Right Wing Nation

Soup, stew and bread — the best way to warm up in the winter. So let me offer some of my favorite recipes, starting with the bread. Yes, I know, most supermarkets these days have fairly good bakeries and you can buy pretty good bread, but there’s nothing quite like making your own. So let’s get the bread out of the way first.

The following recipe is from Bernard Clayton’s Complete Book of Breads — the definitive text on making bread. Click on the image below to buy it from Amazon. If you make bread, you must have this book. And this is the only bread recipe you will ever need.

Pain Ordinaire Carême

This is the ultimate French bread. Dense, chewy, and delicious — and the classic flour, water, yeast and salt (and nothing else). This bread must rise three times, so set aside a whole morning to wait.

6 c. bread flour
2 packages dry yeast
2 1/2 c. hot water (120-130 degrees)
2 t. each: salt and water

1 baking sheet, greased and sprinkled with cornmeal, or 4 baguette pans, greased and sprinkled with cornmeal

Measure 3 or 4 cups of the flour into a mixing bowl and add the yeast and hot water. Mix for 10 minutes. Diussolve the salt in the water and add to the batter. Mix for 30 seconds or more.

Switch the paddle for the dough hook, and add flour 1/4 c. at a time until the dough forms a rough ball and cleans the sides of the bowl. Knead for 10 minutes. You can do this by hand, of course.

Put the dough in a large greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise at room temperature for 2 hours until tripled in volume. Turn the dough out and knead it about 3 minutes, then return to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise again at room temperature until tripled in volume, about 1 1/2 hours. Turn out, divide into pieces, and let rest about five minutes before shaping into loaves. For boules or round loaves, shape into balls, and place into napkin lined baskets. For baguettes, roll each piece 22 inches long and about 3-4 inches in diameter.

Cover loaves with a cloth, and leave at room temperature to rise until loaves have doubled, about an hour. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450, and put a baking pan in the bottom of the oven. Just before putting the loaves in, pour 1 c. boiling water into the pan and close the oven door immediately to create steam.

Make cuts in the tops of the loaves with a box cutter, place loaves in the middle shelf of the oven, and bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Check by turning out a loaf and thumping it on the bottom, to see that it sounds hollow.

It can’t be said often enough: A stock-based soup is only as good as the stock you use! People somehow think that adding things to thin, relatively flavorless canned broth will make good soup. No, no, no, no, no! If you must use store-bought, then the only halfway acceptable product I’ve tried is Kitchen Solutions, in cartons (the crap in the organic food aisle is just as useless as the canned stuff). Ideally, use homemade stock!

French Onion Soup

Now this is a winter classic. I think the common practice of running it under a broiler is silly and pointless. The cheese is crucial. American swiss will not do. Buy gruyère (emmenthaler if you can’t find it) for this soup, and no, not parmesan! Make plenty of this, because people won’t stop eating it.

1 dozen large sweet onions, peeled and diced
4 T. clarified butter or rendered beef suet
2 quarts beef stock
4 sprigs fresh thyme
2 fresh bay leaves
4 black peppercorns
salt and pepper
good, dense, chewy bread
1/2 lb. gruyère or emmenthaler, shredded

Melt the butter or suet in the bottom of a large heavy pan, and add the onions. Cover, turn the heat down low, and sweat the onions until very soft, about 30-45 minutes, stirring several times to ensure even cooking (yes, it’s a lot of onions, but they will cook down). Tie the peppercorns, thyme, and bay leaves up in a double thick cheesecloth bag.

About the bread. You can either cut it into slices, or cubes. I prefer cubes because you don’t have to cut it up with your spoon. Either way, toss the bread on a baking sheet and dry out in a 300 degree oven while the soup is cooking (it stands up even better to the soup if you do this).

When onions are very soft, add the herb bag and the stock. Bring to a boil, turn the heat down very low, and simmer for at least 30 minutes to fully infuse the flavors. Remove the cheesecloth bag.

To serve, toss croutons (or bread slices) in the bottom of each bowl, top with shredded cheese, then ladle on the soup. The hot soup will melt the cheese.

Rhine Onion Soup

This is entirely my own creation, one of those fortunate accidents. I had stupidly started onion soup when I realized I was out of beef stock. I had chicken stock, and used it instead, and I also had a bottle of Liebfraumilch so I tossed it in. The Liebfraumilch really accentuates the nuttiness of the cheese, and it was phenomenal.

Follow the directions for the French onion soup, but use 1 quart chicken stock and 1 bottle Liebfraumilch or other Rhine wine.

