Parsnip Soup with Pine Nut, Currant, and Celery Leaf Relish

It is now spring, so theoretically I should start cooking with fresh peas, artichokes, and asparagus. But before moving on to those, let me share a recipe that I have made a lot this past winter.

Parsnips are a fixture of British Christmas dinners, but in Holland they were almost unknown and referred to as a forgotten vegetable until a couple of years ago.  Prior to the introduction of the potato, they were a staple of the diet here. In fact, they were likely to be the vegetable used instead of the potato in the original hutspot, which legend says was left behind by Spanish soldiers when the dikes were broken and land flooded during the Siege of Leiden in 1574. Hutspot made with potatoes and carrots is still eaten in Leiden on 3 October to celebrate that Dutch victory.

And indeed parsnips seem to have been thoroughly forgotten. I never had it as a child, probably because my Dutch parents were unfamiliar with it, although perhaps it was also forgotten in Canada and not available then.

But it is once again to be found in Dutch supermarkets and not just at the Turkish greengrocers! So there is no excuse for not making this wonderful, unusual, and easy soup.

Parsnip Soup with Pine Nut, Currant, and Celery Leaf Relish

Adapted from: Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables, by Joshua McFadden
Serves 2 for meal or 4 for a first course

The zingy fresh relish really makes this dish. Don't omit it!

Soup:

1-2 teaspoons olive oil

500-600 grams parsnips, peeled and sliced into 1 cm coins

1 large stalk celery, sliced into 1 cm pieces (reserve the celery leaves, if possible)

1 small onion, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons butter

400 ml water (or enough to cover the vegetables) + some more later

salt and pepper to taste

Relish:

1/4 cup currents

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

1/4 cup celery leaves, chopped

1/4 cup parsley, chopped

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon chili flakes

salt and pepper to taste

1-2 teaspoons olive oil 

1. Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat.
2. Add the parsnips, celery, onion, and butter, and lightly season with salt and pepper.
3. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pot, and cook slowly without browning for 10-15 minutes.
4. Add water to cover, increase the heat, and simmer until completely tender, about 5-10 minutes.
5. Puree the soup, adding more hot water until you have loosened it to a consistency that you like (perhaps thinner for a first course soup or thicker for a meal).
6. Taste and adjust the seasoning. 

While the soup is cooking, make the relish.

1. Soak the currents in the vinegar for 15 minutes or more.
2. Lightly toast the pine nuts in a skillet until they start to turn golden.
3. Combine all the relish ingredients except olive oil, in a bowl.
4. Taste and adjust the flavours until bright and zingy before adding some olive oil.

Serve each portion of soup with a big spoonful of relish. If you have extra relish, serve it on the side for those who want more.

Watermelon Recipes for Hot Summer Days

The summer of 2018 has been a scorcher almost all over the world it seems. The heat has finally broken here in Amsterdam, but I am still enjoying the heat relief recipes of the last two months—easy, no-cook and thirst-quenching recipes for gazpacho and lemonade that both feature watermelon as a key ingredient.

Watermelon is a bit of a problem for a single person. I can buy a half or a quarter from the local greengrocers, but that's still a lot of watermelon, and in the heat, it has to be kept in the fridge. Making a batch of soup and/or lemonade is a great way to use it up quickly, and with a bit of room in the freezer, I can freeze it too. (Although the lemonade never made it that far!)

These days, you can often find (almost) seedless watermelon, but if you can't make sure you remove the seeds before blitzing chunks of water melon for both the soup and the lemonade.

Watermelon Gazpacho

Gazpacho, the cold soup of Spain, is always popular in hot summers. Truth to tell, I am not that fond of tomato gazpacho, but you can wake me up for this one. The secret is in the sweetness provided by the watermelon, which is balanced out by the acidity of the tomatoes and sherry vinegar, and the mild punch of the chili pepper. I served it to a friend who had already had a glass of the watermelon lemonade yet could not bring home the slight sweetness in the soup that I served as a first course.

There is no need to be precise about measurements with this recipe. Just make sure you taste it to get a balance you like. If it is too sweet, add a bit more vinegar and/or vegetables; add more chili pepper salt and pepper to taste. You will need a food processor or blender.

Adapted from Gazpacho (met Watermeloen)
Serves 2-3 as a meal, or more if served as appetizers or amuses
Keeps well for 2 days in the fridge.

