Parmesan Broth with Kale and White Beans

Adapted from the Smitten Kitchen blog

Broth:  
8 oz. parmesan cheese rinds
6 c. water
1 lg. onion, peeled & quartered
3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1/2 t. whole peppercorns
Handful of flat-leaf parsley
Salt to taste

Soup:  
2 to 3 oz. tuscan kale, chopped
1-1/4 c. cooked white beans (from about 1/4 lb. dried), with their cooking liquid (about 1-1/2 c.)
Olive oil and parmesan and thin slices of toasted baguette

Bring all the broth ingredients to a boil in a lg. pot, then reduce to a simmer for 1 hour.  Pour through a fine strainer. It will yield about 4-1/2 c.

To make soup:  Add beans and liquid and kale to broth and simmer until the kale is cooked and the beans are warm.  Serve topped with a toasted baguette slice, drizzled with a bit of olive oil and sprinkled with grated parmesan.

Ann's Version 

 

I had some beautiful dried heirloom beans which I put to a soak the night before.  The variety was Good Mother Stallard, a medium size dappled russet and cream.  I soaked the whole pound bag which wasn't necessary for this soup so the excess went in containers into the freezer.  I drained the soaked beans, then covered them with about 3 times as much water, added a couple of fresh bay leaves and a tsp. or so of dried thyme, brought the pot to a boil, and simmered it for about an hour and a half.  Cooking dried beans at our altitude (which isn't really that high) and in our very minerally water usually takes quite a bit longer than indicated in most recipes. 

While the beans cooked I made the broth, using 8 cups of water instead of 6 since I just knew that wouldn't be enough and doubling the parsley (was an accident but it worked).  For the first half hour the broth cooked it was pretty bland and I wondered if it could really make a tasty soup, but in the second half hour the cheese infused the water and it smelled and tasted amazing.  I let it simmer until the beans were done, then poured the broth through a fine strainer into a clean pot, then back into the original pot so as to save any stuck-on cheese.  A word of caution:  clean the strainer immediately!  I just rinsed it and put it through the dishwasher and I'm still poking cement-like particles of parmesan out with a toothpick.

To the hot broth I added a 2 oz. bag of dried kale chips, cilantro/lime flavored since that's what was in my pantry.  I keep kale chips on hand all the time for soup since they don't go bad and I often don't want to make a grocery run just for fresh kale.  Unseasoned ones are hard to find though, hence the unusual flavor addition which in this case really worked.  I added another cup of water since the chips would be reconstituting in the soup and cooked it all for about 20 min.  Then in went the still hot beans with their liquid and it all simmered for another 15 min.  I added 1/4 c. of olive oil to the pot when it was done.

I had a bowl right away with a handful of grated parmesan on top (can't ever have too much cheese!) and it was great.  Definitely a recipe I'll make again, particularly since we eat lots and lots of parmesan which I always grate myself and the rinds pile up in the freezer.  The 8 oz. this recipe called for used less than half my stash!  If you didn't have the rinds I'll bet the recipe would work with just an 8 oz. chunk of parmesan but would probably be quite a bit cheesier.

Cassie's Version 

 

I finally made this soup today.  It took a while to get around to it because I simply did not have Parmesan rinds on hand.  I even asked today at the cheese counter of my (rather excellent) grocery store and they were all out.  I ended up buying two different hard cheeses, whose rinds became the base for my soup: Grana Padano and Romano, both of which were less expensive than Parmesan.  They both tasted great when I sampled them, but neither is as strong as Parmesan so my broth turned out less flavorful than what was probably intended.  I used dried Great Northern beans that I soaked overnight and cooked in the same manner that my mother cooked hers (I actually just followed her directions, above).  I froze the extra beans and cooking liquid to use later.

The only other changes I made to the soup itself were the following: I increased the water to 8 cups (following my mother's advice) and added in dried red pepper flakes, salt, and ground pepper.  I used regular(?) kale instead of the flatter Tuscan variety, which I didn't have on hand.  I also added olive oil at the end, as my mom did, because it needed an extra shot of flavor and some additional body.

