I'm a Teddy Bear! (puree of broccoli soup)

I’m told that I can be cranky.  I’m doing my best to moderate that, anger isn’t my “go to” anymore.   Seriously, in the past, I was one of those chefs that threw things, rolls, pots, sauté pans, rolls, even knives.  The little paring knives get the point across to the waiters, because with a little practice, you can stick them in the wall, right beside their head as they are gabbing instead of running “this %#@& venison to table eight!” I will admit to have been less than pleasant at times. 

But that’s all in the past.  I’m cuddly now.  I like kittens and flowers and puffy clouds.  I decorate with posters of puppies.  Yeah, my heart rate is no longer like that of a hummingbird and my gastric juices are not swirling like Hell Gate.  Life is good, really good, at least until I start looking at recipe web sites.  It’s good to keep up with the competition.  I like to see what the other folks are doing.  It also sets me on edge.

As a professional chef, I read cookbooks like literature.  Honestly, as I page through a cookbook, I know what the food is going to taste like.  Think that’s odd, well I know a bunch of musicians and they can look over sheet music and hear the whole thing, preformed, complete down to every nuance.  My recipe channeling is the same thing.  It is also a curse because, as I read I have the acrid taste of scorched onions or the combination of kiwi and shrimp in my mouth.  I know that the author never made the dish and that the result of following their advice will be horrid.  Some posters just don’t know what they are doing.  That’s OK, they’re not pros, but they are published authors so they should at least test out what they recommend.

One sin that has become so common is the reposting of someone else’s work.  This bugs me.  I’m asking for a little honesty here.  If you wrote the recipe, take credit for it.  Brag!  You have done something spectacular.  If not, tagging something like “Recipe adapted from Simply Recipes” on the bottom of the page doesn’t cover it.  (”adapted” means that they changed the font)  Even the most distracted middle school teacher would bust you for plagiarism if you tried that in the real world, so why is it cool online?

The other thing that works me up is that everyone uses chicken stock in every recipe they can, without thinking about what the final flavor is going to be.  Wouldn’t it be better to make broccoli soup with vegetable stock or water and let the green stuff shine.  Why mask those good ingredients with a reduced stock.  The reason may be the fault of poorly trained commercial chefs who feel that soup base or bullion, that salty, fatty evil substance that substitutes for stock, is included in most commercial recipes, from soup to Waldorf Salad (really, I’ve seen it).  Some chefs see it as a given, necessary to boost the “flavor profile.” 

I want to encourage you to think at the stove.  That’s why today’s recipe is, like the previous recipe for creamy salad dressing, is a chart.  You’ll get a basic recipe for broccoli soup and then a bunch of ways to vary it.  This way, you will have the technique under your belt and won’t freak out if there is no broccoli in the market that day, you’ll just hum along the aisles and grab up something to replace what you originally came for.  You’ll be able to make parsnip soup in the winter and tomato soup when it’s hot out.  While the ingredients may change, the technique will always be there in your back pocket. 

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Puree of Broccoli Soup to serve six

1 bunch broccoli, about 3 cups chopped

1 ½ cups white potato, peeled and diced

1 cup onion, diced

2 tsp. butter

6 cups water or vegetable stock

salt and pepper

Roughly chop the tops of the broccoli.  Deeply peel away the tough outer skin of the broccoli stems.  Chop the peeled stems into ½ inch pieces.

In a heavy bottomed stockpot, over a low heat, melt the butter then sauté the onions until transparent, about 5 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add the broccoli and potatoes, continue to sauté the onions, potatoes and broccoli until the broccoli has wilted.

Pour in the water or vegetable stock, increase the heat and bring the soup to a boil.  Lower the heat, simmer for one hour, skimming occasionally to remove any proteins that rise to the top.

Puree the soup with a minipimer or pass it through a food mill.  Bring the soup back to a serving temperature, adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper and add an enrichment or serve as is.

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Use the following chart to make a soup of your own.  The process is easy.  Use the Broccoli Soup recipe above as your guide, then choose an ingredient from the chart below to vary the master recipe.  For example, you can make a great soup by substituting 3 cups of chopped spinach for the broccoli.  Additionally, you could make a butternut squash soup with rice as a starch to thicken it.  If you would add ½ cup of heavy cream to your squash soup, that would be a special thing.  If you want to get a little crazy, use 2 vegetables, say 1 ½ cup tomatoes and 1 ½ cup red peppers and thicken it with white beans.  Got it?  Use your head.  Play, have fun with your food.

Vegetable	Starch	Enrichment
carrot	rice,  ¾ cup uncooked	butter, 3 tbs.
spinach onion tomato red peppers celery sweet potato mushrooms parsnips asparagus salsify butternut squash pumpkin yam	ditalini, ¾ cup uncooked pastina, ½ cup uncooked bread, 2 cups diced red or white beans, 1 cup             cooked lentils, 1 cup uncooked	heavy cream, ½ cup whole milk, 1 cup yogurt, 1 cup buttermilk, 1 cup pesto, 3 tbs.