9 Essentials of a cold weather puree soup

This is a base recipe that can be applied to any number of puree soups ranging from squash to potato. A puree soup is probably my go-to soup style simply because cut consistency doesn’t matter and you can use product that’s “going bad” or doesn’t look so good and still have a fantastic product.

Puree soups can also range in flavor from a deep savory to something that is light and delicate. 

Depending on what ingredients you use, you can go in a thousand different directions. This particular recipe I used carrots. I would use this recipe with four pounds of your selected product and start branching out from there.

Onions – once these babies start to caramelize, the aroma and flavor is soul-filling. It’s a little savory and sweet, yet mellow enough to not overpower your main ingredients. The onion also adds more body to the soup. Keep in mind that if you’re going for a specific color, the onion tends to lighten the color or change it to a light brown if you allow the onions to fully caramelize.

Apple – I just started using apples in my stock and soups within the last year and let me tell you - it’s a game changer! I use whole apples for this application because the seeds and core contain a lot of pectin and if you’re making this completely vegetarian/vegan it helps with adding more body to the soup. I wouldn’t use more than one per quart batch of soup, unless the apple is one of the main ingredients.

Ginger – I love putting ginger in everything… it’s so good! Just a little nob will do. I shave the skin off with a spoon and slice it thin. Cook this when you’re cooking your onions. The flavor mellows out as it sweats out in the pan, but still gives you a nice little zip. I use this mainly in this application to add some brightness in the dark coldness known as winter.

Fat – It’s all about the selection here! I think that butter is the best selection here, but you can keep in the cold spirit and render a few pieces of bacon; or use avocado or grape seed oil. I stopped cooking with olive oil because it has a prominent flavor and it loses its integrity very quickly when exposed to heat. Remember that when you sweat the vegetables that the flavor is absorbed into the oil.

Champagne vinegar – this is another great ingredient that I’ve just started using. I deglaze the pan with the vinegar so that the flavor is absorbed into the vegetables. Once cooked down, it’s more sweet than acidic, but still adds some great dimension into the dish. I just use a little splash, no more than shots worth. I chose to use this vinegar because it adds a bit of delicacy to the soup. Other varieties a such as balsamic, apple, rice wine, and sherry add depth and tend to be a bit stronger.

Salt and pepper – It is essential that you apply seasoning throughout the various stages of cooking to get the best results out of your soup. I add a liberal amount when I’m sweating out my onions. Salt draws moisture out and allows it to be absorbed into the fat which results in the flavor being dispersed through the mixture.

Stock – If you learn anything from this post it needs to be this. The secret to any sauce or soup starts with a great stock. I highly suggest making your own stock at home. However if you don’t make your own stock, I suggest getting an organic stock with low or no sodium. The ones that do have sodium in them tend to taste super salty to me and basically rules out your own tastes. With puree soups, I suggest using a vegetable or chicken stock. The flavors tend to be more neutral whereas beef or seafood stocks contain a more prominent flavor. Experiment with different brands until you find something that suits your fancy.

Blender – Essential of anything pureed. Get a good blender with a warranty, or something of the professional grade. When you’re processing your soup, do it in small batches to achieve maximum results. Otherwise you won’t be able to get a smooth puree, or you will burn the motor out of your blender… and nobody wants that.

Strainer - One thing I am a stickler for with purees is that the whole product is blended fully and pushed through a strainer. In the restaurant industry we use a chinois, otherwise known as a fine mesh strainer; but you can just use the finest mesh strainer you can find. This creates a smooth product free of any product that hasn’t been fully cooked out. In this recipe I found the skin of apples and some carrot fibers. No one wants that garbage in their soup!

Fall carrot puree soup

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 2 hours

Ingredients:

1 large onion

4 lbs carrots (medium dice)

¼ inch ginger fresh (sliced)

1 apple (quartered then cut in half)

2 Tablespoons butter

½ shot champagne vinegar

1 ½ quarts vegetable or chicken stock

Salt and pepper to taste

Equipment:

Medium sized pot

Chef knife

Cutting board

Blender

Fine mesh strainer

Rubber spatula

Ladle or cup

Directions:

1. Place the pot on medium low heat. Once hot, add the butter and allow it to melt then add the onions and ginger. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until onions become translucent but not brown.
2. Add carrots and apple. Season with salt and pepper. Continue to cook until apples and carrots start to become tender, stirring occasionally.
3. Pour in shot of champagne vinegar. Continue to cook until the vinegar fully evaporates.
4. Add stock. Turn heat up to medium and cover. Cook until carrots start falling apart with a fork.
5. In small batches, transfer the soup to the blender and blend. Once spoon pour into the mesh strainer and push through with the rubber spatula.
6. Garnish with parsley and tarragon mixed into ricotta cheese or yogurt, lemon olive oil, cracked black pepper and nutmeg. 

