An Exaltation of Soups (24 page)
Read An Exaltation of Soups Online
Authors: Patricia Solley
Serves 1 to 2
L
IBERALLY TRANSLATED
,
stracciatella
means “little rags” in Italian—and so describes the classic egg rags that swirl through this comfort soup. (This also explains why
stracciatella gelato
is chocolate chip—that rag effect again.) While this soup is best known as a Roman specialty, it has many variations throughout southern Italy that have escarole or spinach added to the broth for heft, not to mention for flavor and color contrast. And it is the foundation of Italian wedding soup, which ennobles the “little rags” by combining them with tiny meatballs of veal and sirloin seasoned with nutmeg.
2 cups Chicken Stock
1 egg
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons soft bread crumbs or farina
Salt and white pepper to taste
G
ARNISH
Additional grated Parmesan
A sprig of fresh basil, parsley, or crossed chives
O
P
REPARE
Prep the ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
O
C
OOK
1. Bring the stock to a simmer in a large saucepan over low heat.
2. In a small bowl, beat the egg with a fork and continue beating as you add the cheese and bread crumbs—and finally, ½ cup of the simmering stock.
3. Bring the remaining stock to a near boil over medium heat, then scrape in the egg mixture and whisk it feelingly, even emotionally, with a fork for 3 to 4 minutes straight. When you stop beating, let the soup come just barely to a boil. Its creaminess will then break into plump, lacy custards. Season with salt and pepper.
O
S
ERVE
Ladle the soup into bowls immediately, sprinkle with extra Parmesan cheese, and top with a single piece of fresh herb. Sit down with it. Breathe it in deeply. Get better.
T
HE
F
ANTASTICAL
G
LORY OF
P
ARMESAN
C
HEESE
Do you know about the district of Bengodi? Where “there was a mountain of grated Parmesan cheese, inhabited by people who did nothing but make macaroni and ravioli, which they cooked in chicken broth and then rolled down through the cheese so that anyone could just pick it up and eat it”?
Giovanni Boccaccio tells us all about it in the third story of the eighth day of storytelling in his
Decameron
, a collection of one hundred tales told in ten days by seven ladies and three young men who have retired to the country from Florence to escape the Black Death in fourteenth-century Italy.
What’s that? You didn’t know this fabulous Italian cheese went back so far in history? In fact, some believe the origins of grana Parmigiano-Reggiano go back to classical times.
EWISH
CHICKEN SOUP WITH MATZO BALLS
“PENICILLIN
”
Serves 4 to 6
T
HIS RECIPE WAS
sent to me by a gentleman in California who said his Belgian Jewish grandmother, Omi Rosi, was renowned for curing what ails you with this soup: “Guaranteed to make you well.” It’s very similar to the Lithuanian variation tested by Dr. Rennard in his study on chicken soup’s ability to inhibit neutrophil chemotaxis and reduce respiratory inflammations, but even more intense by stewing the chicken in chicken stock. I’ve enlarged the serving portion because, of course, you just can’t have enough Jewish penicillin.
F
IDDLER ON THE
R
OOF
C
HICKEN
J
OKES
In
Fiddler on the Roof
, the Broadway show and film based on Sholem Aleichem’s short story, Tevye says, “As the good book says, when a poor man eats a chicken, one of them is sick.” Mendel says, “Where does the good book say that?” Tevye says, “Well, it doesn’t say that exactly, but somewhere there is something about a chicken.”
F
OR THE MATZO BALLS
1 cup matzo meal
⅓ cup shortening, schmaltz (rendered chicken fat), or mock schmaltz (simmer 1 diced onion in a cup of light olive oil until the onion browns, then remove the onion and stir in 1 tablespoon chicken bouillon granules. Strain the oil into a jar and refrigerate. Use, when solidified, as needed.)
