Soups, Stocks + Sauces – Writing With My Mouth Full

Cioppino with Harvest of the Sea Seafood Medley

I love making seafood dishes at home, but sometimes it becomes cost prohibitive when you need multiple kinds for stews like this cioppino. Enter Harvest of the Sea’s frozen seafood medley pack. One bag contains a generous combo of Asian shrimp, Indian-wild-caught calamari, Argentine scallops, and Canadian Prince Edward Island blue mussels. They’re available at Costco in the Bay Area, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Texas; soon they’ll be in the New York area too. With Harvest of the Sea’s seafood medley, all you really need is your imagination to bring in your favorite restaurant seafood dish home.

Ingredients:
olive oil
1 onion, sliced
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 28-oz can of diced tomatoes
1 1/2 cups of dry white wine
6 cups of fish stock; but chicken broth will do
2 bay leaves
1 bag of Harvest of the Sea seafood medley, thawed
half a bunch parsley, roughly chopped
salt, pepper

1. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion and sauté for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and continue sautéing for 3 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the tomato paste and stir until it changes color.
2. Add the tomatoes with the juice to the pot, along with the wine. Let the wine reduce by half, stirring occasionally. Add the stock and bay leaves; season and bring to a simmer.
3. Stir in the seafood and simmer gently for another 8 minutes. Stir in parsley and turn off the heat.

Spanish Chorizo and Potato Stew

New York City temperature dropped to “feels like -15F” during the long weekend that I was forced to make this Spanish chorizo and potato stew before hibernating. Actually, “forced” is such a strong word; it was too easy to be forced to make it. It was a hearty meal that did not require much effort.

Ingredients:
6 bacon slices, chopped
1 large sweet onion, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced, sliced
3 tbsps tomato paste
2 lbs smoked Spanish chorizo, cut into rounds
2 large russet potatoes, peeled, chopped into large chunks
1 lb button mushrooms
32 oz chicken broth
3/4 cup hot smoked Spanish paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
sour cream
a handful of dill
salt

1. Render bacon fat by heating a large pot over medium heat. Add bacon and cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to brown but crisp, about 7 minutes. Remove to a plate.
2. Add onions to the same pot with the bacon fat. Cook, stirring often, until softened, about 10 minutes. Add garlic, and cook, stirring, about 3 minutes. Stir in tomato paste and cook until slightly darkened in color.
3. Return bacon to pot, then add the chorizo until slightly browned. Add the potatoes, mushrooms, broth, paprika, and cayenne and bring to a boil. Reduce heat so liquid is at a bare simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes. Season with salt.
4. Remove from heat. Ladle into small bowls and top with a dollop or two of sour cream and torn dill.

Related post/s:
Where were these tubed tomato paste all my life?

Sancocho, Colombian Chicken and Plantain Soup

It’s World Cup time again and I made the bold choice of picking Colombia going all the way since neither the Netherlands and the United States made it. During the first stage when Colombia played Poland, I invited my Colombian neighbors to watch the match in my apartment. They brought their family and we ended up being a full, fun house.

How do you entertain die-hard Colombian fans watching soccer? You serve them one of their national soups, sancocho. Together with ajiaco, it’s one of the soups that I ended up always ordering while traveling around Colombia a few years ago. I will never forget how hearty it was with the potatoes, plantains, and corn. Even though the weather didn’t call for hot soup then, it didn’t stop me from ordering either one. And now that we are experience a heatwave in New York City, a bowl of it brings back those memories.

Ingredients:
7 cloves garlic
3 medium carrots, chopped
1 red bell pepper, deseeded, chopped
1 green bell pepper, deseeded, chopped
1 small white onion, chopped
1 habañero chile, chopped
1 bunch cilantro, chopped in 3 parts
3 low-sodium chicken bouillon cubes
1 tbsp cumin, grounded
salt, pepper
1 3-to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces
1 small yucca, peeled, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 green plantain, peeled, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 ripe plantains, peeled, cut into 3-inch pieces
5 medium-sized potatoes, quartered
4 ears corn, cut in 3 pieces

1. In a food processor, purée the garlic, carrots, peppers, onion, chile, and cilantro.
2. In a large pot, combine the purée with about 1 gallon of water, the bouillon cubes, and cumin, and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 30 minutes.
3. Add the chicken pieces and simmer for another 20 minutes.
4. Add the yucca and green plantain and simmer for 10 minutes more. Add the ripe plantains, potatoes, and corn and simmer for another 15 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked.

