Cauliflower Soup

Algernon is particularly fond of muffins; I am more than equally fond of soup. Rarely does a weekend go by where I have not made enough soup for lunch and my following breakfast. In fact, I often wake up and make soup for breakfast. Why bother with oatmeal in the morning when you can eat soup?

Of the many excellent soup recipes I have collected, a number stand out. These share all the same qualities—a few simple ingredients that in a short amount of time transform into something delicious. These soups taste far better than such few humble ingredients have any right to taste. One example is the Potato and Leek Soup in Richard Olney’s Simple French Food [1974]. Another is the Cauliflower Soup in Paul Bertolli’s Cooking by Hand [2003].

Cooking by Hand is a personal, thoughtful and truly outstanding cookbook. It shares a number of qualities with Olney’s Simple French Food and Fergus Henderson’s Nose to Tail series. Bertolli is passionate about cooking. He seeks to honor yet advance food traditions. The first section of his book, entitled Cleaning the Fresco, speaks to this theme. The cooking that makes sense to Bertolli is “food grounded in a tradition, yet enlivened by the act of greeting the process and the ingredients anew.” The recipes in this chapter include Vitello Tonnato, a poached veal loin served in a rich tuna sauce; Artichokes Braised in Olive Oil; Potato Gnocchi with Butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano; and his recipe for Cauliflower Soup.

What struck me when I first read his Cauliflower Soup recipe were its simple ingredients. The soup’s base is water. The only vegetables are onions and cauliflower (which, I learned, is rich in pectin that creates a “refined smoothness” when puréed). The only other ingredients are salt, pepper and olive oil. Bertolli says: “this soup is a good example of the austere requirements of certain foods: that the clearest expression of their flavor suggests adding next to nothing. This soup is plain but plainly good.”

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium onion, 6 ounces, sliced thin
• 1 pound 6 ounces very fresh cauliflower
• Salt
• 5½ cups hot water
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Freshly ground black pepper

Warm the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan. Sweat the onion in the olive oil over low heat without letting it brown for 15 minutes. Add the cauliflower, salt to taste, and ½ cup water, raise the heat slightly, and cover the pot tightly. Stew the cauliflower for 15 to 18 minutes, or until tender. Then add another 4½ cups of hot water, bring to a low simmer, and cook an additional 20 minutes. Working in batches, purée the soup in a blender to a very smooth, creamy consistency. Let the soup stand for 20 minutes. In this time it will thicken slightly. Thin the soup with ½ cup water. Reheat the soup. Serve hot, drizzled with a thin stream of extra-virgin olive oil and freshly group pepper.

Some final thoughts. Do not succumb to a desire to enrich the soup by adding butter or cream. The soup is perfect as is. Its flavor is clean, deep and rich; the cauliflower almost tastes roasted. I have made this soup using an immersion mixer and the results are still fine. Use extreme caution when blending hot ingredients, especially if using an upright blender. Always work in small batches only filling one-quarter or less of the jar.

Abbacchio alla Cacciatora

If you find yourself in Rome, opportunities to Bunbury abound. Tour books invariably guide you to the Pantheon, Colosseum, Spanish Steps and any number of wonderful fountains. However, you should not miss the opportunity to enjoy authentic Roman cooking.

Getting to the essence of any local cuisine is challenging. The food of a geographic region rarely evolves in isolation. Yet over thousands of year historians and food writers have described the food of Rome as simple, direct and frugal. Roman cuisine has a “pride of place” featuring ingredients such as mint, olives, breads, anchovies, eels, artichokes, celery, chicory, fava beans, tomatoes, ricotta cheese, lamb, pork and ox.

These local ingredients marry in a number of ways to form Roman dishes. Gently braise artichoke hearts stuffed with Roman mint and garlic and you have Carciofi alla romana.

Combine anchovy, garlic and olive oil and then use the mixture to dress a bitter local chicory to make Insalata di puntarelle con alici. 

Simmer pieces of oxtail in wine and tomatoes with ample celery to create Coda alla vaccinara.

If in Rome during the Easter season, seek out Abbacchio alla cacciatora. In this dish alla cacciatora means that milk-fed baby lamb cooks “hunter’s style” in a sauce of garlic, rosemary, sage, anchovies, white wine and red wine vinegar.

