An Exaltation of Soups (61 page)
Read An Exaltation of Soups Online
Authors: Patricia Solley
Serves 6 to 8
T
HIS FABULOUS, MANY
layered, complex borshch is compliments of Sándor Fenyvesi, an air traffic controller in Budapest, Hungary, who was educated at a special school for navigating officers and air traffic controllers in Riga, Latvia, when he was eighteen years old and learned this soup while there. Start it the day before you are planning to serve it, then ladle up this Ukrainian-style soup, specially loved by Russians, for Christmas lunch or to start off a wonderful Christmas dinner.
F
OR THE BROTH
8 cups (2 quarts) Beef Stock
½ medium head green cabbage, finely shredded
3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
F
OR THE RED VEGETABLES
1 teaspoon bacon fat
1 large red beet, peeled and shredded
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons sugar
2 ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped, or 4 canned tomatoes, chopped
F
OR THE MIREPOIX
2 tablespoons butter
2 medium onions, diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 parsley root or ½ parsnip, peeled and diced
F
OR THE SEASONING
6 peppercorns
3 allspice berries
3 bay leaves
1 whole head of garlic, cloves chopped
2 tablespoons bacon fat
½ cup chopped fresh parsley
Sour cream and minced fresh dill and parsley, for garnish
O
P
REPARE
1. Start the soup at least one day ahead so it has time to ripen.
2. Prep the ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
3. Put the peppercorns and allspice berries into a small tea ball or cheesecloth bag for easy removal at the end.
R
USSIAN
T
ESTIMONIALS
Scratch a Russian and inevitably he or she will bleed borshch—“Oh yes, my favorite soup!” Those on record include rulers (Catherine the Great, who ate it from handmade silver plates given to her by
Zaporozhye
Cossacks; Alexander II, who ate it from Saxony porcelain; Nicholas I, who actually preferred the simpler cabbage soup
shchii
, but declared for borshch to please his subjects; and Nikita Khrushchev); poets (Alexander Pushkin); novelists (Nikolai Gogol, and a vegetarian version for Leo Tolstoy); dancers (Rudolf Nureyev and Natalya Krassovska); musicians (Isaac Stern); singers (Maria Guleghina); artists (Boris Zaborov); and even tennis players (Marat Safin). It was Khrushchev who popularized the soup in the twentieth century, ordering Kremlin chefs to serve hot borshch with cold sour cream and inadvertently starting a trend in Western spy movies. Which reminds me: borshch was the hands-down fave of the infamous East German spymaster Marcus Wolf, who outspokenly adores all things Russian.
O
C
OOK
1. Bring the stock to a boil in a large soup pot over mediumhigh heat, add the cabbage and potatoes, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 15 minutes.
2. In a saucepan, heat the bacon fat over medium heat, then add the beet, vinegar, sugar, and tomatoes, stirring, and cook gently over low heat, covered, for about 5 minutes. Set aside.
3. In another small pan, heat the butter over low heat, mix in the onions, carrot, and parsley root (or parsnip), cover, and sweat for 5 minutes.
4. When the cabbage and potatoes are finished simmering, add the beet mixture, the onion mixture, the peppercorns and allspice berries in a spice sack, and the bay leaves to the soup and cook another 10 minutes.
5. Stir in the garlic, bacon fat, and parsley. Then turn the heat down to a very low simmer, lightly cover the pot, and simmer very slowly for about 4½ hours. Turn off the heat, let cool, and allow to ripen for 12 to 18 hours.
O
S
ERVE
Reheat the soup gently, remove the bay leaves and spice sack, and ladle the soup into bowls. Top each portion with a teaspoonful of sour cream and a sprinkling of dill and parsley and serve with a slice of dark rye or pumpernickel bread.
LOVAKIA
SOUR CABBAGE AND MUSHROOM SOUP
KAPUSTNICA
Serves 6 to 8
T
ALK ABOUT A
fitting soup for Christmas! It is tart to recall the bitterness of life before the birth of Jesus, with a little undertone of plum sweetness to come. It’s a creamy apricot color from the paprika and sour cream, chunky, many textured and layered, and lush with meat—better, of course, to serve on Christmas Day if you’re still observing the fast the night before. Some families serve it by ladling it into soup bowls over thick noodles. Your choice.
