East Indian Cauliflower Soup, Gobi Ka Shorva

Cauliflower is just beginning to arrive in our farmer’s market. For this recipe, you can use either white or yellow cauliflower, but the purple will be a strange color when mixed with the colorful turmeric spice. This is a deeply satisfying vegetable soup, which I found in a little Indian book about spices by the Indian food expert, Madhur Jaffrey. I used my food processor, with the plunger off, to pureed the soup before adding the cream. (I asked Santa for a hand held immersion blender so that my creamed soup making will be less messy going forward.) This soup is especially beautiful and delicious with the cilantro mint chutney swirled in as a garnish but equally delicious without it. If you want to increase the heat/spice, you can add Rooster Sauce, Sriracha hot chili sauce.

Cauliflower Soup with Coriander

Gobi Ka Shorva

From Madhur Jaffrey’s Spice Kitchen

This soup maybe made ahead and reheated but do so over low heat. If you boil the soup after adding the cream it will curdle.

INGREDIENTS

to serve 4-6

3 Tablespoons vegetable oil

2 med onions peeled and chopped

1” piece of fresh ginger, peeled and cut into fine slivers

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

1 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander

¼ tsp turmeric

1/8-1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

½ lb potatoes (2 med) peeled, and cut into ½ inch dice

½ lb ( 2 heaping cups) cauliflower flowerets

7 cups (1 qt+3 cups) chicken broth

salt to taste

1 cup heavy cream

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat the oil over fairly high heat in a large stock pot. When hot, put in the onions, ginger and garlic. Stir fry for about 4 minutes or until the onions are soft and starting to brown.
2. Add the cumin, coriander, turmeric and cayenne. Stir once and add the potatoes, cauliflower and chicken stock.
3. Stir and bring to a boil, cover and reduce the heat to low. Simmer gently for 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.
4. Put batches of the soup in the blender. Do not over fill the blender, (only fill to 1/3) because the top will pop off due to the heat of the soup.

Return the soup to the stock pot and add the cream. Reheat gently.

Serve with Cilantro Mint Chutney see recipe below, stir a spoonful of chutney into soup right before serving, or with chopped fresh cilantro on top. Makes ½ cup.

1 cup packed fresh cilantro leaves

½ cup packed fresh mint leaves

2 Tbsp minced onion

a pinch of salt

¾ tsp sugar

1 ½ tsp fresh lime juice

3 Tbsp plain yogurt

Process all the ingredients in a blender or food processor, until smooth. Scrap down the sides halfway. Can be refrigerated for a day.

Polish Wild Mushrooms and Barley Soup

It’s definitely soup making and eating weather. It dipped down to the 20’s last night, so I’m sure the local citrus farmers are nervous. We had lots of frost this morning which lead me to finding a heart warming and satisfying soup. I’m trying to eat down the cupboards and freezer this winter break, so when I found a bag of Polish dried wild mushrooms I knew what to make. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, you can follow the usual soup making steps: sweat the aromatic vegetables in oil (celery. Carrots, onions, garlic), add the rest of the ingredients, bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook until the broth is a rich dark brown and the mushrooms and other vegetables are soft, about 1 1/2 hours.

Pressure Cooker Barley and Mushroom Soup

From Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure

18 minutes at high pressure

This is a hearty soup with both fresh and dried mushrooms. My version was very deep and rich, almost beefy, because I used imported Polish borowik dried mushrooms, that were a gift from my adopted Polish family in Chicago. You can also used dried shiitaki or Porcini.

Serves 6

INGREDIENTS

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp minced fresh garlic

2 cups coarsely chopped onions

OR thinly sliced cleaned leeks, white and light green parts

6 cups boiling water, home made vegetable or chicken stock

½ cup pearl barley

½ lb fresh mushrooms, sliced or quartered (Cremini brown are a good choice)

generous ½ cup (1/2 oz) sliced or chopped dried mushrooms

soak the mushrooms for 15-20, save the soaking liquid

2 lrg carrots, peeled and diced

2 lrg celery ribs, diced

2 large bay leaves

1 ½ Tbsp dried dill, or 3 Tbsp fresh dill

salt and pepper to taste

optional: 2 Tbsp of dry sherry

garnish with fresh dill

DIRECTIONS

Heat the oil in the pressure cooker. Saute the onions or leeks, and garlic for about 1 min. Stir constantly.

