuit. They'll rise just a bit, so space them out 1-2". Bake for 15 minutes. Should be ready just in time for the soup.

Another Non-Recipe

Posole is a staple in these parts. Mexican soup. And like chicken noodle or any other soup, it has a million variations. You need hominy, probably pork but chicken isn't verboten, a clearish non-tomato-y but still thick broth but tomatoes aren't unheard of, chiles of any flavor, spices ... and the rest is left up to you.

You can cook it in the crock pot or on the stove. You can cook the meat in the liquid or brown it first on the stove or braise it in the oven. There's basically no wrong way to cook it, as long as you end up sort of in the same space.








Your building blocks are:

Meat: 1.5-2 lb pork shoulder, boston butt, picnic, or any roast. Pork loin or tenderloin is not unheard of.

Hominy: either dried or canned. Dried will require overnight soaking and then boiling. Canned is fine. About 4 cups.

One onion, a few garlic cloves, chiles of any sort (sweet or hot).

Chiles: Yeah, I know I already said chiles, but wanted to make sure. Freshly roasted is great, canned are alright, frozen are convenient if you can get them in your neck of the woods. About a cup, more or less to taste. Mild or hot, doesn't matter.

Spices: Cumin, oregano, cayenne, maybe cloves. I've seen folks prep the meat in a stock with cloved onions, whole peppercorns, and cumin seeds, and then use the ground / powdered later as well. Pre-mixed chili powder is cool as well. I'm digging Savory Spices' no-salt chili powder right now, a lovely mix of Ancho and Chimayo chile, garlic and cumin, paprika and cayenne, and Mexican oregano.

Step One: Prep the meat.
There are three basic ways to get started. You can chop the meat up, add it to the soup while it's cooking, and cook the meat in the soup liquid. That's the easy way, because it's fewer steps, but the meat gets a little bland and everything can taste watered down. A very common way to get started is to simmer the meat in salted water or broth (chicken or veggie stock). If you're using water, maybe add a clove-studded onion, garlic cloves, peppercorns, cumin seeds, and even a carrot or celery stick or two.
Yet another way, and the method pictured here, is to brown the pork shoulder first. Pre-heat your oven to 350º. Then prep the meat by chopping your pork shoulder in several 3-4 inch wide chunks. If you're using a bone-in shoulder, leave some meat on the bone. Using an oven-safe pan with a lid (a Dutch oven would have worked as well), take a couple of onions, sliced fairly thin, and sauté over medium-high heat in olive oil, 3-4 minutes, and then add a mix of chili powder and Mexican oregano (one Tbs each), some freshly ground pepper, and cayenne or red chili pepper flakes, if you're into that.
Then add the pork chunks and brown on all sides, just 2 minutes tops per side. At this point I threw in some carrot and celery chunks, totally optional. Add 4-5 cups water or broth, bring to a boil, cover and transfer to the oven. Braise for 1-2 hours, depending on how much meat you have. The meat is ready in one hour, while two hours will give you a richer stock.



When it's done, you're going to remove the meat and set it aside, then strain out the onions (and carrots and celery, if you used it), and use the stock for the soup. After the meat has cooled, chop it or shred it into bite-sized pieces.

Since you have the oven already going, you can roast a couple of jalapeños at the same time. I use a gringo technique of slicing them in half, removing the seeds, then wrapping in tinfoil and baking for 30 minutes or so, just enough to soften them up and slightly sweeten them. When they have cooled, chop them up and set aside.

In a large stock pot (or, again, a Dutch oven works here as well), sauté another 1-2 onions in olive oil, medium-high, 3-4 minutes. Add a few cloves worth of chopped garlic. Add about 2-3 Tbs total a mix of cumin, chili powder, cayenne, black pepper, and/or Mexican oregano, and stir to coat the onions evenly. Then add the shredded pork and continue stirring for a few minutes to again evenly distribute the spices.

Add hominy, stir, and then pour in the reserved pork broth. (You can always top it off with chicken broth, if you don't have enough to cover the pork and hominy.) Then add about a cup of chopped green chiles and the oven-roasted jalapeños.