This was definitely a good soup, though it seems like a recipe that requires the highest quality ingredients to become really great.  While I think that I generally do a good job selecting produce, I supposed I could do better at choosing (and investing more money in) other ingredients.  Or my next soup could employ more pungency - chile, citrus, and other spices can do wonders at covering up lackluster cooking skills and less than fancy ingredients!  Stay tuned!

German Pea Soup

Erbsensuppe, from My Berlin Kitchen by Luisa Weiss

3 T olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, minced
1/3 C minced Speck or lean bacon
1 leek, white and pale green part only, cut in half lengthwise, rinsed, and sliced into half-moons
1 medium carrot, diced
1/2 small celery root, diced
1 T fresh marjoram, minced
Salt
1 1/2 C dried split green or yellow peas
5 to 6 C chicken or vegetable broth
3 medium Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced
Freshly ground black pepper
4 Wiener Würstchen or hot dogs

1.  Heat olive oil in 4-quart pot.  Add onion and bacon.  Cook over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes; add leek and stir well.  Cook for another 7 minutes.  Add carrot and celery root; stir well.  Cook for a few more minutes.  Add marjoram and a pinch of salt and stir.

2.  Pour in dried peas and broth.  Stir well and cover.  Bring to a boil and lower heat to a simmer.  Cook for 20 minutes.

3.  Add potatoes and stir well.  Cook for another 20 minutes.  Taste for salt and add pepper.

4.  Cut hot dogs into bite-sized rounds and add to pot.  Warm through and serve.

Cassie's version

 

Just finished a bowl of this - delicious!  Maybe the best split pea soup I've had.  The flavors work really well together, with the salty bacon infusing the base of the soup, the marjoram pepping it up, and the vegetables providing contrast to the peas.  I sadly did not have fresh marjoram, so used dried, though the brightness of the fresh herb would be lovely.  I was feeling rather rule-bound today, so I changed the recipe only to add some lemon juice at the very end, and to incorporate the potatoes I had (a few mini yellow potatoes and a russet).*  The only drawback to this soup, actually, is the final addition of hot dogs.  The taste was nice, and they actually looked appealing floating in rounds in the liquid.  But the texture was a bit strange for a cooked soup - the hot dogs were a bit too rubbery for my liking.  Perhaps next time I would brown some sausage, drain it, and add that at the end - but apparently the more processed hot dogs/Wiener Würstchen are traditional.  It's not bad as is, and it was definitely worth a try - just not ideal.

*A friend who grew up on a farm told me last night that what we buy as Yukon golds at the grocery store are usually mislabeled.  A real Yukon gold potato has pink eyes; those without are simply yellow potatoes.  I checked the mini "Yukon golds" I recently bought and their eyes are indeed yellow.  I've been duped!

Ann's Version

The biggest change I made was doubling Cassie's recipe so I could replenish my freezer soup supply.  However, I will write about the recipe changes I made as if they were to the original recipe quantity so they are more understandable.  There is probably some deep-seated reason why I almost always increase recipe quantities--hope that many guests will unexpectedly show up, fear of being without soup during a natural disaster, need to use up supplies in my always overstocked pantry--who knows?  Thank goodness for a large freezer!  

I slightly more than doubled the amount of bacon because where bacon is concerned more is always better.  Sauteing bacon and onion--what could smell better?  Well, even better was the smell after the leeks, celery root and carrot went in.  Like Cassie I used dried marjoram--a generous teaspoon.  I hadn't used a celery root in a long time and luckily this one was not the tough monster I remember encountering in the past.  It was like a lovely mild celery-flavored turnip!  Must remember to use one more often.  

I used 3 cups of unsalted chicken stock and 3 c. of water since there was so much bacon and I didn't want it to be overpoweringly rich.  I reduced the potatoes to just two to keep it pea soup instead of potato soup.  Sliced hot dogs did not sound appealing to me.  I love a hot dog but when they're sliced into dishes all I think of is stretching dishes with cheap protein to feed more people.  Instead I added thinly sliced dry Italian sausage which added great flavor.  The soup was a little thick then so I added a couple more cups of water.  Cassie had warned me to be careful with added salt because of the salty bacon, but maybe because the stock was unsalted the soup actually needed a heaping teaspoon of salt at the end, plus a whole lot of fresh-ground pepper.  Wonderful soup and probably the best pea soup I've ever made!