Garlic Soup: Gearing up for Cinco de Mayo

I'm not a soup eater.  Never have been.  The thought of (seemingly) everyone's favorite, the ubiquitous Chicken Noodle Soup makes my stomach go floppy, my gag reflex go on overdrive, and my feet point the other way.  So it's not at all comforting to me if someone brings me soup when I'm sick.

Now, I like gumbo just fine.  But gumbo is not soup.  Gumbo I get.  Stew I get.  Soup I shake my head at because I rarely see the appeal.

Yep.  I said rarely.  There are a handful of soups (well, there's an image...a hand full of soup) that I've come to tolerate, even like.  Creamy Tomato-Basil Soup, Tony Bourdain's Mushroom Soup from his Les Halles cookbook (heaven), an albondigas soup from Bon Appétit I recently made.  But there are two soups, it turns out, that I really, really love. 

Lime Chicken Soup, which I've blogged about before, and Garlic Soup.  That's what I said.  Garlic.  Soup.  When I first made this several years ago I thought the idea was wild (which is why I made it).  Now it seems everywhere I look, someone's making garlic soup.  Emeril has one.  New Orleans chef Susan Spicer serves one.  The New York Times has published a few.  After a little digging, I found that Julia Child made garlic soup too.   Maybe it's like shopping for a new car and falling in love with a model you never once thought about.  After you drive it off the lot you start noticing that every 3rd car on the road is your car.  And then you say to yourself...where have I been?

But this garlic soup is not quite like any I've seen.  There's a special trick to it that I'll get to later.  The recipe comes from one of my favorite cookbooks: The Border Cookbook by Cheryl & Bill Jamison.  I've tried many, many recipes from this book and have not encountered a dud yet.  Plus, the book includes recipe histories, regional differences, and numerous anecdotes.  My kinda thing for sure.

It's not soup season, but Cinco de Mayo is coming up.  So I thought it'd be a grand idea to feature this soup along with plugging my favorite Mexican/Tex-Mex cookbook.

This soup is pretty spicy, but that can be personalized.  The garlic flavor is mellow despite the fact that there are 3 heads of garlic in it.  And I LOVE the lime juice.  The lime juice absolutely makes the soup and makes me want more of it.  This is also a big reason why I love the Lime Chicken Soup I mentioned earlier. 

Maybe I should just suck on a few limes and not bother cooking anymore.

My one complaint about this Garlic Soup is that it's thin.  I usually hate thin, overly brothy soups, so the fact that I like this so much should tell you something.  It can't be considered a meal on its own...not filling enough.  I like to serve it soup & sandwich style with quesadillas (some really fine ones are coming up next week) or with my most favorite Mexican dish, Chiles Rellenos.

Mise en place for Garlic Soup: Garlic--which will be roasted, olive oil, onion, cumin, chipotle pepper(s), salt, chicken stock, lime juice.  Evaporated milk can also be added to help thicken the soup.

First, the garlic has to be roasted.  See how to do that here. 

Once the garlic heads cool enough to handle, squeeze the garlic from the skins.

I really want to spread this on toasted bread.  But I also really want garlic soup. 
Now I really want a bowl of garlic soup topped with garlic-smeared bread.
How's about a kiss?

Heat olive oil in a pot.  While the oil heats, slice the onion.  Sauté the onion in oil until some color develops and the onion softens.

Place the roasted garlic and the sautéed onion in a blender--I like to use the gadgets my immersion blender came with.  Puree away.

This would be so good added to mashed potatoes or potatoes au gratin.  Heck, it'd be good added to just about anything.

Now here's the trick.  Don't screw it up or your soup won't be as good as it could be.

Heat additional oil in your pot.  Make sure it's hot and sizzling.  Very carefully, pour the puree into the hot oil.  It will splatter.  It needs to splatter.  That means the oil is hot enough to "fry" or brown the puree...and that my friends is Secret #1.

Stir the mixture around for a few minutes.  Don't be afraid to let it take on some color.  That's part of what makes this soup good.

Next, add the chipotle pepper(s), cumin, and salt.

We like spicy food.  I use 1 chipotle in adobo and we think that's plenty.

Pour in the chicken stock and simmer for 40-45 minutes.