Soup:

300 g watermelon, rind removed  (about 2 thick slices of a quarter watermelon)
300 g ripe tomatoes (about 1 1/4 large beefsteak tomato)
130 g cucumber (about 1/3)
1 clove garlic
1/2 chili pepper, or 1/2 teaspoon chili flakes (I used Aleppo chili flakes)
1 slice stale bread, crust removed
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
2 tablespoons good olive oil
salt and pepper

Garnish:
1 spring onion, finely sliced
20-40 gr cucumber, finely diced
sliced mint leaves

1. Roughly chop the watermelon, tomatoes, and cucumber and put in the bowl of the food processor.
2. Remove the crusts from the bread and cut into cubes, and add to the vegetables.
3. Add the garlic, vinegar, and olive oil, salt and pepper, then blitz until everything is finely ground.
4. Taste and adjust the seasonings.
5. Chill for 1-2 hours until it is really cold. If time is short, serve it over a couple of ice blocks.
6. Pour into bowls and garnish with the chopped sprint onions, diced cucumber, and mint leaves.

Watermelon Lemonade

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

This recipe uses simple syrup instead of plain sugar because it is pre-dissolved and mixes more easily. To make simple syrup, heat equal weights of sugar and water in a small sauce pan until the sugar is completely dissolved. I use 150 g sugar and 150 ml water. This yields enough for several batches of lemonade, and in a hot summer with lots of watermelon to use up, I make a batch every couple of days!

60-70 ml lemon juice (juice of approx. 2 lemons)
1/4 teaspoon grated lemon rind
200 ml watermelon, rind removed  (about 2 thick slices of a quarter watermelon)
2 tablespoons simple syrup
200 ml cold water, flat or sparkling

1. Clean the lemons and grate the lemon rind. (Save the extra lemon rind in a small jar in the freezer for other recipes.)
2. Roll the lemons around to release the juice (or heat a 15-3 seconds in the microwave) and then juice the lemons. Pour though a strainer to remove the seeds, but use as much pulp as you can.
3. Roughly chop and de-seed the watermelon, then blitz all the ingredients except the water using a blender, wand blender, or food processor. 
4. Taste, and adjust the flavour by adding more simple syrup if you like it sweeter, or lemon rind and/or juice if you like it less sweet. At this point, it is a concentrate that you can store in the fridge. 
5. To serve, pour a glass half full and add an equal amount of cold water and some ice cubes. Aaaah!

Time-Life: Scandinavia

I've gotten somewhat behind with the the Time-Life books cooking schedule. Part of it was the interruption caused by my holiday. The good part of that was that I was able to pick up the rest of the Time Life set that I purchased last year. It had been languishing at my sister's since then.

Another part of the interruption is perhaps how uninspiring I found the Scandinavian book. Traditional Scandinavian cooking seems to be just as plain as Dutch cooking. The baked goods looked the most interesting of all, but I really don't feel like making Danish pastries (which are of course, Viennese pastries.)

Nevertheless, I found one recipe that sounded interesting and that was the Norwegian fish pudding, which can also be formed into balls and added to a soup. So I decided to try my hand at Bergen fish soup with fish balls, but with a twist from Louisiana (hello Creole and Acadian Cooking!).

I made the fish stock following the recipe but found it very bland. Since I was also making jambalaya, I had some shrimp shells, so I added them to the fish bouillon, which ended up being more flavourful, a bit more colourful, and perhaps a less delicate match for the fish balls. Ah well, the resulting soup was good.

The fish balls were an interesting addition. They added a soft and fluffy texture that complimented the delicate flavour and texture of the soup. I can imagine children enjoying this soup.

Norwegian Fish Soup

My adaptations to these recipes were to and shrimp shells to the stock for the fish soup. I used the last of my parsnips for the fish stock so didn't have any for the vegetables in the soup, so substituted celery. Given how sweet parsnips can be, I suspect that this was a good idea anyway. And I used fresh dill to garnish.

Fish Pudding /Fish Balls
The following ingredients make a small fish pudding and about 25 fish balls.  Or you could just make one or the other.

Metric	American	Ingredient
600 grams	1 1/2 pounds	cod filet
30 ml	2 tablespoons	milk
60 ml	1/4 cup	cream
10 ml	2 teaspoons	salt
20 ml	1 1/2 tablespoons	corn starch
		freshly ground pepper, to taste

1. For the fish pudding, butter a small loaf tin and dust with bread crumbs. (A mini tin is good if you are making a half recipe fish pudding.) Preheat the oven to 175 C/325 F
2. Mix the milk and cream. Cut the fish into chunks, making sure to remove any bones that may still be in the fish fillets.
3. In a food processor gradually add the fish pieces with some of the cream mixture, pulsing them to form a smooth puree, and scraping down the sides as necessary. Add the salt, corn starch, and any cream mixture that hasn't been used yet.
4. For the fish pudding: Press and smooth the mixture into the prepared loaf tin so that no air pocket remain, then cover with some buttered aluminum foil. Place the tin a roasting pan and add boiling water until it reaches three-quarters up the side of the tin. Bake for 60 to 75 minutes. The pudding is done when the top feels firm and a cake tester comes out clean. Turn the pudding out onto a serving plate.
5. For the fish balls: Place the fish puree in the fridge for a half hour or so to stiffen up. Scoop out using a tablespoon and roll into balls using your hands. You can put the balls back into the fridge until ready to cook in the fish bouillon or water for 2-3 minutes. After cooking, drain them and add to the fish soup just before serving.

