Cioppino, Quick and Easy

For some reason, in addition to cold soups, summer makes me think of fish soups. I don’t know if this is because fish soups are often lighter than meat soups, or because I have spent so much time in New England that I think of summer and the coast as related, and the coast as offering all kinds of ocean-based meals.

Once, I can remember staying at a place in Maine where we managed to have lobster as part of every meal: breakfast was lobster omelets, lunch lobster salad, and dinner baked lobster.

There are numerous recipes for fish soups that start with cooking up heads and tails and shells. This can result in the same kind of rich broth that chicken feet and necks produce for meat-based stock. But during hot summer days, there are some shortcuts that result in a very tasty version of this classic Italian soup.

The recipe calls for a firm white fish, plus shrimp, and scallops. The proportions can be varied, but since shrimp get rubbery when cooked too much, it is best to have a variety of seafood. If the soup is made ahead, and there is enough other fish to give the soup flavor, the shrimp can be added just before serving.

Ingredients

3 Tblsp olive oil

2 cups finely chopped onion

2 large garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp chopped rosemary

¼ tsp dried crushed red pepper

28 oz. can crushed tomatoes in puree

2 8oz. bottles clam juice

¾ cup dry white wine

12 oz. firm white fish, cut into 1 inch pieces

½ lb. uncooked peeled shrimp

½ lb. bay scallops

1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley for serving

Directions

1. Heat oil in soup pot over medium heat.
2. Add onion, garlic, rosemary, and pepper. Cook 5 minutes.
3. Add tomatoes, clam juice, wine and bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 20 minutes.
5. Add seafood and 2 Tblsp parsley.
6. Cook until fish is opaque, about 3 minutes.
7. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Garlic toast to float on the top is a nice addition at serving time, with the remaining parsley sprinkled on top.

Lemon-Artichoke Soup: Hot or Cold?

This week was supposed to be Szechuan Carrot Soup, but when the weather settled down in the nineties, it felt like something lighter was called for, so the Carrot Soup will appear a little later.

In the freezer I found a container of Lemon-Artichoke soup. It has a refreshing tang from the addition of the lemon, it is relatively easy to make in terms of having few ingredients, and is a little unusual in flavor, all recommendations for a recipe. The result was intended to be eaten hot, but I decided to try it out cold for our guests.

Much of our idea of cold soup comes from such French dishes as Vichysoise and Jellied Madrilene. Yet I have spent two sabbaticals in France, plus numerous other visits, and have never been served cold soup. It is as though the French think cold soup is a grievous culinary error, while we may think it is the height of sophistication. Perhaps the same could be said for Gazpacho, another fine cold soup that comes from another country where I have never been served cold soup. Once native tomatoes ripen, there will be a simple recipe for that, too.

The Lemon-Artichoke soup was a big hit cold, so here is the recipe, and you can enjoy it either way: hot or cold. This is one of those soups that gets pureed, so you don’t need to chop ingredients too fine. When soups are served cold, they sometimes need additional thinning so you avoid the consistency of oatmeal. Just cleaning out the container with a little extra milk may achieve the right consistency.

2 Tblsp butter

1 medium onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, including leaves, chopped

1 large carrot, chopped

pinch of thyme

½ tsp basil

salt and pepper to taste

2 cups canned artichoke hearts, drained

4 cups chicken stock or broth

juice from ½ lemon plus skin (not grated)

½ cup cream*

1. Melt butter in soup pot. Add onion, celery, and carrot. Cover and cook until soft.

2. Add thyme, basil, salt, pepper, artichokes and stock. Bring to a low boil.

3. Stir in lemon juice and add skin. Simmer over low heat for 30 minutes.

4. Remove and discard lemon rind. Puree mixture in blender or food processor, adding ‘cream.’

5. If soup is to be served hot, do not boil.

* Unless there is leftover ½ and ½ from our daughter’s tea, or heavy cream leftover from a whipped cream dessert, when recipes call for cream, I use Fat Free Evaporated Milk. If we happen to have leftover real cream in any form, that usually calls for making a soup like Clam Chowder or Potato Leek. 

Mexican Fried Noodle Soup

Mexican Fried Noodle Soup

When our daughter was born, we had two sons, age 10 and 8, a cat, and a dog. We lived in the suburbs and I worked near home as a college teacher and administrator while my husband went off every day to practice law in the big city.

We were lucky to find a woman from Mexico to help take care of the baby. It turned out that though she had given birth to many children, she had also been a cook in a restaurant. She could concoct a dinner for 10 from one chicken, but everyone sat around the house crying from the spiciness.

She made her tortillas by hand using Masa Harina she brought from the city. In those days, ingredients like taco shells, black beans, and cilantro were exotic items in the suburbs.

She spoke no English and wasn’t quite literate in Spanish either, so we communicated in kitchen Spanish… everything in the present imperative.

Some of the special dishes she made we have never found again in any cookbook or restaurant. Mexican Fried Noodle Soup is one of those. But there are plenty of recipes for tortilla soup and I have always wondered if she made do with noodles because she didn’t have tortillas on hand, yet the result tastes different from tortilla soup. 


This is the recipe I often make when the children gather as it reminds them of so many things about their childhood at home.

(The asterisks at the end are suggestions for simplifying kitchen life.)

INGREDIENTS

2/3 16 oz. box of medium wide noodles

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 Poblano chiles, chopped*

2 cloves garlic, chopped **

Canned tomatoes, 28 oz.

4 cups chicken broth

3 cups water

12 oz. fresh spinach, rinsed and torn up

1 tsp. salt, pepper to taste

2 Tbsp chopped cilantro***

½ lime

1. Warm oil in large frying pan. Cook noodles, stirring frequently until they turn a light tan. Drain on paper towel.
2. Add onions, garlic, and chilies to oil. Cook just to soften onion.
3. In a soup pot, combine onion mixture with tomatoes, chicken broth, water, spinach, and salt. Cook for 20 minutes.
4. Add noodles, cilantro, and juice from lime. Cook 20 minutes more.

* I am nervous about making food too spicy so I tend to use Italian peppers and then add a small amount of jalapeno from a jar I keep on hand.

** Our CIA (Culinary Institute of America) trained nephew advises keeping a large jar of chopped garlic in the refrigerator.

***We keep a container of cilantro pesto in the refrigerator as the fresh kind is hard to find in our long Northeast United States winters.