The Border Cookbook mentions a regional variation for this soup: adding half & half.  I use evaporated milk, about 1/2 c.  I like to do this because I think it helps give the soup a bit more body.  I add it near the end of cooking--maybe about 15 min. before serving.

Next comes Secret #2: the lime juice.  Add it right before serving and don't skip it.  
Even if you think eeew...that's weird. 
Hey, you're making a soup made out of 3 whole heads of garlic.  Why shy away now?

I promise you, this little acidic flavor boost will make your mouth water and make you come back for more.  And more.

Serve it up alongside quesadillas, enchiladas, or your favorite Mexican food. 

Food on Friday: Garlic @ Carole's Chatter

Want a printer friendly version of the recipe?

Garlic Soup

adapted from The Border Cookbook

3 whole heads of garlic

2 tbsp olive oil, plus more to drizzle over garlic heads

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

8 cups chicken stock

1-2 dried or canned chipotle peppers (2 were very spicy)

½ tsp salt, or to taste

½ tsp ground cumin

juice of ½ to 1 lime (don’t skip this—it really adds something)

Preheat oven to 400. Place whole heads of garlic in a small baking dish and drizzle with olive oil. Bake until very soft, for about 45 minutes. When the garlic is cool enough to handle, squeeze the garlic from the skins and reserve.

Pour 1 tablespoon of the oil into a large saucepan or Dutch oven and warm over medium heat. Add the onion to the oil and sauté until softened and browned in spots. Transfer the mixture to a blender along with the roasted garlic. Puree, adding a little stock if necessary, to blend the mixture.

Add the remaining oil to the saucepan and warm over medium-high. When the oil is hot, pour in the blender mixture, being careful of any splatters. Sauté until it just begins to dry out and color. Add the rest of the stock, chipotle, salt, and cumin, and reduce the heat to medium. Simmer for 40-45 minutes, remove from the heat, and add the lime juice.

Note: one regional variation is to add half and half or evaporated milk to the soup before simmering. I like to add about ½ c evaporated milk during the last 15 minutes of cooking. I think this helps give more body to the soup.

A Cheesy 70s Dessert w/ a Cheesy 70s Name

Purple Passion.  When The Boy asked what we were eating, I almost decided to change the name.  How could I say Purple Passion to my child and keep a straight face?  How can I say Purple Passion to anyone with a straight face?

He gave me the look.  Oh, you know the one.  The "sigh...you are a weird and crazy lady, but you are my mother so I have to put up with it" look.

He might have given me the look, but he darn well ate all his Purple Passion.

Purple Passion (really, I can't even type this title without snorting and shaking my head) is a frozen dessert made with condensed milk and grape soda.  Real health food I'm talking about here. 

My mother-in-law always used grape soda...so she made Purple Passion.  The first time I had this at her house she told me that any flavor of pop could be used.  So I asked if strawberry soda was used, would the dessert be called Red Passion?  She looked at me like I was an odd duck (I get that look a lot now that I think about it) and said, "Hmph.  Well, no.  It would be Strawberry Passion."  Of course it would.  Red Passion would just be ridiculous.

Mother-in-law has made this for years and years...since The Husband was a child...in the 1970s.  She typically served it as a dessert when we had BBQ.  Father-in-law would BBQ pork steaks or chicken and some kind of sausage.  Mother-in-law would make her famous potato salad, passed down from her mother, and Bush's BBQ beans with extra brown sugar.  And Purple Passion for dessert.  This was always the menu for BBQ.

Purple Passion is sweet.  Intensely sweet.  But I think that's why it went well with Father-in-law's BBQ.  He always used a tangy, savory local sauce: Jack Miller's.

So if you ever feel the need to relive the 1970s on a sugar high...

This would be an easy recipe for kids.  
Summer's coming up and they'll be looking for something to do.  And eat.

2 L bottle of grape soda (or other flavor) and 1 can of condensed milk.

That's all you'll need.

Mix the two together.  A whisk works well to get the thick condensed milk incorporated.  Pour into a freezable container.  A 13 x 9 pan would be great for this.  Long and shallow works best.
Far out bubbles, man.

Are ya feelin' the passion yet?
Nope. Me neither.