Fish Stock

2 medium carrot, chopped
1 medium parsnip, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 large potato, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 parsley stalk
6 peppercorns
1 teaspoon salt
4 liters water
900 grams / 2 pounds white fish remnants, such as white fish bones and heads (I can get this free from my fishmonger)
Optional: shells from about 20 large shrimp

Put all the ingredients except the shrimp shells into a soup pot, bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 30-40 minutes.
Drain the broth through a fine sieve into a large bowl or another large pot. Press the solids with a spoon to get as much of the moisture into the broth as possible. Discard the solids.
Rinse or wipe the soup pot and return the broth to the pot. Boil the broth until it has reduced to half the volume (about 2 liters).
Now add the shrimp shells, if using, and simmer for 10 minutes.
Drain the stock  into a large saucepan through a fine sieve lined with cheesecloth.

Fish Soup

25-30 fish balls, or 1 pound of fish filet such as cod or halibut
2 medium carrots, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 leek, white part only, finely chopped
2 egg yolks
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon finely chopped dill

1. Bring the fish stock to a gentle simmer and add the fish balls. Cook them for 2 to 3 minutes, then scoop them out with a slotted spoon to drain on paper towels. If you are using a fish filet, simmer it whole until the fish flakes. Then remove to drain.
2. Add the carrots and celery to the fish broth and simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Add the chopped leek and simmer for another 3 minutes.
4. Beat the egg yolks and gradually beat in about 1/2 cup of the hot broth, a few tablespoons at a time.
5. Gradually add the egg yolk mixture to the soup, stirring all the while.
6. Return the fish balls to the soup and heat through, but do not bring the soup to the boil. If you are using fish fillet, cut it into pieces and return to the soup.
7. Garnish the soup with dill and serve.

Charred Eggplant Soup

I have acquired new cookbooks! Both are by the London-based Israeli chef Yottam Ottolenghi, who is famous for his restaurants and catering shops in London. I've never been to one, but he's also well-known for his eclectic and original recipes, often featuring vegetables in the starring role.

So my first recipe to try was using one of my favourite vegies—eggplant. He has a number of recipes that call for burnt aubergine, which means cooking them over a gas flame until they are charred  on the outside and soft and smoky-tasting on the inside. One of them is this soup.

This recipe is a bit labour-intensive but it a delivers a rib-sticking soup with a smoky, earthy, sweet and sour flavour that is really unusual. I liked it a lot, but the immediate hit of charred eggplant flavour might not be to everyone's taste.

The recipe also calls for a type of giant couscous that is difficult to obtain. None of the stores in my neighbourhood carried it under the names provided, but I did find some nameless pasta that was shaped  a bit like little balls, so I used that, since couscous is really a form of pasta. The soup would work very well without it, but it adds that extra heft needed for a main course soup.

Charred Eggplant Soup

Adapted from Jerusalem

(I reduced the amount of oil and increased the chicken stock.
I also didn't bother skinning and seeding the tomatoes.)

5 small eggplants (about 1.3 kilos in total)

3-4 tablespoons oil

1 onion

1 tsp freshly-ground cumin

1 tablespoon tomato paste

4-5 medium tomatoes (350 grams), or used canned tomatoes

4 smashed garlic cloves

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons sugar

1.5 teaspoon salt

400 ml chicken stock

400 ml water

1 tsp freshly-ground pepper

100 grams pearl pasta (as I call it)