If you want to recreate this Roman dish here in the States, you're in luck. The following recipe for Abbacchio alla cacciatora comes from the new English-language translation of an outstanding and comprehensive cookbook from the Accademia Italiana della Cucina called La Cucina - The Regional Cooking of Italy [2009]. The Accademia works to safeguard Italy’s culinary tradition. The book’s Italian editor likens the work, which contains over 2,000 recipes, to a census of local Italian cooking. The Accademia traces all of the recipes to a specific Italian region (and often to a specific town or city). This cookbook warrants your consideration if you are looking for great authentic Italian food.

• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 tsp. rosemary leaves
• 2 anchovies, boned
• ¼ cup red wine vinegar
• 2¼ lbs. leg of lamb [milk-fed or Spring lamb, if available], cut in pieces weighing about 1 oz. each
• ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• ¼ cup dry white wine, such as Orvieto
• Salt and pepper

In a wooden mortar grind the garlic, rosemary, and anchovies to obtain a paste. Add the vinegar, a little at a time, and mix to obtain a dense sauce. Rinse and pat dry the pieces of lamb. Heat the olive oil in a pan. Season the lamb with salt and pepper and brown it over moderate heat. Stir from time to time with a wooden spoon to cook them evenly. Pour in the wine and turn up the heat; when the wine has evaporated, add the vinegar sauce. Cover and cook for 2 hours at low heat stirring often. Let the lamb rest for at least half an hour before serving; the longer the lamb rests in its pan, the greater will be its flavor. Serve hot.

Ada Boni’s Italian Region Cooking [1969], another outstanding cookbook, also contains a recipe for Abbacchio alla cacciatora with a few variations. Boni adds sage, an ingredient used in most other Abbacchio alla cacciatora recipes I reviewed. The most significant difference between Boni’s recipe and the Accademia’s is the cooking time. Both recipes call for small, even-sized pieces of lamb, but Boni cooks her lamb in sauce for 15 minutes while the Accademia cooks its lamb for 2 hours. A bit puzzling, but do not let this difference put you off. Recipes are guides and not gospels. Taste as you go. After trying a recipe once or twice you will sense what works and what does not. From experience I try the lamb about 45 minutes to 1 hour after adding the vinegar sauce.

Making Fresh Pasta

What distinguishes good from great when judging cookbooks? The factors will vary based upon personal preferences. One gauge that I use is whether the book sets a standard of excellence or scholarship in its subject area. Oretta Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta [2009] more than measures up. It has quickly become an essential volume in my cooking library. Over the coming months this book will help to guide us as we explore a range of different pasta shapes and the different techniques and dough used to make each shape.

Encyclopedia of Pasta documents “the traditional shapes of Italian pasta—the long, the short, the layered, the rolled, the stretched, and the stuffed.” Zanini De Vita is thoughtful and thorough. Each pasta is categorized and examined: what are its ingredients; how is it made; what are its alternative names; how is it traditionally served; and where is it made. She concludes each entry with additional remarks about the shape.

The book presents 310 different shapes of pasta. Some of these are familiar: fettuccine, lasagna, ravioli and spaghetti. Many other are less common: agnolotti, corzetti, garganelli and tajarin. Most of the pastas are exotic: blutnudeln (a thin flat noodle made with rye flour, wheat flour, eggs and pig’s blood) and zizziridd’ (a small cubed pasta added to bean soup).

Although Zanini De Vita overviews each pasta’s ingredients, she does not give measured amounts. For example, we learn that Fregnacce, a lozenge shaped pasta found in Northern Lazio, Abruzzo and Le Marche, is made with “durum-wheat and eggs or water”. At first it might seem that this lack of detail is a shortcoming. Not so. Encyclopedia of Pasta does not pretend to be a “recipe book”—it is a reference book. (I only wish a photograph of each pasta accompanied each entry.) But happily you can use Zanini De Vita’s book as a guide and inspiration when making fresh pasta. With a handful of dough recipes and practice, many of the pastas in the book are easily achievable.

Here are the shapes I plan to feature in upcoming posts: pappardelle, toppe, cavatelli, maccarones inferrettati and agnolotti. Each of these pastas presents the opportunity to explore a different dough and techniques. Do not be surprised if this list changes over time. (Additions are more likely than deletions.) Each time I dive into Zanini De Vita’s excellent work, I come away wanting to master another shape of pasta.