Related post/s:
Try the Colombian ajiaco too

Farro and White Bean Tomato Soup

It’s been almost two years since I’ve updated this site. I’ve been see-sawing about keeping it up again, mainly because of time commitment. In the past 2 years, I’ve learned how to unplug and take more naps, and I’m just not sure if I want to go back to having multiple personal projects again because taking time for myself and doing almost nothing have been glorious. I’m active on Instagram as @ext212 but lately, I’ve been wanting to write again, even if it’s just finessing a recipe I’ve tested. So let’s just say that maybeee I can ease my way back to writing here again but without being tied to a regular schedule?

To start again, I wanted to test this recipe from Mark Bittman when the weather got cold again this season. I thought it would be a comforting bowl even if there isn’t any meat involved and I was right. I went for the shortcuts though, using canned beans in water instead of dried, and using a can of chopped tomatoes rather than fresh ones to save time. I gather that this version is not as hearty as originally intended, but a couple of bowls for dinner made me pretty warm inside.

Ingredients:
1 cup farro
1 can of white beans, rinsed, drained
1 large can of chopped tomatoes with its juice
chicken stock
1 onion, sliced
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
a handful parsley, roughly chopped
Parmesan cheese, grated
oil, salt, pepper

1. Put oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Sauté garlic until golden. Add the onions until translucent. Add the celery and carrots with some salt and pepper and cook until onions have softened.
2. Add farro, the beans, the tomatoes, and the stock. Mix well.
3. Bring to a boil, then adjust heat to a steady simmer. Cook until farro is tender, at least 15 minutes, adding stock as necessary if mixture becomes too thick. Stir in parsley, mix, then cook another 5 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning, then serve with lots of Parmesan.

Rasam, South Indian Tomato Soup

Dal is often referred to as lentils but it’s actually the split version of lentils, peas, chickpeas, mung beans, kidney beans, and so on. The edible seeds of various leguminous plants are called pulses. If a pulse is split into half, it is a dal.

Rasam is a South Indian soup using tamarind and tomatoes as base. I added dal to make it meatier. For this recipe, I used an “Autumn blend” of brown, yellow, and orange lentils. I used 2 limes here to replace the tamarind’s sour note and deseeded the Serrano chile to keep the heat down. If you want to make a real meal out of this, buy some kebabs and serve with basmati rice and naan, like I did below.

Ingredients:
1 cup dal, soaked for 30 minutes in water, then drained
2 tsps cumin seeds
2 tsps black peppercorns
2 tbsps clarified butter
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 Serrano chile, deseeded, chopped
a small knob of ginger, peeled, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 tbsp, turmeric
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
2 limes, halved
a handful of cilantro, finely chopped

1. In a medium Dutch oven, toast cumin seeds and the peppercorns, and then remove to ground with a pestle.
2. In the same pot, heat clarified butter and toast mustard seeds. Cover the pot since the seeds pop. When they quiet down, add back the ground cumin and peppercorns. Be careful not to burn.
3. Stir and sauté in garlic, then chile, ginger, and the onions for about 5 minutes. Add the drained dal and turmeric and mix to coat.
4. Add the tomatoes and 4 cups of water. Stir and squeeze the lime into the pot without the seeds, and then throw in the spent lime halves. Season with salt. Simmer in medium heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Turn off the heat, remove and discard the lime halves, and mix in cilantro.

Recommended:
A bag of Pereg Gourmet Autumn Blend of heirloom lentils was $3 at my grocery store. Use the leftover for multiple salads and other lentil dishes.