Simmer for at least 45 minutes, until the hominy is tender. Simmer for up to 2 hours to maximize the flavor of the broth, to let it soak up the chile and pork flavors.

Depending on how well you strained your pork broth, you might need to skim a little fat off the top of the soup before serving. Or, if it's winter time, leave it there for extra warmth!

You can serve it up as is, or you can add a little bit of chopped green cabbage, white onion, and chopped cilantro. A squirt of lime juice is not unheard of. Warm tortillas on the side, of course.

Tomato Soup on a slow Saturday

Everyone's sick here... head colds, coughs, runny noses.

So it looks as though we'll be spending this sunny day in bed or on the couch.

Fortunately, I made a quick and easy tomato soup (with grilled cheese on the side, of course, because you can't have tomato soup without grilled cheese) so we have lunch already made, if nothing else.

Z-Man will need something else, as he made clear to us by going through the cookbooks and bringing to our attention the things he wanted to try.


The soup is too easy... just the thing when no one really feels like cooking.


2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 tablespoons flour
4 cups chicken broth
1 28-ounce can diced fire-roasted
tomatoes, drained
3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons sugar
¼ cup half-and-half or heavy cream
Salt and freshly ground pepper
½ cup garlic or cheese croutons, for serving


Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Add onion, carrot, celery and garlic and cook over moderate heat, stirring, for about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to low and stir in flour for 1 minute. Add broth, tomatoes, tomato paste and sugar. Bring to a boil. Partially cover and cook over moderate heat until vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.

Puree half of the soup in a blender or immerse a hand blender into the saucepan and pulse for a few minutes. Return to pot and add the half-and-half or cream and cook until heated through. Season with salt and pepper and swirl in an additional 2 tablespoons of butter if desired.

Serve with croutons. Makes an excellent accompaniment for our Crispy Crab Cakes (page 8, Great Tastes — available as a free PDF download).

Irish Stew with Cheddar Scones

There aren't very many stew days left in the year, but even if Mr Summer is breathing down Mr Winter's neck, you can always break this one out for St Paddy's Day, if nothing else.

It takes a good hour and a half, but most of that time is just watching it simmer on the stove, which frees you up to make the scones, clean everything up, and set the table, so once dinner's on, there's nothing to do but sit back and enjoy it all.

Ingredients:
2 pounds stew meat (beef or lamb), cut up into one inch cubes
Olive oil
1 large onion or 2 med/small ones
2 Tbs chopped garlic
2 Tbs tomato paste
1/4 cup flour
One bottle stout or porter beer
4 cups broth — 2 cups beef, 2 cups chicken
Thyme: either a couple of fresh sprigs or a shake or two of dried
*2 pounds potatoes (Yukon works best)
*1 cup carrots
*1 cup frozen peas
*1 cup savoy cabbage

*you won't need these until after the stew simmers for an hour, so you have time to chop it all later

(Adapted from Cuisine at Home.)

Season the stew meat with salt and pepper. In a Dutch oven or large pot, brown the meat for 5-8 minutes on med-high in 1-2 Tbs of oil. Move it to a bowl (or a plate, but you want to catch and save any liquid from the meat for the broth) and drop the heat down to medium.




Add a bit more oil and saute the onion for 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and garlic, stir well and cook for 2 more minutes, until the paste darkens. Add the flour and stir until everything is evenly coated, and cook for 1 more minute. Then deglaze with your beer, scraping the bottom for a couple of minutes to free up the meat and onion bits from the bottom of the pot.



Most folks will tell you to use a Guiness, but this time I used an Odells Cutthroat Porter. Any dark beer will work, but avoid anything sweet (eg, your vanilla or chocolate stouts).

Once you've deglazed, add both broths, the stew meat and its juices, and the thyme. Simmer for one hour on low heat. (Now you can work on the cheddar scones and clean up a bit.)

Chop the potatoes and carrots. Stir in to the stew and cook for about 10-12 minutes (potatoes should be tender). Cut the savoy cabbage into slices and add with the peas, and cook for 5 minutes more.






The cheddar scones take about 20 minutes to make and 25 minutes to bake, so you can make these while the stew is simmering.

