Lettuce is one of those foods.  Somewhere along the line, it acquired the status of poster child for healthy eating. People on diets opt for the salad bar instead of fried chicken. Health nuts get bragging rights based on how many salads they eat. Prewashed, mixed, and bagged lettuce is a staple of busy moms trying to feed their family more vegetables. And then there’s me. I think I eat fairly healthfully. And yet, for most of the year, salads (at least those made from lettuce) are conspicuously absent from my table. In the south, where I live, the lettuce season is very short- from about March to mid April, and then again in September. Lettuces thrive in cooler spring and fall temperatures. The intense heat that other sun bathing vegetables like tomatoes adore, exhausts lettuces. But in the spring, before the days get too hot, lettuce comes rolling in from the garden and crashes in waves over farmer’s market stands. It is vibrant green (or red, or purple), succulent, tender, and without a trace of bitterness.

Faced with such beauty, it is all too easy for a girl like me to pick up my chef’s knife like a surf board and attempt to ride the waves of lettuce. Inevitably, I wipe out – salad spinner tumbling across the floor and lettuce wilting in my bottom drawer. When this happens, I am indebted to Kimi, of The Nourishing Gourmet, for her Tangy Herbed Lettuce Soup recipe. It’s basic formula of lettuce leaves wilted in hot broth with some vinegar and herbs, has saved many heads of lettuce from an early composting. This recipe works with all kinds of lettuce and other leafy greens. I’ve made heirloom lettuce soups that have specks of red and purple floating in them like confetti. If you live in Columbia, this is a great way to use the full pound bags of sunflower sprouts from City Roots. As long as you don’t simmer the soup too long, the soup should stay a vibrant green , so it’s hard to make an ugly soup. As far as flavor goes, however, the combination of spicy arugula and red onion is my favorite.

While simply reheating that leftover enchilada or half serving of peas is certainly an option, I prefer to disguise my leftovers as soup. Depending on your perspective, this is either a creative and frugal way to reuse ingredients or a shady practice that comes dangerously close to being dishonest. I am loyal to the first camp, but must admit that some of my leftover soups have made me feel mildly criminal, as they tasted like I just dumped all my disparate leftovers into a pot of broth and called it soup.

To avoid such a dinner, I have been collecting tips, tricks, hints, clues, pointers and words to the wise concerning making leftovers into a successful soup. Some of them I have learned the hard way while others I was lucky enough to learn from someone else’s mistakes.

1. Choose a theme for your soup. No, not Batman or a masquerade ball. A food related theme. Choosing a theme gives you a foundation to build on. It adds cohesiveness to your soup, even if the specific ingredients don’t really match. There are many options for food themes, from historical periods to foreign holiday foods. However, I find geographical regions to be most helpful. Choose a region of the world and create your soup using spices and flavors connected with that region. For example, make a Southwestern style soup using cayenne pepper, cumin, and coriander. Or make an Asian soup using soy sauce, five spice powder, and cilantro. Or an Italian soup with basil, olive oil, and oregano. This step might take some research, but to me that’s part of the fun. Once you’ve covered the basics (like Asian and Italian) you could move on to specific countries. Like, what makes Argentine food different from Colombian food?  This is a great excuse to check out ethnic cookbooks from the library.
2. Always start with a fresh base. In all my leftover soups, I try to have some kind of fresh mirepoix (pronounced “mirror-pwa”), the traditional trinity of carrots, celery, and onions. Sometimes this means just a palmful of chopped onions sautéed in butter. Maybe a little garlic. But always start with something fresh. You’d be surprised at how that freshness gets breathed into the rest of the soup.
3. Be mindful of how long different ingredients need to cook. Overcooking and undercooking are both enemies of the successful leftover soup. There is nothing worse than greens that have been cooked so long they’ve turned bitter, unless of course it’s biting into a chunk of potato that’s still cold in the middle. This seems like a basic law of cooking, but one that I often forget when using leftovers. Add the things that need to cook longer first, like potatoes. Add the things that cook quickly near the end, like spinach.
4. Vary the texture of your soups. While brothy soups with bits of vegetable and meat floating around are good, they can get boring. Try pureeing your soup either with a bar blender or a hand held immersion blender. (Be sure to do it in batches with a towel over the lid if you use a bar blender.) While the ingredients might be pretty similar, blending a soup can add just the right amount of psychological difference to ease the ennui that leftover soup can cause. Blended soups are also a great way to use up stale bread. What looks unsightly in a brothy soup makes an excellent thickener for a blender soup. So do mashed potatoes, by the way.
5. Serve your leftover soup with a garnish. This can be as simple or as complicated as you’d like. It’s amazing how much better a soup looks and tastes with just a little something on top. Think of the garnish as a preview for the soup. Use the same ingredients. For example, save some of your chopped carrots to sprinkle on top. Or roughly chop your celery leaves. Or a fresh sprinkle of the herbs and spices you put in the soup.  This is another great way to use your theme. Garnish your Mexican soup with some pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds) or fried tortilla strips. Pureed soups look great with a drizzle of olive oil or soy sauce. Most of my soups get a last minute dollop of yogurt or sour cream. Maybe a sprinkle of an herb. Just that little effort can improve the aesthetics of your soup, which should not be belittled because, as we all know, we eat with our eyes first. There’s also nothing else quite like a dollop of sour cream and sprinkle of herbs to make you feel very accomplished and successful at finally making that problem child behave.