½ cup water
1 teaspoon salt
Grindings of white pepper
4 eggs
F
OR THE SOUP
1 stewing chicken, 4 to 5 pounds, or 4 to 5 pounds chicken parts
4 celery stalks with leaves, chopped
1 bunch parsley roots, peeled and chopped (if available)
2 large onions, chopped
6 carrots, peeled and chopped
4 to 6 parsnips, peeled and chopped
1 celery root, peeled and chopped (if not available, add more celery)
1 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
½ cup finely chopped fresh dill
16 cups (4 quarts) Chicken Stock
Salt and pepper to taste
O
P
REPARE
1. Prepare the matzo ball dough. In a small bowl, stir together the matzo meal, shortening, water, salt, pepper, and eggs, and beat for 1 minute, then cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
2. Prep the remaining ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
T
ROPICAL
C
HICKEN
S
OUP
In his curious roman á clef
Ravelstein
, American author Saul Bellow fulfills his promise to real-life friend Allan Bloom (the brilliant political philosopher who died of AIDS in 1992) to write Bloom’s memoir “warts and all,” transforming Bloom into Abe Ravelstein and himself into Chick. It’s a dark comedy that wickedly ends with Chick making himself the main character. And what does wife Rosamund do when she sees that Chick is seriously ill in St. Martin? She “walked miles through the smoke and fire of curbside grills looking for a Thanksgiving turkey. None was to be found. The skinny local hens seemed to be growing hair, not feathers. At the bottom of a freezer in the market, she found packages of stony drumsticks and wings On this island of yams and coconuts there were no cooking greens. Nevertheless she managed after hours of effort to produce a chicken soup. Out of gratitude I [Chick] tried to make a joke of my failure to get it down—remembering an immigrant mother of my childhood who cried out, ‘My Joey can’t eat an ice-cream cone. He turns his head away from it. If he won’t lick an ice cream, he’s got to be dying!’ ”
H
OLLYWOOD
C
HICKEN
S
OUP
Hollywood magnate Louis B. Mayer insisted that chicken soup with matzo balls—made from his mother’s recipe—be on the MGM commissary menu every single day. And it has remained on the menu ever since, though when Sony upgraded the old deli to the Rita Hayworth Dining Room in the 1990s, the soup turned into a thin, veggie-studded shadow of itself, with one perfectly round and giant matzo taking up most of the bowl. And speaking of Hollywood, it’s said that when Marilyn Monroe was married to Arthur Miller, she got tired of his mother always serving matzo ball soup. “Gee, Arthur,” she said after the tenth time, “these matzo balls are pretty nice, but isn’t there any other part of the matzo you can eat?”
A
MAZING
C
HICKEN
S
OUP
S
TORY
#1
Hollywood mogul Louis B. Mayer forced child star Judy Garland to slim down at age fourteen on a diet of chicken soup, black coffee, and diet pills. To further kill her appetite, she smoked four packs of cigarettes a day.
O
C
OOK
1. Put all the ingredients for the soup, except the salt and pepper, into a large soup pot, cover, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, lightly covered, for 2 hours, until everything is tender and soft. Skim off the foam from time to time, if needed.
2. While the soup is cooking, shape the matzo balls, in the size you prefer, from the refrigerated dough, then return them to the refrigerator until you are ready to cook them.
3. After the soup has cooked for 2 hours, take the chicken out of the pot, cool briefly, and remove all the meat from it, discarding the skin and bones. Cut the meat into bite-size pieces and reserve.
4. Fish out half or so of the cooked vegetables and whirl in a blender, then return to the soup as a thickener. Stir in the chicken pieces. Season with salt and pepper. At this point, you may cool the soup, uncovered, and refrigerate it overnight so the flavors can blend. This also makes it easy to remove the solidified fat before finishing the soup.
5. When you are ready to finalize the soup, skim the fat and bring the soup to a low boil over medium heat. Add the matzo balls, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.
O
S
ERVE
Ladle the soup into bowls, evenly distributing the matzo balls, then help your sick ones to the table and watch them come back to life.
OREA
CHICKEN-RICE “WHITE” SOUP
PAEKSUK
Serves 2 to 3
K
OREANS MAKE MANY
different kinds of curative soups, with a lot of exotic ingredients:
Kyesamt’ang
, a chicken soup with fresh ginseng roots and jujube fruits, black rooster soup, dragon and phoenix soup, black mountain goat soup, and mudfish and beef brisket soup.
Paeksuk
, though, is somewhat less dramatic—a homey and rich chicken and rice congee spiced with ginger and garlic, a little sesame oil, and a good jolt of hot pepper sauce. Traditionally, for this elixir you’d use a broth made from a tough old stewing hen that’s been cooked for hours, but it’s just as good, and very quick, to make it with any chicken stock you have on hand.