Squash Soup

I was grossly offended by the squash soup I was served on Thanksgiving at the local chi-chi restaurant. It tasted like pumpkin pie, and it was dreadful. So here’s a squash soup recipe. Use small hubbards, butternut, spaghetti, or acorn squash for this soup.

2 1/2 to 3 lbs. squash
1/4 c. olive oil, plus extra for squash
6 garlic cloves, unpeeled
2 yellow onions, finely chopped
4 sprigs fresh thyme, or 1/2 t. dried thyme
1/4 c. chopped flat-leaf parsley
Salt and pepper
2 quarts chicken stock
1/2 cup pecorino, grated

Preheat oven to 375. Halve the squash and scoop out the seeds. Brush the surfaces with oil, stuff the cavities with the garlic, and place them cut sides down on a baking sheet. Bake until tender when pressed with a finger, about 30 minutes. Remove and cool before continuing.

If using fresh thyme, tie in a doubled piece of cheesecloth to form a bag (this makes it easier to get out later, and the fresh thyme leaves don’t get all slimy, as they are wont to do).

In a small skillet, heat the 1/4 cup of oil until hot, add the onions, thyme (if using dried), and parsley and cook over medium heat until the onions have just begun to brown.

Scoop the squash flesh into the pot along with any juices that have accumulated in the pan. Squish the garlic out of the peels and add it to the pot along with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and the stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.

Purée the soup in batches, then return to the stove to reheat. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve in bowls with the pecorino sprinkled on top.

Cream of Tomato Soup

This is one of those recipes I’ve had written on an envelope for years. The original called for all milk. I wanted a soup that recalled all the childhood memories of tomato soup, but was more grown-up, so I tried it first with half milk and half cream, then 3 c. milk and 1 c. cream, and both were too rich for the home-y memories of childhood soup. The proportion below worked perfectly for what I wanted. But the soup is perfectly nice made with all milk (we use only whole milk, by the way, so I cannot vouch for this soup made with nasty watered-down milk, like 2% or skim — and since I don’t eat fake food, I similarly cannot vouch for it made with soy milk or some other fake product).

5 T. butter
1 small sweet onion, peeled and diced
4 T. flour
3 1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. heavy cream
1/2 bay leaf
1 1/2 t. each: sugar and salt
1/2 t. baking soda
3 cups tomatoes, chopped (Use canned in the winter, or the summer if you can’t get homegrown)

Cook the onion in the butter over medium heat, stirring, until the onion is softened but not browned. Sprinkle the flour over stir and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Slowly add the milk and cream, bay leaf, sugar, and salt and continue to cook and stir until slightly thickened. Stir the baking soda into the tomatoes. Add the tomatoes to the milk, and bring just to a simmer. Remove from the heat and put through a food mill or strainer — this is important, because tomato seeds are bitter and you don’t want even one in the soup. Reheat.

Cream of Broccoli Soup

Unlike Bush.41, I love broccoli. And this is one of my favorite soups.

2 heads broccoli
1 quart chicken stock
4 T. butter
1 c. heavy cream
salt and pepper

Prepare the broccoli. Cut the stalks off, and reserve the nicest florets. Peel the stalks, then slice them.

In a large heavy pan, melt the butter and add the stalks and florets (except for the ones you’ve reserved). Sautée over medium-high heat until soft. Add the stock, bring to a boil, then turn heat very low and simmer for 30 minutes. Purée the soup, return to the pan and add the cream. Reheat, and five minutes before serving, salt and pepper to taste and add the reserved florets.

Tomato-Garlic Soup

This is quick and easy and works great for the winter now that fresh basil is available year round.

2 T. olive oil
1 dozen cloves garlic, peeled, diced and smashed
1 #2 1/2 can crushed tomatoes
1 quart beef stock
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper
1/4 lb. pecorino, grated
fresh basil leaves, chopped

Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy pan. Sautée the garlic over medium heat until soft (do not burn!) and add the tomatoes, stock, and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, turn heat low, and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the bay leaves, salt and pepper to taste, and serve the soup garnished with pecornio and chopped fresh basil.

Cream of Garlic Soup

It sounds severe, but everybody really loves this soup (and it’s an easy recipe to remember: Two of everything). Just be sure to follow the directions exactly!

2 c. each: beef stock, chicken stock and heavy cream
2 heads garlic, unpeeled but separated into cloves
salt and pepper

Put the garlic in your blender, and add 1/2 of the stock. Blend for a couple of minutes, to finely chop the garlic. Pour into a pan, add the remaining stock, bring to a boil, and simmer for exactly two minutes and no longer. Strain the soup through cheesecloth. Return to the pan, add the cream, and reheat. Salt and pepper to taste.