1 cup dried bolete
(porcini)
mushrooms
2 cups warm water
2 pounds smoked kielbasa sausage
8 cups (2 quarts) water
2 pounds sauerkraut with juice (Slovakians prefer homemade, of course: sliced cabbage pressed into a small keg with apples, beets, salt, pepper, and other spices, then left to ferment for a month)
2 medium onions, roughly chopped
6 pitted prunes, chopped
Zaprazka
thickener: 2 tablespoons oil or lard, 2 tablespoons flour, 1 tablespoon paprika, 2 cups sour cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Minced fresh parsley, for garnish
O
P
REPARE
1. Soak the mushrooms in the warm water for 20 minutes. Remove the mushrooms and strain the liquid.
2. Prep the remaining ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
O
C
OOK
1. Place the sausage and water in a large soup pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.
2. Add the mushrooms with their liquid to the soup, cover, and cook for 15 minutes.
3. Add the sauerkraut with its juice, the onions, and prunes. Return to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat again to low and simmer, covered, for 1 hour.
4. When the sausage is about to burst its skin, remove the sausage and let it cool.
5. Prepare the
zaprazka:
heat the oil or lard in a skillet over medium heat, then whisk in the flour and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Take off the heat, stir in the paprika, continuing to stir for a minute, then whisk in the sour cream until it is smooth.
6. Whisk in as much as a cup of the soup broth into the
zaprazka
, then stir the
zaprazka
into the soup and let it thicken, uncovered, over a very low simmer for 5 to 10 minutes.
7. Slice the sausage into bite-size pieces. (If you wish to serve the soup over thick noodles, begin boiling the noodles at this point.)
8. Add the sausage slices to the pot, and season the soup with salt and pepper.
O
S
ERVE
Ladle the soup into large bowls (over thick noodles or not), garnish each portion with minced parsley, and serve with sliced bread.
S
LOVAKIAN
C
HRISTMAS
In Catholic Slovakia, as in Poland, families begin their joyful celebration at
Stedry Vecer
or
Vilija
, the Bountiful Christmas Eve supper, when the first star appears in the sky on Christmas Eve. The traditional family celebration is deeply ritualized and very beautiful. First, the father and mother carry a lighted candle, representing Christ, to the table. Mom sprinkles holy water on the table. Dad serves a special wafer
oplatka
to everyone, mom first, and kisses and hugs are exchanged in a ritual of reconciliation. Dad then makes a sign of the cross on everyone’s forehead with honey, to keep thoughts of Christ’s sweetness uppermost. Why the
oplatka?
Because in the old days people couldn’t get through the high snows to attend the Christmas church service. Understanding priests blessed the wafers well beforehand and gave them to families so they would be reminded of the Eucharist during the celebration. Following the
oplatka
and the honeyed baptism, the feasting would begin.
PAIN
ICED WHITE ALMOND SOUP
ANDALUSIAN
A
JOBLANCO
T
HE
B
AD
N
EWS ABOUT
A
JOBLANCO
According to recipe contributor José Luis Vivas,
Ajoblanco
is a dieter’s worst nightmare. Thanks to the high energy contents of the almonds and bread, it is a caloric bomb. In fact, he says, these soups were usually consumed by country laborers in Andalusia during the harvest months as a mid-morning snack. They would have breakfast very early (5
A.M.
), then about 11 o’clock would stop to prepare the soup (or have someone bring it from the house) and eat it to brace themselves for temperatures above 95°F. from noon onward. Of course they’d stop about 2
P.M.
and have a light lunch and a siesta, unless they were picking cotton and a storm was on the way.
Serves 6 to 8
T
HIS COLD SOUP
is wonderful—refreshing and very “drinkable” in texture, with unexpected richness, depth of flavor, and true savoriness. It’s hard to believe it’s so bad for you. Today in Andalusia it has its own special fiesta day on September 7, and it is traditional to take a bowl on Christmas Day. In Málaga, it is customary to serve
Ajoblanco
with peeled and seeded grapes or with apple slices. Melon, small shrimps, or sliced, toasted almonds also go very well with this soup.
½ pound crusty white bread, with the crusts cut off
1 cup raw (not toasted) peeled almonds (to peel, dip them for a few seconds in boiling water, then pop the skins off with a squeeze of your fingers)
2 garlic cloves
¼ teaspoon salt
1 generous cup olive oil
Vinegar, preferably red wine or sherry vinegar
7 cups cold water
Fruit, shrimp, or toasted almonds, for garnish
O
P
REPARE
1. An hour ahead, soak the bread in plenty of water, pouring off what it doesn’t absorb.
2. With a powerful blender, grind the almonds, garlic, and a little salt as fine as you can (the finer the almonds are ground, the creamier the soup will be).
3. Add the soaked bread to the blender and process until you get a white homogeneous paste. Still blending, add the oil in a thread, as you would for a mayonnaise, and then the vinegar (for the quantity, follow your taste, but just a teaspoon or so is
sufficient—otherwise you will mask the flavor) and the cold water. You must add the oil and water slowly: you want a smooth emulsion, not a curd! That’s it, you’re done. Just refrigerate.