Button Mushrooms

Growing up, I hated mushrooms. They were kind of slimy, earthy, and smelled of gym socks. How could anyone possibly like these things on anything? As far as I was concerned, the entire fungi industry was a conspiracy created by a bunch of whack-jobs.

Fast forward a few hundred years and I love mushrooms! They can be delicate, yet savory and crispy at the same time. You can make something as simple as a mushroom risotto and utilize the entire mushroom to the fullest. Now, since going through various fine dining restaurants and culinary school, I’ve developed a few methods for cooking them.

There are a few things you need to understand first:

Mushrooms are a fungus. Therefore they grow off of a food source, as opposed to using chlorophyll to absorb the sunlight. The mushrooms you buy in the grocery store are grown in a decaying matter and you don’t want that flavor competing with your delicate beauties. Rinse them off! I know it sounds weird, but trust me, it makes a huge difference. Let them dry out on a towel on the counter or baking sheet before executing a cooking process.

High water content. Clocking it at over 90% water, the mushroom has a lot of flavor to concentrate into one little morsel. The point of this cooking process is to extract the moisture in the most efficient manner. The ingredients I chose to use really accentuate the mushroom and allow it to conform easily to another dish or standalone by itself.

Super absorbent of flavors. As moisture escapes, it leaves a void to be filled by flavor. By filling it with fat (which is less dense than water) you are able to allow more flavor to be absorbed into the mushroom. You can mess around with different ingredients until you find what best suits your taste buds, but I find this to be an all-around winner.

Remove the stems. I’ve found that some places will keep mushrooms on the shelves for a really long time and still sell them, and then they continue to sit in the fridge for another week or so. You can’t really tell when a stem is going to end up tasting woody, and that completely ruins a mushroom more than a mushy one. So just throw it into the compost pile or stock pot.

Today I’m sharing what I feel is a fool-proof way of making those basic button mushrooms and the most delicious addition to any dish. I use them in omelets, frittatas, pizza, Stromboli, and casseroles. These also make a great addition to any stir-fry or sauté dish.

BONUS: combine with caramelized cauliflower for a meat substitute in tacos or quesadillas. It tastes and feels just like steak!

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

2 packs button mushrooms (about 2 lbs) rinsed and stemmed

30 sprigs of fresh thyme (lemon thyme preferred) or sage

Salt (smoke sea salt preferred)

Pepper (fresh ground)

½ stick butter or ½ cup garlic infused oil

Directions:

1. Cut mushroom caps into 6ths. Start with a half, and then make two cuts in the center of one half (making a “V”). The idea here is to make all the cuts roughly the same size so they cook evenly.
2. Put a cast iron or heavy gauged pan over a medium heat. Once the pan is hot, place a 2 Tablespoons of butter in the pan and allow to melt.
3. Toss the mushrooms into the hot pan. Make sure that mushrooms have about ½” of space between all of them. You may need to do a few batches to complete the whole task.
4. Throw in about 10 sprigs of thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Feel free to go a little more liberal on the salt than you usually do, it aides in extracting moisture from the mushrooms.
   
5. Move mushrooms around occasionally until all sides are dark brown, but not burnt.
6. Add more butter if you notice that the browning process is slowing down after 5 minutes or so.
7. The result will look like this once it's cooled.
   
    

Green oil

As a fair warning, the utilization of this post is for plating and finishing dishes and isn’t necessarily a staple you need to maintain. But anyway – GREEN OIL! In the professional world, we have a number of go-to color and flavor enhancing oils, of which the green variety is most used for plating accents. But if you use all herbs or scallion tops, it becomes its own flavoring agent, and the color becomes secondary.

Now, you don’t have to follow my specific recipe; however, I would suggest you follow my methodology. You can experiment by adding whatever you want to it in order to achieve the desired flavor or tint. The more you add, the more intense it becomes.

This method also blanches the product, making it greener. You can blanch in water and add to cold oil, or use this hot infusion method (which I prefer).

This oil will also maintain its color and flavor for about 3 weeks or so before the integrity starts going downhill, but it’s still good! Don’t throw it out after that point. It’s just not going to be the best product you’ve ever made, that’s all.

Anyway…

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 2 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups oil (use neutral oil like grape seed, canola, or blended for this infusion)

2 cups parsley (or herbs of your choice) chopped

1 bunch scallion greens (chopped)

1 handful spinach

1 Tablespoon salt (or to taste)

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a pot until it reaches about 150 degrees. Use your thermometer to determine the heat OR start off with a low heat and slowly bring up the temp and feel it with your finger. It should be pretty warm, but not hot when ready.
2. Once oil is hot enough, transfer to a blender.  Add remaining ingredients.
3. Blend for a solid 3 minutes, or until everything is incorporated and the mixture turns a very dark green.
4. Find a container that is more than 2 cups (the amount of liquid) that can also fit inside a bigger container that you have. Put the small container inside the larger one and surround the smaller one with ice.
5. Suspend a strainer in your ice lined container; make sure it’s supported by the large container, while being suspended above the small one. This will cool the liquid down and stop the cooking process.
6. Pour your mixture into the strainer. Push through the oil through the strainer with a small ladle or rubber spatula until the green oil remains in the small container.
7. Remove and wash the strainer.
8. Remove the green oil from the small container and transfer to another container. Return the small container to the large one.
9. Return your strainer to its previous suspended position. Line the strainer with a coffee filter. Pour your green oil into the lined strainer and let strain through for about three hours.
10.  