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

In the most recent Slow Kitchen meeting, we did a blind tasting between stock from a box and homemade stock. Homemade stock had a “spicier” aroma and “more flavors” than the “bland” and “thin” stock from a box. Homemade stock is rich experience all around, from the deep golden color to the unctuous complex flavor. Can you guess which is which?

Besides being a tasty base for soups, sauces, and gravies, stock is full of vitamins, minerals, and other healthy things like gelatin. Many others have written about the health benefits of a well prepared stock, including Sally Fallon, the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, so I won’t rewrite the wheel. Let’s just say there’s a reason chicken stock was called the “Jewish penicillin.”

I wanted to make stock for long time before I had the courage to do it. All the recipes I read sounded so intimidating. For one thing, they are always very long.  And full of terms that not only was I unfamiliar with but seemed a little indecent for a respectable cookbook. All a recipe had to do was mention the word “carcass” and I was lost. What is a carcass? Is it the same as a whole chicken? Should there be any meat left on it? Does it matter what size?  At that point in my culinary self-education, I was still very tied to recipes, so I was never sure when the recipe called for 3 to 8 pounds of chicken parts if the 2 1/2 pounds I had would still work. And honestly, does anyone actually know what “scum” is anyway? I never could seem to find a straight answer to that one. All of that, coupled with a fierce desire to become something of a domestic goddess, meant that I approached my first stock pot with the trepidation of a girl on her wedding night. That something wonderful was supposed to happen, I knew. But exactly how, well, I had no earthly idea.

Some time has passed since then. Like an old married woman, I now discuss the squimish topics of carcasses and scum with nary a blush. However, I realize there are still those stock virgins out there who need someone wise in the ways of stock making to frankly talk them through what’s going to happen.

What follows is my everyday recipe for chicken stock. Please don’t be intimidated by the length. I’ve tried to be as clear and detailed as I can. Making stock is as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. In the recipe, I give you both the “proper” technique and then what I actually do. At it’s most basic, think of it as similar to brewing tea. Tea leaves are placed in boiling water that, through the process of diffusion, extracts the goodness (flavor, aroma, caffeine, ect) trapped inside the leaves. To make stock, simply replace the tea leaves with chicken bones. So don’t be scared. It’ll all be okay. And at the end of it, you’ll have made something beautiful, perfect, and worth more than gold in kitchen currency.

(If you would like to make beef stock, put all your bones in a roasting pan and roast in an 350° oven until they are uniformly browned, about 90 minutes, stirring occasionaly. Then proceed with step one.  Roasting the bones first sets in motion the Maillard reaction which produces deeper, more complex, umami flavors.)