Add the stock and all the other ingredients.

Lock the lid in place. Over high heat, bring to high pressure and cook for 18 minutes. Allow the pressure to drop on its own.

Remove the lid and discard the bay leaves. Taste and adjust the seasonings. I added about 2 Tbsp of dry sherry to bring out the mushroom’s earthy flavors. This soup will thicken up as it sits due to the barley. Thin as desired. Garnish with fresh dill. Great with open faced cheese toast.

Holiday baking is all about sugar cookies, frosting, sprinkles and 4 year olds!

Last night my friend Ainsley and I made Alton Brown’s sugar cookies, complete with Royal Icing frosting and lots of colored sugar and sprinkles. It was Ainsley’s first cookie cutter experience and she proved to be a natural pastry chef.

I also made some miniature bee sugar cookies. Instead of icing, on these I used an egg white wash and sprinkled on jimmies and colored sugar before baking. Alton’s advice of using powdered sugar instead of flour for rolling out the dough was fantastic and these buttery little bees were delicious. My nickname is ‘the busy bee’ so I couldn’t resist this new cute cookie cutter (although I have about 30 or more other shapes). I’m still buzzing around in the kitchen making the winter soups and even candied orange and grapefruit peel, so watch for more postings while I’m on winter break from my regular classroom and culinary duties.
Stay well, eat well and bee well!

Sugar Cookies
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown Makes about 3 dozen-2 1/2 inch
Ingredients
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tablespoon milk
• ¼ tsp vanilla
• Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough
Directions
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Place butter and sugar in large bowl of electric stand mixer and beat until light in color. Add egg and milk and beat to combine.
Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl.
Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Sprinkle surface where you will roll out dough with powdered sugar.
Remove 1 wrapped pack of dough from refrigerator at a time, sprinkle rolling pin with powdered sugar, and roll out dough to 1/4-inch thick. Move the dough around and check underneath frequently to make sure it is not sticking. If dough has warmed during rolling, place cold cookie sheet on top for 10 minutes to chill.
Cut into desired shape, place at least 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat, and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking time.
Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to complete cooling on wire rack. Serve as is or ice as desired.
Store in airtight container for up to 1 week.

Christmas cookies made from local pistachios, yummy!

I am very luck to have friends, the Orandi family, farming pistachios locally. My freezer had a large container of shelled unsalted pistachios that I saved for Christmas baking. The vibrant green natural color of the nuts, especially when chopped or ground, makes them prefect for the season. The Pistachio Icebox Cookies are a recipe my Mom has been making for several years. I really like ‘icebox’ dough because I can make the dough one evening and bake them the next day. The Brownie Thins with Pistachios, are from Bon Appetit’s Andrew Schloss of Homemade in a Hurry. These are very chocolaty and makes 24 cookies. They would be great alongside premium vanilla ice cream for a quick beautiful holiday dinner party dessert.
Happy holidays from the Seasonal Table ‘chef Debb’!

PISTACHIO ICEBOX COOKIES

INGREDIENTS
2/3 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp almond extract
2 cups AP flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ cup ground shelled pistachio nuts
optional: 2-3 drop green food coloring
1 egg white beaten
1/4 cup + chocolate jimmies

DIRECTIONS
Cream together butter, sugar, egg and extracts.
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt, then add to butter, sugar mixture.
Take out 1 cup of dough and add nuts and green coloring; mix well. Form into 11-12” long roll. The roll should be the same length as the rectangle or butter dough that will cover it. Wrap this in waxed paper.
Roll out the remaining dough to form a 11-12”x4-1/2” rectangle; Wrap in wax paper and chill in the frig, with roll about 1 hour.
Encase the pistachio green roll with the uncolored rectangle. Carefully mold the dough, covering green completely. Wrap roll and refrigerate overnight or freeze.
To bake: Brush outside of roll with beaten egg white and roll in “jimmies”. The easiest way to do this is placing the Jimmies on a wax paper sheet, rolling and gently pressing them into the sides of the egg washed roll.
Cut into 1/8-1/4” thick slices and place 2” apart on ungreased cookie sheets on parchment paper cookies sheets. Bake in 375F oven 8-10 minutes.