My good friend, fellow writer and foodie, Kat Good-Schiff recently accompanied me on a trip to Boston's North End to poke around and gather ingredient for the soup below.
The North End is a bit magical in itself. Tiny cobblestone sidewalks winding up narrow streets dotted with all kinds of Italian groceries and specialty shops, home of the best, freshest you may find in Boston.
It's also cheap: Kat and I found the ingredients for two meals for 4-6 people for UNDER ten dollars. And a nice, swaggery Italian guy gave us some free celery.
For this soup, I found a base recipe online (linked here) and made it my own. Lavender adds the magic touch here, the complexity that makes this soup memorable as well as delicious.
Traipsing through the Italian shops with little old ladies, we gathered:
3 leeks, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
2 garlic cloves, diced5 small Yukon Gold potatoes, diced with skins
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced
1 cascabel pepper, dried, diced
8 cups vegetable broth (I used "Better than Boullion" Mushroom base to add an earthly flavor layer)
1 1/2 Tbsps flour (to thicken the base/make a roux)
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup unsalted butter
2 bay leaves
1 cup light cream
* a coffee filter and a bit of twine/string
Eyeballing it:
1/2 palmful peppercorns (your choice of variety; I used a mix of black, red, green, and white)
1 cupped palmful ground cumin
1 flat palmful dried culinary lavender buds
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
Go to it:
1) Mix the cumin and the lavender and crush the best you can with the back of a spoon (I couldn't find my mortar and pestle but this worked just fine). Set aside.
2) Melt the butter in your trusty soup pot over medium heat and add the leeks, carrots, celery and garlic. Soon the amazing scents of this case will be wafting all around.
3) Once your leeks are nice and soft, stir in the flour, making a roux (or a thickened base for your soup)
4) Add the 8 cups of broth, diced potatoes, cumin/lavender mixture, and peppers to your soup (I used peppers that I like, jalapenos give a nice kick without being too hot while cascabels add a rich medium heat that is also smoky. If you don't like a whole lot of heat, I recommend a poblano or even a bell pepper if your tastes are really tame.)
5) Taking your coffee filter and twine, tie the peppercorns and bay leaves up and add to the pot. Simmer about 20 or so minutes (or until the potatoes are tender).
6) Lower the heat and discard the peppercorn/bay leaf bundle. Stir in the light cream (do not boil or burn soup at this point). Season as you like.
7) Ladle into bowls and garnish with fresh chives and good friends!
Rating: 4; so good (though next time, I will use more potatoes for a starchier, thicker soup)
Taste: Light yet substantial dance of lavender and pepper.
Easy-o-meter: Very easy, mostly chopping and stirring.
Time: 45 minutes from chop to bowl.
Amazing photograph! I thought it was photoshopped until I realised what it was!
ReplyDelete"A light yet substantial dance." What a wonderful description of a flavor difficult to describe.
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