Treat this like granita.  Freeze for an hour, scrape the slush with a fork.  Repeat the scraping every hour so that the mixture has a fluffy texture and isn't just one big purple ice cube. 
Should take 5-6 hours total. 

If you forget and the mixture solidifies too much, don't worry.  There's opportunity for a do-over.  Thaw a bit and scrape to get that fluffy texture back.

Excuse me while I crank up Brick House and eat a dish of Purple Passion.
Groovy, baby!

Linked with:

Here's where I usually have a recipe.  But is there really a need for a recipe?

Mix 2 L of soda with a can of condensed milk.  Freeze, scraping with a fork every hour for about 5-6 hours.  Serve, then see a dentist.

Spring Carrots...not just for Easter Bunnies

The smell of carrots makes me think of Spring.  I don't mean carrots cooking on a stove.  I mean the scent of the plant itself...a very distinct aroma when your fist crushes the leaves as you pull a carrot out of the soil.

Most plants have their own distinct aroma, especially when the leaves are crushed.  In fact, scent is one way to identify plants--which can be tricky when flowers are absent.  If you closed your eyes and someone handed you a mint leaf to crush and sniff, you'd know what you were holding without having to peek.  Marigolds and tomato plants also release a distinct scent if you brush up against them.  Neither are pleasant in my opinion.  Something about the secnt of marigolds makes me think of stink bugs.  And while the scent that tomato plants release reminds me of summer, I still don't want to make purfume out of it.

I associate the scent of carrots with Spring because that's the time of year when my brothers and I tugged at them, pulling them out of neat rows, prying them from the grip of dark, rich alluvial soil.  I think I've mentioned that I come from gardeners. My great-grandpa had a huge garden that took up an entire lot. My grandma gardens--packing much of her tiny yard with hibiscus, ferns, tomatoes, and hot peppers. My dad gardens too. He expands his garden each spring since he doesn't have to leave a play area in the yard anymore.  Sometimes the carrots didn't always have that nice straight tap root like grocery store carrots.  Often they were forked and crooked or twisted.  As a kid, I liked them better that way.  It was fun to see what kind of mutant carrot would be pulled up next.  And (I probably don't have to say this) freshly harvested carrots are a million times better than store-bought.  Crisper, crunchier, sweeter, dirtier.  Ummm...it can be hard to wash all the garden soil away.

My brothers and I were like little bunnies nibbling our way through the garden.  Carrots were a big grazing item for us.  It was easy to pull up a carrot, wash it off, pinch off the thin, straggly end of the root with thumb and index finger, and have a quick snack without having to go inside.  Because sometimes going inside for a snack ran the risk of being told "it's time to come in anyway."  Outta sight, outta mind was our motto.

I've always liked raw carrots, but never had a taste for them cooked.  Mom tried all sorts of things (except roasting them, which I've decided that I like) but all the various intrpretations of boiled carrots never caught on with me.  I preferred the bunny way.

But the recipe below for Zippy Glazed Carrots is something I can get into.  Probably because the sweet and tangy sauce is the dominant taste rather than the cooked carrots. 

This is a little different than the typical glazed carrots because of the mustard.  It adds a surprising little twist.  The glaze reminds me of the glaze on baked ham (the only part of a ham I eat).  The recipe comes from one of my favorite cookbooks: Talk About Good, published by the Junior League of Lafayette, LA.

Linking with:
Food On Friday: Mustard @ Carole's Chatter

Mise en place: carrots, butter, yellow mustard, brown sugar, salt, parsley (optional)

First, the carrots need to be cooked.  Boil, simmer, steam, whatever you like.  Cook them until they're almost as tender as you'd like...they'll cook a bit more later.
Be sure to drain well.

Melt butter in a skillet.  Stir in the brown sugar, mustard, and salt.  If you like a sweeter sauce, decrease the mustard or increase the sugar.  If you like a tangier sauce, do the opposite.  See how easy I am?
When the mixture bubbles, add the cooked, drained carrots.

Cook for about 8 minutes, stirring constantly.  Sprinkle with parsley if you want.  Serve.

Want a printer friendly version of the recipe?