1. Put a chicken in a stock pot. The chicken can be a whole raw chicken, a whole carcass left over from a roast , or bones you’ve saved from other meals like fried chicken. Also, if you happen to have chicken feet, necks, gizzards, ect, throw those in too. They add more flavor and nutrition to your stock. The feet are special because they have a high gelatin content, which means there will be more gelatin in your stock. Once you get used to having quality stock around, you’ll probably intentionally buy these things. When I make a roast chicken, I’ll generally save the carcass in the freezer until I’m ready to make stock.
2. Add a few tbs of vinegar. This helps extract the minerals, like calcium, from the bones. Then add water to cover the bones by several inches.
3. Let sit for 30 minutes
4. Bring water to a boil and skim off any foam that rises. Scum is . . .  impurities. That’s the best I’ve been able to figure out. If you’d like, you can be a perfectionist about it and stand over your stock for 45 minutes skimming off every little bit of scum as it rises. Or, you can be lazy like me and wait till your pot looks like a dirty bubble bath, skim that off and call it good. You will want to skim at least the majority of the scum off as it can give your finished stock an off flavor. If you are using a whole chicken, you will have more scum than if you are just using a carcass.
5. Add any veggies you want- I keep my vegetable scraps (carrot and onion tops, ect) in a bag in the freezer and add those plus an onion cut in half, maybe some celery, and another carrot broken in half. Please don’t spend time chopping them. It’s a waste of time. The only reasons to nicely chop vegetables are for aesthetics and even cooking times. These vegetables are going to be strained out at the end, so no one will see them but you. And the stock simmers for so long that everything will be thoroughly cooked, believe me. So put your knife away and just throw those celery sticks in the pot.
6. Bring stock back to almost a boil and reduce heat to a bare simmer.
7. If you are using a whole chicken, remove it after about an hour and remove the meat. Then put the carcass (bones, skin, everything else) back in the pot. You can then use the meat for chicken salads, chicken soup, enchiladas, tacos, ect. Removing it now, instead of at the end, keeps it from getting overcooked and rubbery.
8. Simmer, covered, for at least 8 hours. 12 is better. 24 is sublime. It takes time to extract everything from the bones. While some recipes say its fine to simmer for only 3-5 hours, I think the resulting stock is not worth the effort. There are chefs that keep barrels of stock simmering for up to two weeks, so don’t be afraid of overcooking your stock. Do keep an eye on it, and stir occasionally. Add more water if it drops below the level of the bones. You can consider your stock done when the water is a deep golden color and you can crush a leg bone between your fingers. If you’re nervous about leaving the stove on over night, turn the burner off about an hour before you go to bed to let the stock cool. Then, right before bed, put it in the fridge. Then just start it again the next morning. If you have a large enough crock pot, you could also pour the stock into that once you’ve brought it to a simmer on the stove. I’ve also put my stock pot in a 200° oven and let it simmer away in there, leaving my stove top free for other cooking.
9. When you’re done simmering,  turn off the heat and dunk in a bunch of fresh parsley. The residual heat will be enough to extract the flavor from the parsley, but still leave a fresh flavor. Let the stock cool a little. Then use a large slotted spoon and strain out the big pieces of vegetable and bone. Then use a colander to strain the rest of the solids out. If you want a really clear stock (with no celery leaves or such), strain it again through a colander lined with cheese cloth or a tea towel (NOT terry cloth). I rarely do this. The little bits of leaves that remain in the stock don’t bother me. Store your stock in the fridge overnight. A good stock will gel solid, like Jello. Mine doesn’t always gel though. I don’t know why it’s not consistent. I’m experimenting with techniques, and when I get some conclusive evidence, I’ll let you know. For now, don’t worry. Your stock will still taste great and be nutritious even if it doesn’t gel solid.
10. Take the stock out and skim off the solidified fat. This step is actually optional. Some people think it’s gross, but the fat is part of what contributes the rich flavor to stock. However, you don’t want it to be greasy. So normally, I’ll skim off most of it but not worry about the little shards that break off. I keep the skimmed fat in a jar in my fridge. You can use it to cook with or feed it to your cats. Just remember that it’s not as “pure” of a fat as butter, meaning there’s little bits of vegetable floating in it. Therefore, it won’t last as long as other fats. I’ve actually had it mold on me. So, use it within a couple of days.
11. Now, you have several options for storage. You can use it right away for soup or some such thing. Or, you can store it in the fridge for about a week. (If you are going to do this, it’s best to not skim the fat, as this forms a barrier that will stop bacteria from getting in.) If you choose to refrigerate your stock, make sure you bring it back to a good rolling boil before using it, to kill anything that might be growing in there. Or, you can freeze it. If you have ample freezer space, store it however you store other liquids (tupperware, plastic bags, mason jars…) If you have limited space (like me), then you can put the skimmed stock back in the pot and reduce it to whatever volume you desire. You can reduce  a whole batch of stock to fit in an ice cube tray and store it that way. I usually reduce it by about half.
12. The last step is yours to decide. Spend your liquid gold in whatever way you choose. Make a delicious soup, a gravy for your mashed potatoes, or a sauce to put over your carrots. You can cook your rice or beans in it. Or even just drink a mug of it. Sound excessive? Believe me, it won’t once you’ve made your own stock. You’ll want to.