fresh dill for garnish

1. Line 3 gas burners with tin foil to catch the juices and keep the stove-top clean. Place one eggplant on each burner and set the flame to medium or high (depending on the size of the burner). Cook for about 15 minutes, turning regularly until the outside is charred and the inside is limp and soft. The skin will burst and some juices leak out. Set aside until cool enough to handle, then scoop the flesh out or peel the charred skin off. Place the flesh into a colander, rinse to get the last charred flakes off, and allow to drain.
2. Cut the remaining 2 eggplants into about 1.5 cm cubes.
3. In a large pot, heat 2 tablespoons of oil over medium high heat. Add the diced eggplant, stirring thoroughly to distribute the oil over the eggplant. Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently, until the eggplant browns and turns soft. At first the eggplant will absorb the oil, but as it cooks, it will release it again. If it is not browning at this point, turn up the heat so that at least some of the cubes get some nice colour on them. If necessary, add a bit more oil.
4. When the diced eggplant is brown and cooked, remove it from the pot and set it aside in a colander to drain, and sprinkle with some salt. Keep any remaining oil in the pot or top up to about 1 tablespoon.
5. Now add the onion and ground cumin and sauté for 5-7 minutes.
6. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, for another minute.
7. Add the tomatoes, garlic, lemon juice, sugar, salt, stock, and water. Simmer for 15 minutes.
8. Meanwhile, cook the "pearl" pasta until al dente. Mine took about 10 minutes.
9. Add the charred eggplant into the soup and purée using a hand-held blender. If the soup is too thick, add some more water or stock. Then add most of the cubed eggplant and most of the pearl pasta, reserving some of both for the garnish. Heat through for about 2 minutes and adjust the seasoning (sweet, sour, salt, pepper).
10. Serve the hot soup in bowls garnished with the remaining diced eggplant, pearl pasta and fresh dill.

If you plan to freeze the soup, it might be worth omitting the pasta and only adding it just before serving, since pasta tends to expand and go mushy when left to sit in soup.

I think this soup would also be great with a bit of heat and might consider adding some chilli flakes the next time I make it.

If you don't have gas burners, put the eggplants under the broiler for about an hour, turning regularly. I haven't tried this; it's the author's advice.

Roasted Vegetable Minestrone

I am about to head off to England for a few days and wanted to use up some of the vegetables I have lying around before I go. Since I also had some good chicken stock (made in the slow cooker from bones leftover from Slow Cooker Basque Chicken), soup was a logical idea.

The result is one of those wonderful serendipitous soups that deserves a repeat! Sweet from the onions, roasted tomatoes, and sweet potato, nicely warmed by the green chile, with underlying depth from the stock, with a hint of smokiness from the roasted peppers. 

Roasted Vegetable Minestrone
These are the vegetables I had on hand, but if you have 2 bell peppers of different colours, use those. The stock and roasted tomatoes produced a broth that was so good that I didn't add any herbs, but I might do if I was using a lighter stock.

500 grams tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 green pepper (or other bell pepper)
2 yellow onions, sliced
3 fat cloves of garlic, minced
1 green serrano chili, seeded and finely sliced
1 sweet potato, diced in 1.5 cm cubes
4 cups homemade chicken stock (for example, from a roasted chicken)

1. Preheat the oven to 220C/450F.
2. Slice the tomatoes about 1 cm thick and lay the slices out on a baking sheet. Dribble half the olive oil over them, and season with salt and freshly-ground pepper. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile char the green pepper over an open flame. (Alternatively, you could put the tomatoes and pepper under the broiler until the pepper is charred and the tomatoes caramelized. I haven't tried this though. ) Cover and let cool, then remove the skin. It's OK if a few charred bits remain. Chop into about 1.5 cm pieces.
4. In a large heavy pot, heat the remaining olive oil, then sauté the onions, garlic, and chili for 2-3 minutes.  Added the roasted tomatoes and their juice, the chopped green pepper, and the sweet pepper. 
5. Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil, then simmer for 20-30 minutes. Adjust the seasonings, and serve with some crusty bread.

Vietnamese Pho

It's not that I haven't been cooking the last few weeks, it's just that with my little point-and-shoot camera, I can really only get decent pictures during the day. In the late afternoon and evening, when I'm usually cooking, I need to rely on artificial light (and standing absolutely still!) or on the flash, and that leads to orange blurry pictures or to garish glistening ones. My birthday is coming up next week so maybe I should gift myself a better camera and decent flash.

Anyway, one of the dishes I have been living off of for most of this week is a Vietnamese beef soup called Pho (pronounced like French feu).

It starts with charring the ginger and onion over an open flame for 15 minutes. I used the grill from my old toaster oven for this and feared the worst with regard to smoking up the place, but it worked better than I had expected (I did open some windows!). After parboiling some beef bones, you throw all the ingredients in a big pot and simmer for 3 hours uncovered, taking the beef out after 1.5 hours. Keeping the pot uncovered lets more liquid evaporate and intensifies the flavour, which is something I plan to do more often. The broth produced is delicious and wonderfully fragrant, and the cooked beef is fabulous—completely imbued with the wonderful flavours of star anise, cinnamon, ginger, garlic and onion.