Kartoffelsuppe (Potato Soup)

2 T. butter
2 large yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 stalk celery, thinly sliced
6 slices bacon
1 t. each: marjoram and thyme
1/4 t. grated nutmeg
1 lb. potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
1 quart chicken stock
1 t. salt
1/2 t. white pepper
chives (for garnish)

First, fry the bacon. Reserving the drippings, drain bacon slices on paper towels, and crumble. Reserve the bacon for garnish, with the chives. Add the butter to the bacon drippings, and over medium heat, cook the onions, herbs, and nutmeg until well mixed. Cover, turn heat down to low, and cook slowly about fifteen minutes, until the onions are very soft. Add the potatoes and stock. Simmer 45 minutes, until the potatoes are falling apart. Purée the soup in batches, return to the pan and season to taste with salt and white pepper. Garnish with snipped chives and crumbled bacon.

My Grandmother’s Vegetable Soup

No, there’s nothing vegetarian about this soup. We ate this all the time. I’ve never seen a recipe for this soup — I reconstructed it from memory, after watching my grandmothers, my mother, and yes, my father, do it hundreds of times. This soup is rich, delicious, and satisfying — and best of all, frozen vegetables work perfectly in it.

2 lbs. chuck, cubed
2 qts. beef stock
1 #2 1/2 can whole tomatoes
2 large onions, peeled and chopped
2 T. oil
4 each: medium potatoes. celery ribs, and carrots, all peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 small can kidney or pinto beans
1/2 c. each: frozen corn, frozen green beans, frozen peas (feel free to toss in any vegetables you like)
2 bay leaves
1 t. chili powder (for just a little kick)
1 t. black pepper
salt (to taste)

Heat the oil over medium heat in a large heavy pan. Add onions, turn heat down low, cover and sweat until soft and cooked down. Remove onions and reserve. If necessary, add another tablespoon of oil, then turn heat up high and brown the chuck, a couple of handfuls at at time. Add the chuck and onions back to the pan, then add the stock. Break the tomatoes up in your hand and add them and their juice with the celery, potatoes, frozen green beans, and carrots. Add the bay leaves, chili powder, and black pepper (don’t salt until right before you serve it), bring to a boil, then reduce heat very low, cover tightly, and simmer for two hours, until the beef is falling apart tender. Add the beans, corn, and peas, and simmer for another fifteen minutes. Salt to taste (it will be bland) and serve.

To make beef stew, halve the amount of stock, and before browning the beef, dredge in flour mixed with salt and pepper (you’ll need more oil for this).

Sopa Azteca (Tortilla Soup)

I realize this isn’t exactly a winter soup classic, but it’s delicious, it warms the soul, and it’s fun to eat. This is a great soup for a party, by the way.

The soup is basically a pasilla-chicken stock, served with a variety of ingredients. Guests put the ingredients into their bowls with tortilla strips, then add the soup. Unlike most dried chiles, pasillas lose enough moisture that the dried chiles can be ground into a powder. This results in a very different flavor from pasillas made into a paste, and one I prefer in this soup.

By the way, if you make your own tortillas, make them a day or two ahead for the strips, or use store bought. Stale tortillas make better strips than fresh.

Soup:

1 qt chicken stock
2 chicken breasts
6 pasillas, ground
1 small package frozen corn
salt

Ingredients:

chicken breasts (above), deboned and diced
chopped chipotles in adobo
additional ground pasillas
shredded fresh spinach
Mexican cheese
Just about anything you want

Tortilla strips

tortillas
oil or lard

First, poach the chicken breasts in the stock until just done, about twenty-five minutes. Remove the breasts and cool, then shred. You’ll serve the chicken as one of the ingredients for guests to add to their soup. Add the ground pasillas to the stock and simmer while you prepare the tortilla strips and remaining ingredients. Add the corn about fifteen minutes before you’re ready to serve.

Heat a half inch of lard or oil until very hot in a heavy pan. First stack the tortillas, slice them in half, then slice each half crosswise into strips. Toss the strips to separate. A handful at a time, add the tortilla strips and fry in the hot oil. Fry them until they start to brown (you’ll need to taste one to make sure all the moisture has evaporated and they’re no longer chewy). Drain on paper towels and repeat until all the strips have been fried.

Put the strips, the chicken, and each of the other ingredients in its own bowl and put them on the table. Taste the stock and salt if necessary. Serve the soup, letting guests add what they want to their own bowls.

If you make parpikas (Hungarian) or goulash (Austrian), you must serve it with spätzle, so I’ve included instructions and recipes here.

I realize I’m more willing to spend time cooking than most, but every time I go to the store, I’m amazed at what people will buy to avoid even the most simple and basic tasks. Heat and eat mashed potatoes? Are you kidding?