Zippy Glazed Carrots

from Talk About Good (with very minor changes)

2 T butter

1/4 c brown sugar
2 T prepared yellow mustard
1/4 tsp salt
7-8 large carrots, peeled, sliced, cooked, and drained
1 T chopped parsley (optional)


Cook carrots anyway you'd like, such as steaming or boiling/simmering.  When the carrots are almost as tender as you'd like, drain and set aside.  They can even be cooked ahead of time.

Melt butter in a skillet. Stir in brown sugar, mustard, and salt. If you prefer a sweeter sauce, reduce the amount of mustard or increase the sugar.  If you want a tangier sauce, reduce the amount of sugar or increase the mustard.

When the mixture bubbles, add cooked carrots.  Cook for about 8 minutes, stirring constantly until heated through and glazed. Sprinkle with parsley before serving, if desired. Serves 4.


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P.S.  We'll be moving to a new house over the next couple of weeks.  I have some posts scheduled to go, but if I don't visit or comment on your blog it's because we don't have internet service at the new house yet.  It isn't because I don't care!

Everything's Just Porky

Way back before Mardi Gras I promised a boucherie.  Specifically, I promised pictures.  But then my Cajun Mardi Gras post kept stretching longer and longer.  I didn't want people nodding off or worse--unfollowing me.  Then came Lent.  Posting about all that porky-packed fun seemed cruel and inappropriate.

So, darn it, the time is now.

First, let me explain the term boucherie (boo-sha-ree) in case you aren't familiar.
(I'm totally ripping copying & pasting this from an earlier post I did)

A boucherie is a communal event that centers on butchering a hog. Traditionally, this occurred in cooler months because of a lack of refrigeration. Many families were involved--some relatives, some neighbors, and everyone shared the spoils so they didn't spoil. The event rotated among families so that each family had a pig butchered. One butchering lasted the entire day. Nothing was wasted..."everything but the squeal" as they say.

The blood was drained and collected to make boudin rouge (red boudin). The head was saved to make fromage de tete (hog's head cheese). The stomach was cleaned and stuffed with pork sausage to make ponce. Intestines were cleaned and used to make boudin (both boudin blanc--white boudin, or what's just known as boudin and boudin rouge)...one of my favorite results of a boucherie. A couple of other favorites of mine are tasso (a smoked pork used for flavoring), and cracklins--fried and seasoned pig skin with a little bit of fat left on.
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My town holds an "Old Tyme Boucherie" the Sunday before Mardi Gras.  A local slaughterhouse (we call it "The Slaughterhouse") donates a hog.  A semi-local TV personality (semi-local b/c we're too small to have our own TV station) MCs.  Local businesses provide food samples like hog's head cheese and boudin.  Miscellaneous groups set up tables, booths, or cook wagons to demonstrate what goes on at a boucherie. 

A group we belong to makes cracklins and pork stew at the boucherie.  This year we opted not to go to New Orleans for the big parades, and stay and help with the Boucherie.  So yours truly got to learn how to make cracklins!  It was fun and I learned a ton from well-seasoned pros.  But I did create quite the stir when I stepped up to the cooking vats to try my hand at cracklin-makin. 

I heard things like, "Awww, cher, you sure you want ta do dat wit all dat hot grease?"  I was too dense to know that this meant: step away from the cracklins and get back in the cook wagon, you evil wench.  It was not about my safety.

Rules I didn't know: The men cook the cracklins and pork stew outdoors.  The ladies stay in the cook wagon seeing to the indoor food items and serving the food.

Well, I'm no lady (poor mom tried her hardest).  I wanted to learn the outdoor stuff. 

So what's involved in a boucherie?

First you need a pig.  THIS was truly the highlight of the day for me.  Seriously.  Seeing someone walking downtown with a pig draped across him...I loved it!  I mean, how often do you see that?

I think for the sake of not grossing out the general public, city coordinators opted for the pig to be delivered sans hair and blood.  Normally those two things would have to be dealt with.  The hair would be shaved off and the blood drained.  The drained blood wouldn't be wasted...it would be collected to make boudin rouge--a blood sausage.

The pig was laid out on a table and lots of people swarmed to take pictures.  I'm glad I wasn't the only weirdo taking pictures of a dead, naked pig.

The things I do for ya'll!

Smile purty, porky!

