Lemony Shrimp Soup

Jana — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:23:36 +0000

I felt like Snow White while making this soup. While I hummed about the kitchen, ingredients seemed to wing out of the fridge and into the soup as if little adorable doe eyed woodland creatures were helping them along. Before I knew it, I had a beautiful soup that seemed to have created itself.

I love those days.

I’d puttered about with a shrimp soup idea for awhile, but without any concrete ideas. I just knew I was tired of shrimp scampi. And my spicy Asian stir-fried shrimp. I was in a shrimp rut. (A shrut?) So when I began making the soup, I was determined not to use any of my normal shrimpy ingredients. No parsley, no red pepper flakes, no soy sauce.

The part that gives an extra pinch of fairy dust to this recipe is that everything (apart from the shrimp) was just lying around my fridge. The lemon had been lying naked in a drawer since I zested it last week. The onion and leek were left over from the cooking class I taught on Sunday. I always have quarts of whey sitting around as I make my own mozzarella cheese every week. And the collards were leftovers from last night’s dinner. Whenever I’ve attempted such “leftover soups” before, the individual ingredients, like ugly step sisters, have never played well together. But in this soup, they all seemed to grow up and realize each other weren’t so bad.

This soup even got it’s own “happily ever after” ending at dinner. Mr. Quotidian, the ever skeptical prince, pronounced throughout all the kingdom that this was a “soup-er soup.”

A note about the whey: This is actual, real, living, whey. It was drained off of cheese, not mixed from a powder. They are two completely different products and should not be substituted for one another. However, if you are not like me and do not have excess quarts of whey sitting in your fridge, a good chicken stock (or shrimp/fish stock- even better!) would substitute quite nicely.

Lemony Shrimp Soup

1 lb of fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined
Juice from one lemon
1 onion, chopped
1 leek, chopped, white and pale green parts only
2 tbs lard, butter, or olive oil
1 1/2- 2 qts whey
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 tbs dried sage
1 tbs herbs de provence
1 cup cooked collard greens
salt and pepper
1/4 of a preserved lemon- I used Jenny’s recipe from the Nourished Kitchen, chopped fresh lemon could be substituted
2-tbs yogurt

Pour the lemon juice over the shrimp and let them marinate while you prepare the rest of the soup. Melt the fat in a large soup pot. When the surface shimmers, add the onions and leek with a pinch of salt and sweat until soft, about 2 minutes. If they start browning, turn down the heat. Pour in the whey, then add the chopped garlic and herbs. Bring the whey to just below a boil. Add the shrimp cook for another minute or so. The shrimp are done when they turn bright pink. Add the cooked collards and turn off the heat. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed. To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with a spoonful of yogurt and a generous pinch of preserved lemon.

This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursday at the Nourishing Gourmet.

Holiday Dressing

Jana — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:59:04 +0000

This started out as my grandmother’s recipe. But, in the several times I’ve made it, it has become my own. While I keep it traditional for Thanksgiving, I play around with it at other times. It’s a great way to use up stale bread of any kind. It is another recipe that is very adaptable to whatever you can imagine. Play with it. I’ve made a Greek dressing using extra garlic and oregano. Next time I make it, I want to try a Ruben-esque theme- rye bread, caraway seeds, and corned beef.

Holiday Dressing

1 whole loaf of crusty bread (french, baguette, ect)
2 Tablespoons fennel seeds
1 cup walnuts, mildly crushed (opt)
1 lb Sweet Italian, Hot Italian, or Breakfast sausage (opt)
6 Tablespoons butter
4 onions, chopped
1 box golden raisins (or half cranberries)
2 T rubbed sage
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons brandy (opt)
6 eggs
3 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Tear the bread into bit size pieces, cover with a towel, and leave out at least overnight to dry. Having the bread dry with keep it from absorbing too much liquid later and becoming soggy. It gives your dressing a nice texture.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Bring a mid-sized skillet up to a medium-hot temperature.  Add the fennel seeds and allow them to toast until fragrant. As soon as you smell them, take them off the heat. Remove the seeds to a small dish, then add the nuts to the same hot, dry skillet and allow them to toast 3-5 minutes, taking care to stir them constantly to prevent burning. Pour the nuts off into a large bowl.

Add olive oil to the same skillet, then fry the sausage until it is cooked through (about 8-10 minutes). Remove the sausage to the same large bowl containing the walnuts.

Add the butter to the skillet, allowing it to melt and blend with the sausage drippings. If you’re not using sausage, add an extra tablespoon butter or bacon drippings.

Add the onions, sauté 2 minutes, then add the raisins and sauté two minutes longer, or until the raisin are plump.

Sprinkle the sage over the vegetables, sauté 1 minute, then add the garlic and toasted fennel seeds.
Sauté two minutes longer, then add the entire mixture into the large bowl with the walnuts and sausage.

To the same big bowl, add the bread, eggs, salt, pepper and brandy. Add enough stock to thouroughly wet the ingredients, but remember, you can always add more. You don’t want it to be too soggy. Prepare to get messy. Using your hands (or salad servers), thoroughly mix all the ingredients. Think toss rather than clump. Squeezing the stuffing will destroy its texture.

Butter a 13 x 9 inch baking pan, add the stuffing, then cover tightly with a piece of buttered aluminum foil.

Allow the stuffing to cook 35 minutes, then remove the foil and allow it to bake 30 minutes longer, until the top is nicely crisped, lightly browned, and no liquid bubbles up when you press the crust.

Collected Quotidian » sage

Lemony Shrimp Soup

Holiday Dressing