Leftover Makeover: Gingered Chicken and Carrot Soup

As I mentioned in my last post, the Chicken Marie-Louise yielded A LOT of leftovers. Even after we’d had a couple more chicken dinners, I still had bucket of sauce on my hands. I hate throwing food away if can help it, so I had to figure out a way to remake this sauce into something new. Soup seemed like the quickest and easiest solution. I flipped through some books and magazines for inspiration and came up with a plan -- drawing mostly from the Carrot—Ginger Soup recipe from Cook’s Illustrated Soups and Stews, 2009.

Transforming the leftovers from sauce to soup was ridiculously easy. Basically, I just put the remaining sauce with any bits of chicken in a pot with a little butter and added a couple of cups of chicken stock and ¾ cup of milk, reserving a little stock on the side. I spiked it with 2-3 tbsp grated ginger. (I admit I used the kind from the jar) I sprinkled in the tiniest bit of cinnamon and nutmeg, a drizzle of OJ, and salt and pepper to taste. I also had a lime that needed to get used, so I added the juice and a little zest to brighten the flavors.

I allowed everything to cook on the stove over medium heat for a bit, so that the flavors could blend together. I then used my hand blender to mix the soup directly in the pot until smooth and creamy. (You could certainly use a blender or food processor to achieve the same effect. Finally, I gradually added some of the reserved stock until I got a consistency I liked, and then just allowed it simmer for a little while longer.

The picture might look pretty plain, but flavors was anything but, and it made the perfect pairing for a simple soup and sandwich supper.

If you just want the soup, without going through the whole ordeal of making the original chicken dish, you can find a very similar recipe to the one I used for inspiration on Epicurious.

Poularde pour ma mère: Chicken Marie-Lousie

When I first flipped through Bistro: Swinging French Jazz, Favorite Parisian Bistro Recipes, I was really amused to find a section of recipes based on a bistro called Restaurant Marie-Louise. My mom’s name is Marie Louise -- well actually it’s Maria Luisa, but her parents used the French version of the name just as often as the Spanish. A bit Francophilia runs through the family, and it didn’t stop with my mom, or me for that matter, so when she last came to town for a visit, this seemed like the perfect thing to make for a welcome night dinner.

Under regular circumstances this would be great make-ahead dish that could be left set and ready before your guests arrive. That was exactly my plan, except, I ran into a few issues. I had a tight schedule that day in which to run errands, grocery shop, cook, and clean before picking her up at the airport in the evening. It seemed everything was under control and on schedule, right up until I arrived home with a carload of groceries only to discover that I’d left me keys in the apartment and locked myself out. Stressed by the shortage of time and the prospect of spoiling food, I frantically called Greg repeatedly to figure out how to get a key or find out when he’d been home. I found out later that the reason I couldn’t get a hold of him was because he happened to be giving a presentation at work right then. The vibrating phone in his pocket was just a little bit distracting. Oops. When he finally got home and let me in, I was way behind schedule. I did get dinner on the table that night to welcome my mom to town, but it may have been just a little late.

Here’s the recipe:

Poularde Marie-Louise

1 tsp butter
1 tbsp oil
1 free range roasting chicken, cut into pieces, or chicken breasts
1 onion, chopped
2 lbs/1kg carrots , peeled and sliced
2 lbs/1kg tomatoes, quartered
1 fresh tarragon sprig
2 cups dry white wine
1 tablespoon tomato paste
¾ cup (6oz/185 g) crème fraiche
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

In a large sauté pan or skillet over medium heat, melt the butter with the oil and sauté the chicken and onion until the chicken is golden brown, about 5 min on each side.

Transfer the chicken to a large, heavy pot. Add the carrots, tomatoes, tarragon, wine, and water to cover the chicken. Bring the water to a boil and skim off any foam that rises to the surface. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 min.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the chicken pieces to a platter and cover loosely with aluminum foil to keep warm.

Transfer the cooking liquid and vegetables to a blender or food processor and purée. Return the sauce to the pot and stir in the tomato paste and crème fraiche. Add the chicken and simmer for 5 minutes.

Arrange a piece of chicken on each of 6 plates, spoon the sauce over and serve.

makes 6 servings

Since I was running so late, I didn’t really change much other than to add a little extra tomato paste for a smoother, more rounded-out flavor. Other than that, I just have a couple of recommendations -- mainly, give yourself a little more time than you think you’ll need. You’ll probably have to brown the chicken pieces in batches, so allot extra time for 2 to 3 batches – you don’t want crowd the pieces in the pan just to get it all done in one round.

Similarly, allow extra time for the sauce to cool before running it though the blender or food processor. In my rush to get dinner out on the table, I just transferred the hot sauce to the blender. It splashed out and splattered on me and created a hot mess. My clumsiness might have been a contributing factor here as well, but if it had been cold, I wouldn’t have gotten burned. Plus, this recipe makes A LOT of sauce, so you’ll probably have to do this batches as well. Next time, I’d also blend it all a little more for a smoother texture.

I served it all over rice to soak up the sauce. Despite all my issues in getting it prepared, the resulting dish was elegant and had complex flavors without being all that heavy.

It also makes a ton of leftovers, and while I didn’t play all that much with the actual recipe, I did have some fun remaking the leftovers . . .but that’s for my next post.

Back with Latin Flare: Sirloin Steak with Colombian Coffee Sauce

I've been gone for a long time. In the last year, G and I have done an overwhelmingly wonderful amount of traveling. G got the chance to study abroad through his business program and we took it. We packed up and headed to Australia for a few months, and admittedly, I put Cooking Off Book on the back burner in favor of writing about my travels on my other blog, Oh, Nothing Much. (And to be honest, I'm still in the middle of catching that one up as well!)

