Chilled Cherry Soup with Cardamom, Meggyleves
The origins of this chilled cherry soup are Hungarian. But I came to know this dish by way of a memorable Christmas breakfast with Paul’s family. Between courses of oyster stew and cardamom bread, there was a mysterious ruby-hued soup. Combining the warmth of cardamom with the sweet tartness of cherries, this Chilled Cherry Soup is tangy, vivid, and refreshing: a lovely foil to the richness of holiday feasting.
Yield: Serves 8
Ingredients:
- 5 cups water
- 1 1/2 pounds fresh or frozen pitted tart cherries
- 3 tablespoons sugar (add more or less depending on the sweetness of your cherries)
- 3 cardamom pods (or 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom)
- 1/2 cinnamon stick (or 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon)
- 2 whole cloves (or 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves)
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons water
- ½ cup sour cream (may substitute cream, yogurt, Creme Fraiche)
- Juice from half a lemon (1-2 tablespoons)
Steps:
- Fill a large saucepan with 5 cups water. Add the cherries, sugar, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. Bring to a boil, and reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.
- Whisk together the cornstarch and water in a small bowl until no lumps remain.
- Whisk the cornstarch slurry into the simmering cherry soup and whisk one minute until combined.
- Remove the soup from heat. If using using whole spices, remove at this point. Add the sour cream. Puree in a food processor, blender or with an immersion blender. We like a silk-smooth texture with this soup and like to strain it after pureeing, but this is a up to your personal preference.
- Add lemon juice to taste and refrigerate the soup covered until cold, approximately 4 hours.
- Serve cold in small containers. Whipped cream, mint, or cherries all make for good toppings.
Chilled Cucumber Avocado Soup
While my future husband was happily scarfing fry bread tacos in Colorado, I was sweating my 7th grade Home Economics class further north in Canada. To set the scene of my distress, it was the last month of the class and I had just managed to fail my sewing test; a wobbly threaded testament to my poor hand-eye coordination and impatience. My home budgeting project took a financial downturn when my teacher noted that my incorrect math had rendered my fictitious future self seriously overdrawn and facing financial ruin. Next up was the nutrition segment of the class. And it was cook or die. Knowing I had some serious ground to make up, I marshaled my resources and consulted with my Mother. With her menu guidance, I plotted a path to home ec redemption with a meal I hoped would awe my teacher and pass the class. Since my cooking expertise to that point had been largely limited to toast, it was a painful two-day introduction to cooking resulting in an jumbled menu of chilled cucumber soup, shepherd's pie, and dark chocolate mousse. I don't remember the meal being particularly yummy to my picky teenage palate, but the chilled cucumber soup had my teacher in raptures and won my respite from the shame of failing home ec.
Chilled cucumber avocado soup is my grown up rendition of that home ec redemption soup. In this summery soup, the avocado and yogurt provide a silky texture to highlight the light vegetal qualities of cucumber. This soup is a refreshing dish and can be ready in a flash for a starter or a light meal on its own.
French Vegetable Soup, Ratatouille
This French Vegetable Soup, Ratatouille, is as rustic and delicious as it is healthy and easy to make. Its flavor is built subtly from vegetables at the peak of their freshness. The dish involves no meat, no stock, no complex seasonings, and no challenging techniques. Don't be intimidated by its French origins, Ratatouille is foolproof, flexible, and amazingly, even better as a leftover. Our recipe is inspired by Anne Willan's extraordinary The Country Cooking of France.
Ratatouille is a traditional country stew which takes advantage of the late summer bounty of fresh tomatoes, eggplants, onions, zucchini, garlic, and peppers. This type of seasonally-driven, vegetable-based cooking has increasingly become a luxury of the well-to-do. A lack of access to fresh, healthy, home-cooked food, contributes to the poorer health and shorter life expectancy of low-income Americans.
One organization working to make fresh seasonal produce accessible is Just Harvest. Their Fresh Access program allows food stamp (SNAP) recipients to use their benefits to shop at local farmers markets -- gaining access to the fresh, affordable, and seasonal bounty of local farms. SNAP benefits help 47 million Americans (and 1 in 8 people in the Pittsburgh region) put food on the table for their families. Organizations like Just Harvest, are helping to make healthy food more accessible. Just Harvest's research has shown that 80% of SNAP shoppers increased their consumption of fresh produce when given the opportunity to shop at farmers markets. Fresh Access Coordinator Emily Schmidlapp puts it succinctly: "We believe that access to fresh, healthy, affordable food is a right and not a privilege." At the Hungry Hounds, we couldn't agree more. Bon appétit!
French Cabbage Soup, Garbure Gasconne
Blustering snow and icy rains found us craving a hearty soup this week. Gazing down the steep cobblestone hills winding down from our house, we opted for caution, and a pantry raid, in favor of driving. For our winter-storm-fare, we dunked homemade sourdough bread in aromatic bowls of French Cabbage Soup, and dreamed of beaches! Our recipe for French Cabbage Soup, Garbure Gasconne, is a modified version of this delicious cabbage soup from the French region of Gascony. This soup smartly employs steaming and simmering techniques to gently extract the delicate flavors from winter root vegetables. French Cabbage Soup is a warming vegetable soup with a depth of flavor that far exceeds its humble ingredients.
Caramelized Cardamom Spiced Apples with Pistachio Cream
It’s a weeknight and you want pie. Unfortunately, you’re husband (and resident crust-maker) is still at school and you are not confident enough (read: too lazy) to make a crust. My solution: Caramelized Cardamom Spiced Apples with Pistachio Cream, essentially an Indian scented pie filling without the bother of a crust. We have had Indian flavors on the mind recently and have served this as an accompaniment to Pork Vindaloo.
Sweet Pea Soup
Sometimes, we get a little absorbed in enjoying food, and forget the broader context of our speech. We had our good friends Beth and Justin over for dinner this weekend. Our spoons stopped mid-slurp, and we all did a double take when Rebecca enthusiastically proclaimed: "I love this soup, the pea-ness really shines through!"
Allow me to say it another way, this is great, quick sweet pea soup. The gentle cooking lets the subtle and sweet pea flavor star. Sweet Pea Soup is a dish I request often (usually with Rebecca's awesome Buttermilk Biscuits). There’s nothing as satisfying as a vibrant green soup to fight the rainy grays of March.