My biggest caveat is that it ended up being much too salty for my taste. The recipe calls for a lot of salt in making this stock, reasoning that the noodles and other ingredients it goes over are bland, but I had to add boiling water to reduce the salt levels, and for a stock this good, that was a shame.

I varied the vegetables and noodles that went into the broth a lot—depending on the day, it could be savoy cabbage and bean sprouts, or mushrooms and green peppers that had been stir-fired in sesame oil first. Today, I thinly sliced some fillet of beef and put it on top of the noodles and vegetables before pouring over the hot stock. It was great.

Vietnamese Beef Broth

Adapted from Viet World Kitchen
I am just providing the broth ingredients and an abbreviated method here.
I've reduced the salt by half, added some garlic, and given a range for the star anise, since I found it was a bit too strong in the balance.
Check out the original source for all the authentic vegetables and garnishes and a more detailed method.

2 medium yellow onions
4-inch piece ginger
5-6 pounds beef soup bones
6 liters of water
3 cloves of garlic, smashed
3-5 star anise
6 whole cloves
3-inch cinnamon stick
500 grams beef chuck cut into 1 inch cubes
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons fish sauce
1 -inch chunk) yellow rock sugar (I used Indian jaggery)

1. Over a grill or flame, char the ginger and onions, turning them from time to time. After 15 minutes, rinse the ginger and onion under cold water, peel and slice the ginger and remove the charred outer layers from the onions.
2. While the ginger and onion char, parboil the beef bones (there should be no or little meat on them) for 2-3 minutes. Then discard the water, rinse the bones and rinse the pot to get rid of impurities in the stock.
3. Now put all the ingredients in a large pot, bring to a boil, then turn down to a bare simmer. Simmer for 1.5 hours, then remove the beef with a slotted spoon. Let it cool in cold water for about 10 minutes before draining and refrigerating it. (This is to prevent it from turning dark.)
4. Simmer the broth for another 1.5 hours. Strain the broth through a sieve lined with cheesecloth and let it cool down so that you can easily remove the fat. (At this point, if you've got good marrow bones, scoop out the marrow and spread it on some melba toast and eat right away. Cook's treat—marrow has to be hot and it doesn't keep that well.)
5. When you come to serve the soup, soak some rice noodles (or ramen, or use wok noodles). Heat the broth to boiling point. Add the reserved beef to warm it up. Julienne some vegetables, and stir fry them or simmer them briefly in the broth until tender. 
6. Place the noodles, vegetables, and beef in serving bowls and add the hot broth. Garnish with cilantro, chillis and mint. 

Christmas Dinner 2010

The Dutch are not big turkey eaters and they don't tend to eat the same thing every Christmas, although duck, hare, and venison seem to be popular.

Me, I'm a traditionalist and like to have poultry at the center of my Christmas dinner. However, turkey is a bit much for a single person, even with guests, so I'm making chicken. Today's menu:

Mushroom Soup
Dry-brined roast chicken
Bread-potato stuffing

Sweet and sour cippoline onions

Cranberry port sauce

Roasted squash, mashed with butter, salt and pepper

Braised brussels sprouts

Apples in Calvados

Mushroom Soup

This is a lightly-bound soup that depends for its flavour on the mushrooms and a good rich-tasting beef stock, or fond. I use a very good commercial fond, but you can of course use a good home-made stock.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
300 grams mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 red onion or large shallot, sliced in very thin semi-circles
60 ml sherry
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
salt and pepper to taste
parsley for garnish

1. In a large saucepan, heat the oil and butter over medium high heat, until the butter foam subsides.
2. Add the mushrooms and sauté until they release their moisture.
3. Add the onion and sauté for another 1 or 2 minutes.
4. Add the flour, sherry, and thyme and continue to cook for 2 minutes.
5. Add the beef fond, and simmer for  15-20 minutes.
6. Serve and garnish with parsley.

Apples in Calvados

This recipe comes from a cookbook put out by the largest supermarket chain in Holland, Albert Hein. It is a simple, light dessert that can be made a bit richer by serving it with ice cream. I got it from my aunt, and she is the one who is making it today.

2 apples
100 ml calvados
1 packet vanilla sugar*
3 tablespoons sugar
grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons butter, ice cold

1. Peel and core the apples and cut them into 6 slices.
2. In a saucepan, bring the calvados, vanilla sugar, lemon peel, and lemon juice to a boil.
3. Add the apple slices, lower the heat, and cook gently for 10 minutes.
4. Spoon the apple slices into dessert bowls.
5. Beat the butter into the warm calvados sauce and then pour over the apples.

* If you can't get vanilla sugar, try adding a teaspoon of sugar and a 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract.