Fresh Tomato Soup

Is there anything more fun than the Specials board at a nice café or restaurant? For me, nice means fresh, often locally grown food put together with flair.  I love to see what the chef thinks is a good idea, based on seasonal vegetables.  Here in the tropics, many vegetables and fruits are available year round so chefs are spoiled for choice. There is no reason not to be creative.  And the best part of a trip to Singapore is that PORK turns up on the Specials board and menus!  While pork is available in Kuala Lumpur, many of the restaurants do not serve it to cater to the majority Muslim population.

Last weekend I met some wonderful friends for lunch at the PS Café in Paragon Shopping Centre in Singapore.  We were all three delighted to see that the soup-of-the-day was Tomato Bacon. We practically rubbed our hands together in glee (okay, I did) while we ordered each a bowl.  Much to our disappointment, we were informed the tomato soup was finished.  At 11:45 a.m.  Before the lunch crowd even got started.  Turns out that Tomato Bacon was Friday’s soup-of-the-day and no one at the PS Café could be bothered to erase the blackboard and add the new soup for Saturday.  Which turned out to be a very unsatisfying smoked turkey/potato. With deep sighs and eventually justified reservations, we ordered it.  Very disappointing, PS Café.  On at least two fronts.  (They never did change that board the whole time we sat there, and, fair warning, when you puree the whole pot of soup, including the turkey, the soup texture is gritty! )

But ever since then, I have been itching to make my own tomato soup.  This one does indeed have bacon, but, by simply eliminating the bacon step, it would be a delicious fresh vegetarian tomato soup.

Ingredients

Olive oil

105g or 3 3/4 oz bacon

4 cloves of garlic

5 medium ripe red tomatoes

3 oz or 85g tomato paste (half the small can or tin)

1 liter or 4 1/4 cups or almost 34 ounces of vegetable stock (fresh or made with cubes – either would work)

1/2 teaspoon of sugar

Black pepper

1/4 cup cream to serve

Method

Chop the bacon into little strips.  In a pan big enough for your soup, fry the bacon with a little olive oil.

Peel and chop the garlic finely.  Here, for the first time, I used smoked garlic which is available in many local stores, but once you get past the smoky outside, the garlic inside seemed pretty much the same as the regular raw garlic.  I was rather disappointed because the outside smelled like an outdoor campfire and reminded me of the happy Girl Scout campouts of my youth.  So go ahead and use normal garlic.

When the bacon is cooked and most of the fat is rendered, add the chopped garlic and let it fry over a low fire for just a few minutes.  You don’t want it to brown which makes garlic bitter. (If you are going for vegetarian soup, start by gently frying the garlic in the olive oil alone.  Remove it from the pan when it softens slightly.)

Meanwhile, halve your tomatoes and remove the core and seeds.  Chop the tomato into small pieces.  Set aside one chopped tomato for later.

Remove the garlic and bacon from the pan.  Or just the garlic if that's the way you roll. 

Add the tomato pieces (not the reserved one!) and give it a quick stir.

Add the liter of stock, the half teaspoon of sugar,  a few good grinds of fresh black pepper and the tomato paste to the pot.

 Allow to cook for 20 minutes on a low to medium heat then puree the soup carefully in a blender.

Add the soup back to the pot and then add in the bacon/garlic pieces and the reserved tomato pieces.   Cook for 10 minutes to allow the flavors to meld and to cook the reserved tomato slightly.

At this point, the soup can be taken off the heat and even cooled, to be served at a later time.   Before serving, gently warm the cream in a microwaveable measuring cup or in a separate pot.  Heat the soup to boiling, turn the stove off and add the cream, stirring well.   

Serve immediately.  Of course, you will need grilled cheese sandwiches or hot buttered toast on the side.  Dipping of either is not only allowed, but encouraged. 

Enjoy!

Roasted Garlicky Brussels Sprouts

Roasted Garlicky Brussels Sprouts are the best Brussel sprouts - crunchy and tender - the roasting brings out their natural sweetness, complemented by the garlic. Delicious! 

So many of the vegetables I grew up hating, I now love.  The baby green cabbages we call Brussels sprouts were one of my most hated, right up there with okra (except fried), merliton, squash, cabbage (except raw), turnips and eggplant. My mother used to make me eat these, which only increased my loathing.  I must have been about 12 or 13 when she had an epiphany.  She loved these vegetables and her daughters did not.  She finally said, “More for me!” and stopped forcing them on us.  Which, of course, opened up the window for us to begin liking them.  Go figure.

This is one of my favorite ways to eat Brussels sprouts.  If you give them a try and still don’t like them, this recipe works just as well with broccoli florets.  When my daughters are at home, I often mix the two in the pan and then they pick out the broccoli for their plates. Leaving me the Brussels.  And so the cycle continues.

Ingredients

1 1/4 pounds of Brussels sprouts

2 cloves of garlic

Sea salt

Black pepper

Olive oil

Method

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.

Drizzle olive oil on the baking pan.  Cut the hard ends off of the sprouts and cut the larger ones in half. 

Toss them in the pan, including all the loose leaves, adding another good drizzle of olive oil, until they are nicely coated.  If you need to use your hands here, please do.  I certainly did.

Spread them out in a single layer.  Sprinkle generously with seal salt and freshly ground black pepper and pop into the preheated oven.

Meanwhile grate or finely mince your garlic.

Roast the sprouts for about 15 minutes and then take the pan out of the oven and stir the sprouts around.  Add the garlic and mix thoroughly.  If the sprouts look dry, add a little more olive oil.

Roast for about 15 minutes more.  The sprouts should be nicely colored, but tender, and the loose leaves will be deliciously crispy.  Serve, making sure everyone gets some of the crispy bits.  They are my favorite part! 

Chicken Tetrazzini

As a child, I remember eating turkey tetrazzini after Thanksgiving or Christmas, the most common times we had leftover turkey.  I figured, at the time, that it was an American concoction (Who else eats turkey?!) based on an Italian pasta dish, so imagine my surprise when Spaghetti Tetrazzini showed up in Jamie’s Italy!  His story goes that he was outside his parents’ pub and an elderly couple happened by. When they heard he was going to Italy, they told him to make sure he cooked turkey tetrazzini.  He had never heard of it.  Didn’t I feel smug, having enjoyed it on several occasions?  Eventually he found a recipe for chicken tetrazzini in an Italian cookbook.

After a little research, and by this I mean a Google search culminating at Wikipedia, it turns out that the original dish is indeed TURKEY Tetrazzini and it is named after an Italian opera singer, Luisa Tetrazzini, who immigrated to the United States, making her US debut in San Francisco in 1905.  The recipe is most often credited to Chef Ernest Arbogast of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, where Ms. Tetrazzini was a long-term guest.

Wikipedia says that Ms. Tetrazzini got quite stout as she aged but she could still “act effectively, especially in lively or comic roles.”  My favorite quote: “I am old and I am fat, but I am still Tetrazzini!”  When you see how much Parmesan and cream goes into this, you will know exactly how it happened. 

Ingredients

6 chicken breasts (about 1200g or 2 1/2 lbs)

500g or 1lb of ground (minced) chicken or pork

1/3 oz or 8.5g hot Italian sausage seasonings

1 egg

Olive oil

250g or 9 oz baby portabella mushrooms or other mixed mushrooms, cleaned

Sea salt

Black pepper

6 cloves of garlic

2 cups dry white wine

2 lbs or 1kg dried linguine

14 oz or 400g Parmesan

4 1/4 cups or 1 liter heavy whipping cream

2 sprigs of fresh basil, leaves picked

Method

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 190°C.

Slice up the chicken breasts in thin pieces.  Salt and pepper them and add a good couple of glugs of olive oil.  Set them aside or in the refrigerator. 

Put your ground chicken or pork into a large mixing bowl. Add the sausage seasonings and one egg.  (Let me say at this point that I believe the sausage meatballs are tastier made with pork, if your religious sensibilities allow.) 

Drizzle some olive oil onto a baking tray. Mix your meat, egg and seasonings up thoroughly and, using a spoon or small scoop, divide the mixture into small pieces. 

This was a gift from my dear friend, Jacky. I think of her every time I use it!

Roll the pieces between your two palms until they are round.  Pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes, stirring them around once, halfway through.

Meanwhile, in a pan big enough for all of your ingredients, add a little olive oil and brown the chicken.

As it browns, slice your garlic very finely and break up the mushrooms into bite-sized pieces.   

When the chicken is browned, add in the garlic and mushrooms.  Give the pot a good stir.

Add in the wine.  Turn down to a simmer and put the lid on. 

By this time, your meatballs should be ready.   Add them into the simmering chicken and put a little of the juice from the pot into the baking tray so you can scrape the browned goodness off and into the chicken pot. 

Simmer until the chicken is tender and the wine is slightly reduced.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to package instructions and drain well.  

Add the cream to the pan of chicken and meatballs.  Bring to the boil then turn the heat off.  Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

WE ARE TALKING A LITER OF CREAM HERE, PEOPLE!

That's boiling, folks!

Add the drained pasta to the creamy mixture and toss well to coat. 

I found it easiest to use two wooden spatulas. That much pasta and sauce is heavy.

Add three-quarters of the Parmesan and all of the basil and stir again.

Pour into an oven-proof dish and sprinkle with half of the remaining Parmesan.  

Bake until golden and bubbling and crispy on top.   Serve with the extra Parmesan on the side so everyone can help herself.  (I say herself, because, you might have guessed, Chicken Tetrazzini is what my Pokeno ladies ate tonight.)

We had crab cakes and corn cakes and a lovely dip for appetizers, green beans, two salads and two desserts: pumpkin and lemon meringue pies!  We eat good on Pokeno Night!

Enjoy!