Garlic Confit

I recently had the opportunity to clean out my pantry and, much to my surprise, I ran into some old garlic that was going bad. Now, I hate to throw things out, so I decided to preserve them further.

In restaurant’s we have many processes that we use to both save and utilize multiple applications of the same product. The most obvious for me in this situation was to confit it.

The process of confit means to preserve in oil, or it’s on fat (when pertaining to animals). This will extend the shelf life up to a month, even if you’re working with old garlic.

If you are facing the same issue I was, simply cut the bad garlic out of the bulb when you remove the skin. Trim down any brown pieces off any cloves so the flavor won’t transfer into the oil.

This cooking process will yield you two products: garlic infused oil and slow-cooked garlic. Both of these products are really great to utilize in the kitchen. The cooking process mellows out the garlic flavor and makes it very rich and savory – not pungent at all.

I would use the oil in salad dressings and as a base in soups. My favorite thing to do is sauté my veggies in it before I add it to rice or pasta. You can also drizzle this on some bread and roast, sear, or press it to make garlic bread. Make it super garlicy and spread some of the confit garlic on there as well for good measure.

The actual remanding cloves of garlic will be light brown, a slightly roasted color. You can use this as a thickener and flavoring agent in spreads, sauces, and soups.

Fold the garlic in with some cream cheese or mascarpone cheese with onions, shallot, citrus, and herb; and you have a fantastic stuffing for a chicken or ravioli.

You can also blend this up with some marinated artichokes, sautéed spinach, and garlic oil to make a simple chip dip. Extra points if you add some chive, tarragon, and crab!

Prep time: 10-20 minutes (depending on amount)

Cook time: 20-30 minutes

Ingredients:

Garlic cloves

Fat (olive oil, grape seed oil, coconut oil, blended oil, or avocado seed oil)

Directions:

1. Trim the rough ends off the garlic; as well as any brown or green parts.
2. Place trimmed garlic into a sauce pot.
3. Pour enough fat into the saucepan to cover the garlic by at least a quarter inch.
4. Place pot on the fire and bring up to a simmer.
5. Allow to simmer until garlic is tender and slightly brown.
6. Remove from heat and allow to cool
7. Strain garlic from oil by pouring into a colander or fine mesh strainer. Make sure you have a container below the strainer to capture the oil.
8. Store oil and garlic separate in refrigeration. 

Pumpkin Puree

This is a great recipe to add to anything and make it “Thanksgiving” themed. I’ve been using this in a lot of my recipes, and will be used in my next 4 installments. It's a really great thing to have around in the house as well, think of it almost like canned tomatoes and you'll be surprised of where your creativity takes you. 

Pumpkins are a really awesome flavoring agent because it’s kind of sweet and savory, combined with the spices in the puree, it adds a great complexity to any dish.

You can also use this as a soup easily by adding a few quarts of stock and 1 cup rice and 1 cup black beans to the base recipe. Finish it with some cheese, drizzle of sour cream, herb, and toasted squash nuts. You will need to season this to taste. I’d suggest using some orange juice or apple cider as well.

Add eggs, cream cheese/mascarpone cheese, and sugar; and turn it into a pie. Put it on a cookie crust and top with whipped cream and a sprinkle of ginger powder and cinnamon. 

You’re possibilities are endless with this great flavor base. Use it for an equal substitute with canned pumpkin in any recipe to make it your own.

Pumpkin Puree

Prep time: 10-15 minutes

Cook time: 2 hours

Ingredients:

2 quarts diced pumpkin

¼ stick butter

1 bay leaf

1 stick cinnamon (or 1 Tablespoon ground)

1 clove (or 1/4 tsp ground)

½ tsp nutmeg (ground or fresh grated)

¼ tsp coriander

1 Tablespoon fresh grated ginger (or 1 1/2 T ground)

Directions:

1. Put a medium pot over the fire on medium heat
2. Melt the butter down with the spices
3. Once the butter starts to brown and the spices infuse, add the pumpkin.
4. Switch the temperature to medium-low
5. Stir mixture occasionally until squash breaks down like this
   
   
   
   
   
6. Transfer mixture to a blender and puree until smooth
7. Pass through a fine mesh strainer to make sure product is smooth
8. Return to the pot and allow reducing until it starts caramelizing (turning brown)