2 1/2 cups flour (up to one cup whole wheat, the rest all-purpose)
2 Tbs sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
10 Tbs butter (keep it cold until you need it)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup minced chives
*1 cup buttermilk
2 Tbs water
1 egg whisked with 1 Tbs water

*or water and Saco cultured buttermilk powder

Preheat the oven to 375ºand line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. (Ahh, parchment paper... one of the world's greatest inventions.)

Mix the flour, sugar, baking power and baking soda, and salt. Combine until evenly mixed. (If you're using the buttermilk powder instead of real buttermilk, add that now as well.) Cut in the butter until pea-sized.

(Scott Peacock says to cut in the butter by hand, mashing it and tearing it between your fingers until it crumbles. I tried that but make too much of a mess. And I'm not a huge fan of pastry cutters, because I hate cleaning them. So I use my three dollar, all-purpose utility knife to cut the cold butter into tiny cubes and then mash it with a fork.)







Add the cheddar and chives (or a dash of onion and garlic powder, if you forget to get green onions) and then add the buttermilk and 2 Tbs water. Mix very gently, just until blended. Move the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and pat into a large square, 8-10 inches on a side. Cut in half both ways, and then cut each section in half both ways again. Then cut those squares into triangles. Place on the parchment paper and brush the tops with the egg/water mixture. Bake for about 25 minutes, until golden.

Clean up the kitchen, get back to the potatoes and carrots, and get ready for a slow dinner.

Cheers, and Happy Birthday, Naomh Pádraig!

Cooking mit Kinder

Been thinking about our cooking, or our lack thereof, lately, and will write more on this in the next couple of days.

But in the meantime, here's a piece in the Time's Well about President Obama's new chef and his thoughts on school lunches.

The old public service commercial used to ask, "It's ten o'clock: do you know where your kids are right now?" Today the question should be, "It's twelve o'clock: do you know what your kids are eating right now?"






Pappy's homemade chicken soup, converted into Zebb's chicken soup purée.

On a cold winter's night...

... when everyone is fighting the sniffles and wants to hold a hot bowl of something in front of their face, you have to go with chicken soup.

Here's the 45 minute version, from start to finish, which includes 25 minutes of simmer time where you can work on something else. I like this one because you put the chicken breasts in whole, so you don't have to worry about cross-contamination with your knives or cutting boards. Just one less thing to worry about, and one step closer to sitting down to eat.

We also like the frozen egg noodles, which are a bit gummier than dried noodles and soak up the chicken flavor.

4-5 cups of chicken stock
1 medium onion (yellow or sweet)
3 celery ribs, sliced down the middle and then cut medium-fine
3 carrots or one bag of baby carrots, cut into 1/4 inch chunks or medium-fine slices
1 bay leaf if you have it

One package chicken breasts, 3-4 breasts, 1.5-2.5 pounds or so
2 teaspoons dried sage
1-2 teaspoons salt
.5-1 teaspoon black pepper (both to your taste)

1 pound frozen egg noodles.

2 Tablespoon each butter (slightly softened) and flour. You can get these two out at the beginning, and the butter should be soft enough by the time you need it.

In a large Dutch oven or stock pot, simmer the chicken stock, onion, celery, carrots, and bay leaf for about 5-10 minutes. Add the whole chicken breasts, sage, and salt/pepper. Simmer for 25-30 minutes covered or partially covered. Flip the chicken a couple or three times to make sure it cooks evenly.

Once this is going, cook the frozen noodles according to its instructions. This usually takes about 15 minutes — 5-10 minutes to get the water boiling, then 10 minutes of cooking time.

At this point, you can opt to serve the chicken breasts whole, which means you'll need a knife, fork, and spoon. Or, you can take two forks and pull the chicken apart into bite sized pieces.

Mix the flour and butter until smooth. Push as much of the chicken and veggies as you can to the side of the pot and spoon the butter/flour into the liquid in the middle. Stir or whisk into the soup, and then add the noodles. Simmer for a couple more minutes so the noodles absorb some of the flavor and everything is evenly heated. Serve in soup bowls or shallow pasta bowls.