While at the store yesterday, I saw boxed spätzle mix. Come on! Spätzle are even simpler to make than mashed potatoes, and they’re heavenly.

For those of you who are spätzle-challenged, spätzle exist all over central and eastern Europe (my pet theory is that they were invented by a tired housewife who needed to make noodles but had neither the time nor the energy). Spätzle are made from a very soft, sticky dough, almost a batter, that is “dribbled” through a spätzle maker (or a colander, if you’re a masochist) into boiling water or soup.

The only thing about spätzle is you really want a spätzle maker. You can use a colander (do not even think about trying to make them with a strainer, though), but a spätzle maker is well worth the money.

There are two types of spätzle makers I’m aware of: the cheap hand model (see pic below), which runs about ten bucks, and the “crank” model, which runs about forty bucks. The only thing about the cheap model is that once the handle comes out, throw it away and buy another (I’ve been through quite a few over the years.)

See the square bin? The base beneath it is like a grater with large holes. You put the batter in the bin, then move it back and forth across the base. As the bin moves back and forth across the holes, it cuts the spätzle and they drop into the water. Very simple.

There are two recipes here. The first is richer, and the second is homier. Both are great recipes.

Spätzle I (for 4-6)

4 eggs
1 cup flour
1 t. salt

Beat the eggs until frothy, then mix in the flour and salt. The dough should be very soft and sticky — halfway between cake batter and biscuit dough. Sticky, not a ball that cleans the sides of the bowl. Spoon the dough into the spätzle maker over the SIMMERING, not boiling, water and run the bin back and forth until the dough is all gone. SIMMER about five minutes, then drain and toss with melted butter.

Spätzle II (for 4-6)

1 c. flour
1 t. salt
1 egg
scant 1/2 c. milk (more or less)

Follow the same instructions as the first recipe, beating in the milk until you get the right, sticky consistency.

Austrian Beef Goulash

There was a great deal of cross-pollination in food between Austria and Hungary, though each nation adapted to suit its tastes (note the very different cooking styles between the Austrian goulash and the Hungarian paprikas). Goulash is Austrian; gulyas is Hungarian. Goulash is more soup-y than gulyas, and it a different entity, but a delicious one. The added vegetables, by the way, are not traditional; I have added them to make the recipe more acceptable to Americans (but feel free to leave them out).

You’ll note that there is no stock in this recipe — partly because the beef will make its own stock as the soup cooks, but mostly because the primary flavor in this recipe is the paprika. Please use only Hungarian paprika, such as Noble Rose; paprika that is not specifically labelled Hungarian is Spanish, and is comparatively flavorless.

4 large onions, peeled and chopped
1/4 c. lard or oil
5 oz (10 T) Hungarian paprika (Spanish has comparatively no flavor)*
2 qt. water
1 t. each: dried marjoram (1 T. if fresh), caraway seeds, black pepper
1 clove garlic, peeled and diced
grated rind of 1/2 lemon
3 lb. chuck, cubed
4 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 c. green beans, in 1-inch pieces
salt (to taste)

In a large, heavy pan, cook the onions in the lard or oil over medium-low heat until soft and golden. Add the paprika and mix thouroughly, then add the water and the seasonings. Simmer, uncovered, for an hour. Add the beef, and simmer until the beef is almost tender. Add the potatoes and green beans, and simmer until the beef is tender and the vegetables are done.

Hungarian Veal Paprikas

Make this when the stew veal — the cheapest cut, btw — goes on sale.

1 1/2 lb. stew veal in 1/2-inch cubes
1 large yellow onion, chopped
3 T. bacon drippings, lard or oil (in that order of preference)
2 T. Hungarian paprika (Spanish has comparatively no flavor)*
1 14-oz. can diced tomatoes, drained
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
10 mushrooms, sliced
2 T. each: heavy cream and sour cream**
1/2 T. flour

Saute the onions over medium heat, stirring frequently, until they begin to soften. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook another five minutes. Stir in paprika, veal, and tomatoes. Add about 1/4 cup water, cover, and cook over low heat for an hour, until the veal is tender. Add the bell pepper and mushrooms, stir, cover again and cook for 15 minutes, until the peppers are softened. Mix heavy cream, sour cream and flour, then stir into the paprikas. Cook a minute, just to get the “flour” taste out, and serve.

*Hungarian paprika comes in sweet (Noble Rose) and hot. If you like spicy, you can use a little hot (try a mixture of the two first), but I recommend Noble Rose for this.

**Please resist the temptation to increase this. Please. It’s so much nicer if you don’t turn this into sour cream with other stuff you can’t taste.

Note: A complete list of all my food articles is here (it’s a long list, by the way).