This is a chicken foot. Yes, it looks like a foot. Get over it. It is also your secret weapon of stock making, producing a a rich golden stock full of gelatin.

More chicken feet. Can you tell I’m trying to desensitize you so you won’t be afraid to go buy them?

This is what your stock should look like after a few hours. Pale chicken parts and flaccid celery not quite your style? Don’t worry. The liquid is what you’re after. It will turn a deep golden color before it’s done. Can you believe most recipes have you stop here?

This is what your bones should look like when you’re done. Full of little holes, like those pictures of osteoporosis patients’ bones. All of the things that make bones strong have been leached out into your stock. Even major bones, like this leg bone, should crumble easily between your fingers.

]]> http://collectedquotidian.com/2010/03/29/liquid-gold/feed/ 3 http://collectedquotidian.com/2009/12/20/holiday-dressing/ http://collectedquotidian.com/2009/12/20/holiday-dressing/#comments Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:59:04 +0000 Jana@ Collected Quotidian http://collectedquotidian.com/?p=290 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.

This is the classic cranberry sauce.  Start here if your previous cranberry sauce experience involves a can opener. Once you’ve got the basic method down, feel free to experiment with additions.  Most whole spices go well with this sauce. In fact, I can’t think of many that would not pair well with it. I’ve had it with extra cinnamon, cloves, allspice, star anise, cardamom, and even cracked black pepper. Use your taste buds’ imagination. The only thing I’d caution against is using so many spices that you drown the cranberry flavor.

• 1 bag of fresh cranberries
• 1 cup water
• 1/2- 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 stick of cinnamon (opt)

Combine the water and sugar in a small pot and bring to a boil. Stir in the cranberries  and cinnamon stick and reduce heat to medium. When most of the berries have popped open (about 10 minutes), remove from heat and pour into serving dish.  Let cool at least 30 minutes. If you like a thicker sauce, make this the night before and chill overnight.  Cranberry sauce gets thicker the longer it sits.

• 2-3 heads of broccoli
• 1 lemon
• Parmesan (opt)
• 2 tbs olive oil
• salt

Preheat oven to 350° to 425°. Higher is better, but if you’re sharing the oven with other dishes, the lower temperature will still get the job done.

Cut broccoli into florets. Turn it upside down and hold the end of the stem. Starting at the bottom of the crown, slice diagonally through the florets.  If any pieces come off too big, cut them in half.  Don’t forget about the stem! If it looks tough, peel it first.  Then slice it into roughly the same size as your florets.