Before we headed Down Under though, our travels began last Memorial Day Weekend with a visit to my parents in Medellin, Colombia. It's a beautiful city, (you can read more about it on ONM ) and we had an amazing time. As with anything that constitutes an amazing time in my book, there was a lot of fantastic food consumed.

We had two particularly fabulous meals on that trip, one more on the high-end side of things, and one at a very humble roadside restaurant. My parents spent the long weekend shuttling us all around the region, and in the midst of jetting through the countryside, hunger set in. Rodrigo, the hotel's driver, pulled over at little joint that was anything but fancy. It's the type of place that has no walls, and the grills and stove are right there for you to see.

It is also graced with one of the most spectacular views a restaurant could possibly hope for.

Said view overlooks a lake, and that lake is filled with trout. Thus, a trout from this lake was fished out, fried up, and became my lunch. It may have been the best trout I've ever had.

My dad had a chicken stew and G had steak, all of which looked amazing. All of this was accompanied by cold beers – HEAVEN. Sadly, I can't tell you what this place was called or exactly where to find it.

Thankfully, I can definitely tell you where to get the fine dining experience – at La Cava Wine Bar at the Inter-Continental Medellin. (Full disclosure, this is the hotel my dad manages.)

Considering that it's a wine bar, our meal began with the wine – and here they make a show out of serving the wine. Our favorite waiter, Rodrigo (no, the driver isn't also a waiter. Same name, different person) brought out our wine selection and theatrically poured the vino through different aerators.

The salad course was also a show. Rodrigo rolled out a cart and custom prepared our salad in a table side service.

Not all that long before this visit, they started offering a tasting menu at La Cava. Here the chefs get to experiment and try new things. Not every “creation” – as the courses are called on the menu – was perfect, but everything was certainly very tasty and creativity ran throughout. My favorite course was a tuna dish in curry sauce. In total you get to choose four “creations,” all for about $25 US. Pretty amazing and a beautiful evening.

Medellin is very meat-centric, so every trip we eat lots of beef. To be even more specific, G eats it at as many meals as possible during the course of a trip. The thing is that the meat tastes far, far superior to the meat we eat here. Steaks aren't organic or anything, but the cows are for the most part grass-fed just because that's how it has always been done, and when you see them roaming on the hillsides they look very different than ours. They're smaller for sure, but they also look healthier than the giant galumphing elephants that the cows here have been engineered to be. You can really taste the difference.

Now, yes, I have definitely been using this post to reminisce over the food memories of this particular trip, however, that is because it also served as inspiration for G's birthday dinner last year. (And lets face it, that means that this post is only about 10 months in coming, give or take. . . so might as well be a little indulgent at this point.) With all of these happy memories floating about, I thought I'd try to infuse them into the celebration. I consulted my recently acquired copy of The Inter-Continental Kitchen (thanks parents) and found this recipe. I have to admit that, Sirloin Steak in Coffee Sauce seemed quite appropriate, so on to the cooking.


The Steaks

I had been practicing my steak skills in the months prior to this – honestly, I still am. Saveur did a Steak Issue a couple of years ago, and I'd been working on modifying their “Steak House-Style Porterhouse” recipe for my uses. It seems pretty simple in description, but getting it right takes practice – or at least it took me a few tries.

Here's basically what ya do, according to Saveur:

Rub the steaks with salt and pepper and a little canola oil. Then you get your cast iron skillet REALLY hot by heating it in the oven. When it's scalding, transfer the skillet to the stovetop and place in the steaks. Allow the first side to cook until a charred crust forms. They say 7-8 minutes. Then flip to the second side for 2-3 minutes. According their recipe, the steaks are then transferred into the oven for another 7-8 to cook until “medium-rare.” Then melt butter over top, allow the steaks to rest for 5-10 minutes, and enjoy.

This is according to their recipe. However, your steaks will only be medium-rare if you're working with really big steaks. (About 3 lbs.) If you're using steaks that are already portioned to a half-way normal size, you'll end up with deliciously buttered charcoal pucks – which is what we got the first time I tried this. Well done was an understatement. The good news is that the process is even easier. I basically just started skipping the oven step and began getting good results. For smaller steaks, just cooking them in the scalding cast iron pan seems to be more than enough. This was the process I used in preparing the steaks for this dinner. In honor of the delicious meat we always eat in Colombia, I made sure to get really good quality steaks – usually, I'll splurge for grass-fed from Whole Foods or consult our local butcher when I make this.

One more word of warning. This will create A LOT of smoke. Open all of your windows and still expect your smoke detectors to beep like crazy. I wouldn't suggest anyone else try anything risky, but we've taken to disconnecting ours whenever we're preparing steak. (ssshhhh!)

The Sauce

The sauce is pretty simple. Here's what you'll need:

• Butter
• ¼ cup packed brown sugar
• ½ cup dark rum
• 1 cup beef broth
• 1 cup brewed espresso or coffee
• ½ cup coffee liquer

In the pan the steaks cooked in, add the brown sugar and cook over medium heat until caramelized. Add the rum until it evaporates slightly and then add the beef broth. Bring to a boil and reduce by half. Add the coffee liqueur; continue to simmer until the sauces reduces and thickens slightly.

At the point, the sauce was delicious, but kind of grainy with coffee particles and char from the pan. Not all that pretty. This was easily resolved by running the sauce through a strainer. Now the sauce was delicious and elegant. Pour the sauce over your steaks and serve with green beans or greens and enjoy.

Altogether, a very simple, but decadent meal fit for a celebratory feast.

(For more pictures of our trip, including tons of food shots, check out G's photo album on flickr.)