Battle Soup recipes
If there exist cooks who like turning delicious meals into step-by-step recipes, I do not know them. I mean, it’s basically data entry, which no one likes; on top of which, entering data made up on the spot, eyeballed and adjusted three times during the course of cooking, isn’t just annoying - it’s damn near impossible.
Buuuut… You asked, so here are what I’m dubbing pseudorecipes of the dishes I made for Panic Inc.’s Battle Soup. All quantities and times are approximate, some ingredients were probably forgotten. Treat this as a cooking fake book.
Turkey Bean Soup
- ~1 lb of dry pinto beans
- 1 smoked turkey thigh or leg (Whole -ugh- Foods has ‘em here) or ham on the bone
- 1 large onion, diced
- 1 medium carrot, diced
Soak the beans in a large, covered bowl overnight. If you’re pressed for time, give them 2 hours at least. Next day, drain the beans and put them in a 5-quart dutch oven. Cover them with water, and bring this to a boil, uncovered. As soon as the water boils, take it off the heat and drain the beans again.
Cover with water again - a little less than half the dutch oven altogether - and add the turkey, onions, and carrot. Add a generous amount of salt. Bring to a light boil, turn down to a simmer, and cook for 60-90 minutes, partially covered. Salt throughout as needed, but go easy; a lot of water will boil out, and you never know how salty the turkey will be. At about 60 minutes, pull apart the turkey meat with two forks (careful not to scratch up your pot.) If the meat doesn’t pull apart willingly, wait and do this at the end of cooking.
When the beans are soft enough, make a quick roux in a nonstick skillet: flour and vegetable oil whisked together for 3-4 minutes, then add a tablespoon of paprika. It should be dangerously orange-red. The roux doesn’t need to cook for a super-long time; 10 minutes tops. Stir it into the stew. After a few minutes, taste and add salt if needed. Definitely hit it with black pepper.
The whole thing will look a little soupy at the end of the 90 minutes, but as it sits, it’ll thicken some more. The stew will be even better when reheated one or two days later.
Chestnut Brunost
- 2-3 lb of chestnuts
- 2 shallots, chopped
- 2 stalks celery, chopped
- 3 tbsp butter
- 1 qt good chicken or vegetable stock, homemade if possible (if not, Better Than Bouillon. Trust me, it beats the boxed and canned stuff, organic or not.)
To toast the chestnuts: carefully cut an X in the side of each chestnut. This will give the steam somewhere to go so your oven doesn’t get destroyed by flying chestnuts. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, DO NOT SKIP IT. Place them on a baking sheet in a single layer and roast at 400 F for 10-20 minutes, until the X cuts open up. Remove from the oven and shell each chestnut while wearing old gloves or holding them with a towel. I know it sucks to handle hot stuff, but once they cool down, they’ll be impossible to clean. Make sure you remove the inner, thin shell as well. You can also save some time (and lose a bit of flavor) if you buy roasted, shelled chestnuts in the jar.
Melt the butter in a heavy dutch oven over medium/medium-high heat. When foaming subsides, add the shallots and celery and cook for 3-4 minutes, until soft. Add the chestnuts and stir for a minute. Add the stock, bring to a boil, then turn the heat down. Simmer for 20-30 minutes until the chestnuts are soft.
Blend the soup right in the pot using an immersion blender. If you don’t have one, wait until the mixture cools down, then blend in a blender or food processor. Taste and add sugar and salt if needed. For a richer taste (but a little less chestnut-y) add half a pint or a pint of heavy cream.
Serve topped with a slice of butter topped with a slice of Gjetost (Brunost) cheese. You gotta try this stuff - just forget all you know about cheese before you do.
Apple Honey soup
- 5-6 large Granny Smith apples
- 3 small parsnips (they should add up to no more than 1/3 of the weight of your apples)
- 750 ml good mead (or for a baby-friendly version, apple juice)
- A sachet (small cloth bag) of cinnamon, clove, allspice, a whole nutmeg, and a few peppercorns (use grains of paradise if you want to be real fancy - I did.) Instead of a sachet you could also go with a tea bag or ball, or just grind them in.
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter
Peel the apples and parsnips, quarter and cut into 1/4” slices; keep the two separated. Toss the apples with 2 tsp salt and spray with a few squirts of lemon or orange juice.
Melt the butter in a - you guessed it - heavy dutch oven over medium/medium-high heat. When foaming subsides, add the parsnips and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the apples, mead (or apple juice), stir, and bring to a boil (2-3 minutes). Put in the sachet, cover pot and simmer on low for 10-20 minutes, until the apples are soft.
Remove from heat, take out the sachet, and blend the soup using - you guessed it - an immersion blender. Straining the soup makes it way smoother, but you don’t absolutely *have* to do it. I’ll let it slide. If the soup is too thick for your taste, thin it down with more mead or apple juice. Or try apple cider, why not!
Serve with a dollop of good blue-veined cheese such as gorgonzola (fresh stuff, please) and a thing of fried bacon, which you can also candy by frying in simple syrup. Look it up! :)
A note: mead is an unfairly unpopular drink. At its best, it’s pleasing and familiar, unique, rich and complex. I found that the difference between a $10 bottle and a $20 bottle can taste more like $500; for this recipe, I used the excellent Redstone Mountain Honey Wine.