Place the broccoli in an even layer on a half sheet pan and drizzle olive oil over them. Zest the lemon over the top. Then roll it gently on the counter, cut in half and squeeze the juice over the broccoli, using your fingers to strain out the seeds. Grate cheese over the top.  Sprinkle a pinch of salt.

Roast for 20-25 minutes. Taste test. Add a little more lemon or cheese if you want.  Serve immediately.

• Yukon gold or russet potatoes (about 1 1/2 per person)
• 1/4- 1/2 cup milk
• 4-6 tbs butter
• salt

The Proper Method:

Peel the potatoes if you wish. Cut them into equally sized pieces. Same size = same cooking time = no lumpy potatoes. Add the chunks to a big pot of salted water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to a simmer.  Cook potatoes for 15- 20 minutes.  Smaller pieces will cook faster. After 15 minutes, start testing for doneness. They are done when you can crush them between tongs. Drain in a colander.

In the empty pot, place milk and butter.  Set over low heat.  When the butter has melted, add the potatoes and mash with a potato masher and hand blender. Serve immediately.

The Oh-No-I-Forgot-the-Potatoes-And-Dinner-Is-Ready Method

Cook potatoes as above, taking care to cut them into small pieces.

Drain potatoes and put back in pot.  Add milk and butter.  Mash as the butter melts. Throw pot onto table to serve.

*If you are worried your potatoes will get cold, cover the bowl with foil and put them in a low oven until ready to serve.

For those of you who want to twirl your culinary compasses, try this fermented recipe. Historically, most of our condiments were fermented (or cultured, or lacto-fermented- all basically the same thing)- from pickles to ketchup to soy sauce. The main goal of fermenting was preservation. Before people canned, they fermented food to keep for the winter. Fermented foods also have health benefits, including providing your digestive tract with probiotics (yep, those little things you take in expensive pill form now).

This is a great recipe to start your fermenting journey.  Most people are already familiar with the tartness of cranberries and are therefore more receptive to the added fermented flavor.

After you’ve mixed up a batch, take some time to read more about the health and history of fermented foods. I suggest you start  here and here.

• 1 bag fresh cranberries
• 1 whole orange
• 1-2 tbs whole spices (cinnamon stick, star anise, fennel, cloves, allspice, ect)
• 1/4 cup whey
• 1/4-1/2 cup sugar or rapadura
• 1 tbs sea salt

This recipe should be started at least 3 days ahead of when you are planning to serve the relish. A week would be better.

In a food processor or blender, combine cranberries and orange and any whole spices.  Do it in batches if your bowl isn’t big enough. Process them to a medium consistency.  You don’t want whole berries, but you don’t want a liquid either.  Stir in whey, sugar, and salt. Remove to a quart mason jar. Using a meat pounder or a the bottom of a glass that is smaller than the mouth of the jar, pound the mixture down to release the juice. Keep smooshing and smashing until the liquid comes above the mixture.  If you don’t think you have enough liquid, add a little water to cover. Be sure the relish is at least 1 inch below the top of the jar.

Screw on the lid and keep the jar at room temperature for 2-3 days. Start tasting it on the second day. When you like the flavor, transfer it to the fridge. It will last for several months.

The rate of fermentation depends on the temperature of your house. If it is warmer, the relish will ferment faster.  If it is colder, it will take more time.  If you house is very cold (like below 65°, like ours sometimes is before we turn the heat on), consider putting the relish in a warm oven, on top of a warm appliance (computer, fridge, TV), or in a dehydrator. Just don’t let it get to hot, or all the lovely little microbes will die.  An ideal range would be 70°- 90°.

For the gravy:
all the drippings from the bird
1/4-1/2 cup wine or vinegar
2-8 cups stock
1/2 cup water
1-2 tbs flour, cornstarch, or arrowroot powder
1-2 tbs herbs
salt
pepper

Preheat your oven to 400°. Melt butter and let cool slightly. Thoroughly thaw your bird and remove any giblets from the cavity. Either store the giblets in the fridge for later use or boil them in a pot of water for an hour to use in the gravy. Pat the bird dry with paper towels or a clean dish cloth. Place it on the rack of you roasting pan or use carrots and celery to build a rack in the bottom of your biggest baking pan, ideally one that can go on the stovetop as well. A big pot would work too, if you don’t have a burner safe pan.

