Escarole, Parsnip and White Bean Soup
Jun. 3rd, 2010 09:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deaneLast night I made the chicken stock and tonight I made the soup.
My emotional state during the making of the soup was a bit of a see-saw. Started out feeling good, but soon grew frustrated with having to continually shuffle ingredients around due to the minute amount of counter space available for food preparation. Began feeling better once I had split up the excess stock, found containers for it and secreted it away in the freezer for future use. Then my mood plummeted again when I started to chop the onion.
I know people always talk about onions making them cry, but what I experience is more akin to intense pain and blindness which persists until I can claw my way to the sink and rinse my eyes with cold water. I really like the taste of onions, but it's hard to believe that they're worth this much suffering.
After getting my sight back I opened up the doors and windows to help flush the fumes from the kitchen, then retreated to the living room for half an hour to let the half-diced onion finish exfoliating. That seemed to do the trick because I was able to finish dicing the rest of the onion without any further problems. That, of course, helped to lighten my mood again, which rose further once all the chopping was done and I could start to cook the soup.
After cooking the beans for the requisite time they were still quite firm and crunchy. That's when I made a mistake. Instead of continuing to cook them until they softened up, I slavishly followed the recipe and dumped in the remaining ingredients, hoping that the beans would soften up by the time it was all done cooking. They didn't and by the time the soup was supposed to be done the beans were still inedible.
Dejected, I left the soup to simmer on the stove for another 10 minutes. That would start to turn the escarole mushy, but I didn't know what else to do.
When the timer went off at the end of the 10 minutes I found the soup in a vigourous boil because I'd neglected to turn the heat down. That seemed to have helped, though, as the beans, while still firmer than I would have liked, were at least now edible. The escarole had come through in better shape than I had expected, too. Naturally, my mood began to rise again.
My mood has since remained high because the soup turned out to be very tasty. The onions, leeks and garlic give the broth a rich foundation for the sweetness of the parsnips and the slight heat from the black pepper. This is definitely something I'll be trying again in the future.
The texture of the beans was unappealing but that didn't detract much from my enjoyment of the meal. Hopefully after soaking in the broth overnight they'll be softer on reheating.
I think that my problem with the beans was due to a misunderstanding of the instructions. The recipe said to put the stock and the beans into the pot then simmer for 5 minutes. In other recipes I've read the wording has been "bring to a boil, then let simmer". Since this one did not explicitly specify "bring to a boil" I interpreted it to mean that I should just apply medium heat for 5 minutes, which was clearly insufficient. I've since looked up "simmer" on Wikipedia and sure enough, it says to bring it to a boil first.
And so my culinary education advances by another baby step...
Update: Apparently the paramour concurs with my assessment of the soup's taste as I keep hearing rapturous sounds from zir direction and the soup pot is now almost empty!
My emotional state during the making of the soup was a bit of a see-saw. Started out feeling good, but soon grew frustrated with having to continually shuffle ingredients around due to the minute amount of counter space available for food preparation. Began feeling better once I had split up the excess stock, found containers for it and secreted it away in the freezer for future use. Then my mood plummeted again when I started to chop the onion.
I know people always talk about onions making them cry, but what I experience is more akin to intense pain and blindness which persists until I can claw my way to the sink and rinse my eyes with cold water. I really like the taste of onions, but it's hard to believe that they're worth this much suffering.
After getting my sight back I opened up the doors and windows to help flush the fumes from the kitchen, then retreated to the living room for half an hour to let the half-diced onion finish exfoliating. That seemed to do the trick because I was able to finish dicing the rest of the onion without any further problems. That, of course, helped to lighten my mood again, which rose further once all the chopping was done and I could start to cook the soup.
After cooking the beans for the requisite time they were still quite firm and crunchy. That's when I made a mistake. Instead of continuing to cook them until they softened up, I slavishly followed the recipe and dumped in the remaining ingredients, hoping that the beans would soften up by the time it was all done cooking. They didn't and by the time the soup was supposed to be done the beans were still inedible.
Dejected, I left the soup to simmer on the stove for another 10 minutes. That would start to turn the escarole mushy, but I didn't know what else to do.
When the timer went off at the end of the 10 minutes I found the soup in a vigourous boil because I'd neglected to turn the heat down. That seemed to have helped, though, as the beans, while still firmer than I would have liked, were at least now edible. The escarole had come through in better shape than I had expected, too. Naturally, my mood began to rise again.
My mood has since remained high because the soup turned out to be very tasty. The onions, leeks and garlic give the broth a rich foundation for the sweetness of the parsnips and the slight heat from the black pepper. This is definitely something I'll be trying again in the future.
The texture of the beans was unappealing but that didn't detract much from my enjoyment of the meal. Hopefully after soaking in the broth overnight they'll be softer on reheating.
I think that my problem with the beans was due to a misunderstanding of the instructions. The recipe said to put the stock and the beans into the pot then simmer for 5 minutes. In other recipes I've read the wording has been "bring to a boil, then let simmer". Since this one did not explicitly specify "bring to a boil" I interpreted it to mean that I should just apply medium heat for 5 minutes, which was clearly insufficient. I've since looked up "simmer" on Wikipedia and sure enough, it says to bring it to a boil first.
And so my culinary education advances by another baby step...
Update: Apparently the paramour concurs with my assessment of the soup's taste as I keep hearing rapturous sounds from zir direction and the soup pot is now almost empty!
re: Escarole, Parsnip and White Bean Soup
Date: 2010-06-04 02:44 pm (UTC)Canned beans, now, they might only require a five minute simmer. And fresh beans, I suppose, might require a short cooking time, but other than peas, I've never seen any fresh beans in the market.
Re: Escarole, Parsnip and White Bean Soup
Date: 2010-06-06 01:05 am (UTC)The book is maddeningly ambiguous in its instructions. In the list of ingredients it says "1/2 cup dry white beans, soaked overnight (or 1 cup cooked beans)". I take this to mean that if you soak the beans overnight then you don't have to cook them.
But in the "Cook's Notes" at the back of the book the general instructions for preparing beans says that you should soak them overnight and cook them them for 30 minutes to 3 hours, depending upon the type of bean. So that might be taken to imply that you should cook the beans first before using them in the recipe.
But back in the recipe it says, "Add the beans. Simmer for 6 to 8 minutes or until the beans are almost tender." If you're supposed to have already cooked the beans, then they should already be tender, shouldn't they?
So I find it quite difficult to figure out exactly what Raichlen's intentions are.
Re: Escarole, Parsnip and White Bean Soup
Date: 2010-06-07 03:05 pm (UTC)