Potato, stilton soup

"What's tater's?" - Gollum

Well, I finally found a little inspiration and I brought my A game. I happened to be in a different part of town and on a whim I decided to stop in on small boutique grocery store, a sort of Whole Foods, only smaller.

It was really a pretty neat place because it had lots of premium produce and beef without the carnival-like atmosphere you find in Whole Foods from all of the posers being in the same place at once.

I wasn't really looking for anything in particular, other than just scouting out some potential ingredients for paella in the near future. But I spied some good looking bacon and bought a pound of that. I then happened across some nice looking potatoes. Then I knew I had to find some Roquefort.

After an interesting chat with the lady at the cheese counter about mozzarella, I came away with a good sized chunk of Stilton instead. It was half the price of the Roquefort.

I diced four pieces of the bacon and let them crisp up in a soup pot with a little olive oil.

I sliced up one white onion very thin and added that into the bacon after about 5 minutes.

One clove of minced garlic after the onions caramelize.

I cut the potatoes into small chunks. They were called "white creamers". I threw them in with the browning bacon and onions. Add a bay leaf and a pinch of cayenne pepper. One tablespoon of butter, as well.

Sauté these together for about 3 more minutes then add two cans of chicken stock. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes. Fish out the bay leaf.

Pour the soup into a food processor and pulse it 6-8 times until the potatoes are fairly well creamed. (I am about to buy one of the hand held devices to avoid having to transfer stuff.Use that if you've got it.)

Return the soup to the pot.

Add 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream. Bring up slowly to a simmer, not a boil. Add in the Stilton and stir. Make sure the cheese is thoroughly melted.
I served this with a little crispy bacon and some crumbled Stilton on top.

Off the hook, as they say...

Cooking music: Calexico

Italian Sausage & Chickpea soup

I like to cook soup quite often mainly because it is easy and I am inherently lazy...

I can usually concoct a decent enough soup for supper when there isn't much to work with and I don't feel like leaving the house.

So tonight I found some mild Italian sausage in the frigid box and that was a start.

I also found a red onion, so I diced it up fairly coarsely. I heated some olive oil in a pot and tossed in the onions once the oil was smoking.

I cooked the onions until they were nice and caramelized.

I chopped the sausage into chunks and browned them in the same pot with the onion.

After a couple more minutes I deglazed the pan with a bit of chicken stock. After that I added in the rest of the can. (about 2 cups)

I found about fourteen cans of garbanzo beans in the pantry...(not sure what's going on with that?) So I opened a can, poured off the liquid and dumped the beans into the pot.

I happened to see a glass of water on the counter about half full so I poured that in as well.

After the soup came up to a boil I lowered the heat and let it simmer for about half an hour while I was doing something else.

When I checked back on the soup it looked a little thin, so I dissolved some corn starch in a glass of cold water and poured that in with the soup. Then I raised the heat back up and brought it to a boil for about 5 minutes.

Viola'!

Time to eat...

Chicken & Peanut Panang Curry

The picture doesn't due this dish justice. In an attempt to utilize even more of the chicken from the weekend bbq, I decided to try it in this Thai dish.







I started by browning an onion in the "wok", for about five minutes. Then I added to that a teaspoon of green curry paste and 3 tablespoons of Padang Peanut Sauce that was store bought.

I let that sautee for another minute or so and added in one can of coconut milk and about 2 handfuls of the shredded beer can chicken from the weekend. Diced chicken cutlets would work as well. Bring the whole thing to a boil.

Add a can of coconut cream, the juice of one lime, a couple of dashes of fish sauce, 2 tblspns of brown sugar.

I diced about half of a pineapple core and added that to the soup. Just before serving I added in a few torn basil leaves.


I sliced a cucumber and spooned on a little asian chile sauce for a side.









The OverLord


Cooking Music: Jamie Cullum "Twenty Something"

Wine: Raven'swood Cabernet 8$

Start at the beginning...

"I get no kick from champagne, mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all..." Frank Sinatra

Having just returned from Argentina, I endeavored to re-create a dish that I had at Dan Perlman's home restaurant he's dubbed Casa Salt Shaker.

It is suppose to be a paprika chicken, but by the time I was done mauling it, it was something completely different.

I started by dicing half an onion, the other half was putrid or something so I tossed it. Dan's recipe called for some garlic and ginger as well and they found their way into the pan. Here's where things started to go a little south. Dan's recipe calls for smoked paprika of which I had none. So I cut off a small slice of Italian sausage and added to the sauteeing onion, garlic and ginger.

After the onion was browned I added in a liberal amount of plain paprika and half that amount of powdered bay leaf. Stir this around so that the onions are coated. I let this stay on the heat for a couple of minutes. By this point I was totally off of Dan's recipe I think. I added about a cup of chicken stock and let that come to a boil.

I did not have any chicken on hand, but I did have a piece of left over pork tenderloin that I had grilled the previous weekend. I cubed that up into about a half inch dice and added into the stock. I let the whole thing simmer for about half an hour, whence it began to emit a very pleasant aroma.

About five minutes before serving I added four dollops of sour cream to the pan and brought the heat up to a boil. Dan's recipe called for corn starch for added thickness, but I rarely use thickening agents that don't add to the overall taste of the dish. I stirred this until it was well incorporated and brought the heat back down to low.

I ladled a couple of bowls full and attempted to garnish with paprika, but since I didn't have the shaker top I tried to do it by hand and it ended up looking like a talcum powder accident. Oh well. It actually turned out to have a very nice flavor. The grilled pork in lieu of the chicken was a good match with the paprika and I think it turned out a little more succulent than the chicken.

The second dish, which actually came before the paprika chicken when we ate with Dan was a mushroom soup.

According to Dan's recipe, I put mushroom stems lemon thyme, and garlic in a pot with water to reduce down. I also added in some fresh oregano just because I needed to use some as it is growing wildly in my herb box.

I did not have a wide assortment of mushrooms only about a 1/2 a container of buttons that needed to be used.

As per Dan, I infused some olive oil with lemon thyme and rosemary. Then I sauteed the mushroom caps, which I had diced, in the infusion.

I let the stems and the herbs boil for about 30 minutes. Then I transferred it to the blender and pulverized it well.

Dan's recipe called for a small round pasta common in Argentina, in lieu of that I used orzo.

I put a cookie cutter in a bowl and filled it with the orzo. I then strained and ladled the mushroom stock from the blender into the bowl while the cutter was still in there. Then I added in some of the sauteed mushrooms around the edges. When I removed the cutter the orzo fell apart and didn't retain it's shape the way Dan's did.


This is Dan's dish. (hope he won't mind me using his pic)

I also added a little chicken stock that I had left over from the pork dish to the mushroom stock. I think it overpowered the mushroom flavor and made it a little too salty. The better half enjoyed it, but I thought it was a little bland. But it was getting kind of late anyway so I wasn't real concerned at that point.

We had a Kendall-Jackson shiraz that was about 12 bucks from Kroger. It was pretty good, with hints of cherry on the finish.

Cooking Music: A friend of mine dropped off a hard drive with an enormous mp3 collection on it. It included over 30 Frank Sinatra albums. So we listened to Frank during the majority of the cooking.

Distractions: The cats knocked the orchid off of the mantel and the pot shattered, think she cares?
Vivi...the likely orchid culprit..















Casa Salt Shaker, Buenos Aires, Argentina


Front left to right: Better Half, Andrea, Rhonda?

Standing left to right: Me, Dan Perlman