Roll the oranges gently on the counter to release their juices.  Cut them in half and place them in the cavity. Don’t stuff them too compactly though, or it will affect the cooking time of the bird.

In an small bowl or mortar grind the herbs. Add minced garlic, a pinch of salt, and a drizzle of oil. Gently loosen the bird’s skin with your fingers.  Try not to tear it. Using your fingertips, rub the herb and garlic mixture under the skin as evenly as possible. Reserve any extra for the gravy. Skin is a barrier Then massage the bird all over with the melted butter. You can use your hands for this or a pastry brush. I prefer my hands for more even coverage. If you are using unsalted butter, you might want to sprinkle a little salt over the skin too.

When the bird is thoroughly greased, spread him out like he’s sunbathing; pull the wings and legs out from the body. This will give you crispy skin all over. If you have one, insert a probe thermometer into the deepest part of the breast, making sure to not hit any bones, which would give an inaccurate temperature. Set the alarm to go off at 160°.  Put the bird in the oven and immediately reduce the heat to 350°. High heat at the beginning helps the fat essentially fry the skin as it renders. But having high heat for too long will leave the skin burnt and the meat raw.

When the breast has reached 160°, test the thigh meat on the opposite side.  Remove the bird from the oven and place it on a pan or cookie sheet to rest.  Use your roasting rack to keep the bottom from getting soggy. The resting period is essential. Do not skip it! Straight from the oven, all the yummy meat juices are loose. They would run out if you cut it, leaving you with dry meat.  During the resting period, the meat reabsorbs the juices and leaves you with beautiful succulent meat.  A turkey needs to rest at least 30 minutes, a chicken at least 10 minutes.  If you are worried it will get too cold, loosely tent a piece of foil over it.

While the bird is resting, make the gravy.  If you want to see the proper method to make gravy, go look it up on your favorite cooking site, because I cheat and don’t skim the fat off first. Straddle your pan over two burner and turn them on high.  When things start to sizzle, which shouldn’t be too long, deglaze the pan by pour in the wine/vinegar. Using a wooden spoon, scrape up all the little brown bits. Not only are they not burned, they are incredibly flavorful caramelized juices from the meat.  Believe me, you want them in your gravy! Once you have them all scraped up, add your stock. This is where you get the volume in the gravy.  So, if you have a big crowd, at a lot of stock.  If it’s just a few people, add less. A good guideline might be 3/4 to 1 cup per person, to allow for evaporation (and leftovers).

Next, mix your starch (flour, cornstarch, arrowroot powder) into about 1/4 cup of water.  This mixture is referred to as a slurry. Adding the starch this way prevents it from turning lumpy in your gravy. Add the slurry to the gravy and mix thoroughly. Some starches take awhile to take effect, so let it simmer for a good 5 minutes before adding more. When your gravy is thickened to your liking, add a couple pinches of salt, a grind or two of fresh pepper, and any herbs (like the extra from the spice rub). Simmer for another minute to let the flavors meld.  The key to good gravy is to taste early and often.  Get used to how the flavors develop. Then remove to a gravy boat or other serving vessel (I use a cream pitcher).  You can stick it in the oven to keep warm.

Now back to the bird. After it has rested, it’s time to carve.  This takes practice! Don’t expect to do it at the table until you are more proficient at carving.  The first several times you do it, expect it to be a hacked up job.  Just focus on learning where the joints are and the overall process.  Since a picture is worth a thousand words (and a video even more), here is a link to a video explaining how to carve a chicken.

If the worst should happen:
If you carve your bird and it is not cooked in the middle, do not panic.  Simply finish carving the bird and put the pieces on an oven safe plate, cover in foil, and place it back in the oven until it’s done.  You might end up with slightly drier meat, but that’s okay, because you have awesome gravy.