Kitchen Garden Journal

Since the hurricane blew over there has been a sharp chill in the air and it’s got us thinking about soup. And eating a lot of it, too.

There are so many wonderful soups that one can create so simply from the colorful palette of autumn vegetables.  We love soups with beans. They are incredibly easy, and there are few better ways to enjoy the coarser greens like kale and escarole than tossing them into a rich bean soup. Just throw some onion and garlic in a pan, sauté for a bit and add some tomato puree and the soaked beans. Cover with water, bring to a boil, and away you go. No need to use stock because the beans make their own broth. Add the greens in the last 20 minutes so they don’t overcook.

Recently we’ve “discovered” a whole class of pureed soups that are based on water, sautéed onion, and potato. Add any vegetable you like to these three ingredients and you’ve got a simple soup that brings out its very essence. All you need is a few ingredients and an immersion blender and you can whip up an incredible variety of these soups in about a half an hour.

Perhaps the simplest of these is potato-leek soup. Just sauté the onion and leeks together, add cubes of peeled potato and water to cover, simmer until cooked, blend and finish with cream. Sprinkle a little chives or parsley and voila! Done.

Take this soup and substitute carrots for the leeks. Add a few slices of ginger if you like. Cauliflower makes the silkiest cream soup of them all. So easy. What about broccoli? Throw in some grated cheddar cheese after pureeing for the best cheddar-broccoli soup ever. Spinach? You bet. Go out and grab the last of the season’s sweet corn and use that, too. You can add some bacon at the beginning and leave it chunky if you like for delicious corn chowder.

Once you get the basic concept, it’s like a whole world is open to you.

It reminds me a lot of the recent Häagen-Dazs ice cream ad campaign. They have this new product line called “5” of ice creams made with just 5 ingredient s: milk, cream, sugar, eggs and fill in the blank. It’s a great concept. Less is more. Purity, simplicity, and variety.

For those of you who prefer written out recipes to descriptive ones, here’s a link to a classic Moosewood carrot soup with lots of variations.

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Escarole is like a lettuce in many ways. It looks like lettuce. At the market, people often mistake it for a gigantic lettuce and get really excited. It can, in fact, be used like lettuce in a salad. But escarole’s thicker, more substantial leaves and slight bitterness makes it an amazing and versatile green to cook.

Escarole is perhaps best known as a vegetable for soup. (If you’re Italian-American, you know what I’m talking about.) Chicken-Escarole Soup, White Bean-Escarole Soup, Escarole Soup with Meatballs (known as the Italian Wedding Soup); all these are variations on a theme. Make the soup, and when it’s almost done, toss in the escarole and simmer for 10-20 minutes before serving. If escarole wasn’t already one of your favorite vegetables, it is now.

Other great ways to use escarole are to make salads and to wilt or sauté it as a side dish.  This is a recipe for wilted escarole from the NPR show The Splendid Table, which is slightly different from our own version. In salads, it goes well with the sharp acid, mustardy, garlicky, anchovy type flavors that we use for frisée salads.

And if you are feeling adventurous, you can make Grilled Stuffed Escarole, a recipe that we learned from Emmet and Cecilia.  Without cutting or removing the stem, wash the head very well by dunking it in a sink full of cold water. Dry it thoroughly with a towel between the leaves and then stuff a mixture of goat cheese, pine nuts, golden raisins and parsley into all the nooks and crannies. Brush the escarole with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and then slap the entire thing face down on a hot grill to wilt and sear and char for about 5 minutes. Carefully remove and serve cut into wedges with slices of crusty white bread. Sure to be a crowd-pleaser at your next garden party.

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• 1 pound dry white cannellini or lima beans, or 2 cups fresh shelled barlotti beans
• 1 large yellow onion or 1 bunch leeks
• 1 head garlic
• 4 Tbsp good quality olive oil
• 2-4 bunches of black Tuscan kale or 2 heads escarole
• 2 quarts chicken stock or water (plus more water)
• 4 oz pancetta or bacon or sausage meat (optional)
• a few plum tomatoes (optional)
• 2 sprigs of rosemary or sage
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper to taste

This delicious soup of creamy beans and earthy greens is sure to take the chill out of those rainy fall evenings.  Soak the beans in ample water overnight.  Coarsely chop the onion and garlic.  If using leeks, be sure to thoroughly wash them first by cutting a vertical slash the length of the shank and running water in between all the layers.  If using bacon, cut it into ¼  inch dice.  In a large, heavy bottomed soup pot (4 quart size or larger), brown the bacon or sausage meat over high heat in the olive oil.  (It is also perfectly good without the meat.)  Add the onions and garlic, reduce heat to medium, and sauté gently until softened but not browned, about 10 minutes.  Throw in some chopped tomatoes if you want.  Add the beans, mix thoroughly, and continue to sauté 2-3 minutes more.  Add the stock or water, plus additional water to bring it about an inch above the level of the beans.  Add the bay leaf.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to very low and simmer for 1 ½ hours.  Meanwhile, wash and chop the greens, removing the midrib from the kale if desired.  Taste the beans at this point, if they’re almost ready, add the chopped greens and continue to simmer about a half an hour more.  When done, add the salt, at least 1 heaping tablespoonful, and the pepper.  For maximum warming effect, serve over steaming hot polenta with a glass of red wine.

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