A couple of people from the slaughterhouse demonstrated how to butcher the pig.

One table was set up for demonstrating how to make boudin.  Boudin is something I wouldn't touch as a child.  But I've come to love it.  Boudin is a sausage that traditionally was stuffed into cleaned pig's intestines (nothing wasted).  It's a pork sausage that also contains rice, seasonings, green onion, and often liver.  I've heard it described as a rice dressing or dirty rice mixture packed into a casing.  I guess that's pretty fair to say.  The best way to eat it is with your hands, using your teeth to "pull" the mixture out of the casing while using your fingers to squeeze it out at the same time.  A lot of food magazines and such will tell you that it can be eaten on crackers or smeared on bread.  I'm here to tell you a big ole' NO.  Locals don't do this.  We eat it with our hands, usually in the car b/c we can't wait to get it home.

Sometimes the boudin mixture is formed into balls, dusted with breading, and fried.  This is what we call boudin balls. 

Everyone has their own boudin recipe, which makes it fun to sample it from all the little shops up throughout Acadiana.

Grinding the meat

The meat will be mixed with rice, various seasonings (depends on the maker), green onion, and stuffed into a casing. 

Stuffing the casing 

In the interest of time and demand, plenty of boudin was made ahead so people could purchase samples.

There was another table devoted to fromage de tête, or head cheese.  I wasn't able to get pictures because they were too far away and I was actually supposed to be volunteering, not scoping out blog fodder.  Hog's head cheese is no cheese--it's a jellied meat.  I don't know which description sounds worse.
Would you like some hog's head cheese? 
How about some jellied meat?
See what I mean?

This is another item I would never eat growing up.  My grandpa did and it gave me the heeie-jeebies (which are much worse than the willies).  But I was a big girl this time and gave it a try.  And it was gooooood.  Oh my gosh, it was good.

Traditionally, hog's head cheese was made with the head, feet, and maybe the ears.  That's not always the case now.  Since heads aren't easy to come by, not all modern recipes call for it.
The pig parts are slowly cooked with onions, celery, and seasonings.  What results is a gelatinous mixture that is formed into pans (like a terrine), sliced, and eaten in numerous ways, such as on grits.

Another group sold samples of and demonstrated how to make backbone stew, which is exactly what it sounds like.  Again, nothing goes to waste.

Our group also makes pork stew, but not with the backbone.  We make a roux-based stew with chunks of pork meat, carrots, onions, and potatoes.  Served over rice, of course.

Some of the men cooking the stew

But I have to say, making cracklins or grattons was my favorite. 

Cracklins are crunchy little snacks that are strata of pork skin, pork fat, and pork meat.  They are cut into bite sized pieces so that each piece has a layer of skin, fat, and meat.  They are fried and seasoned with various seasoning blends (like Tony's).  They are usually eaten with your hands right out the bag you bought them in.  They are best when hot and fresh...not so great once they cool off.  But since nothing is wasted around here, past-prime grattons could be added to corn bread batter.

First, you start with lard heated in a large pot of some kind.  Then the cracklins are added. 

They're stirred with large paddles to make sure they cook evenly. The paddles are also used to scrape the bottom of the vat, making sure nothing sticks.

The cracklins cook for about an hour.  I was surprised it took that long.

It was hard to wait, yeah. 

But pigs don't tell time, especially when they're being fried in hot lard.  The cracklins were continually checked to see if they had small craters on the surface.  That meant they were ready to be scooped out and drained.

Then they're seasoned.  Everyone has their own top secret spice blend.  I wasn't privy to the recipe.  Remember...I was barely allowed to touch the paddles.
(note: I exaggerate...the men folk warmed up to me being on their turf and even started joking around with me as if I belonged.)

After we all stood around and participated in a bit of quality control, the last step was weighing and bagging them, then selling them to the long, long line of people waiting. 

A porky fun time was had by all.

Epilogue:
Several weeks later, we drove up to the Louisiana Arboretum to go hiking.  There was a vehicle up ahead of us moving slowly.  When we caught up, this is what we saw:

There are actually two hogs--the black one up front and another behind it.  Looks like these guys are on their way to a boucherie.  That old bathtub factors into it too.  Make no mistake, they have a system down.