Soup

This soup was inspired by the cauliflower curry we regularly make at Moosewood Restaurant. The chutney makes it perfect. (See photo)

This thick, flavorful Southwestern soup comes together easily using pantry items.

This creamy vegan soup is spicy and a little sweet.

With tortellini in the freezer and dried mushrooms and a carton of broth in your pantry, you can throw together this savory, filling soup in only half an hour.

This is one of the first desserts I learned from François Payard. It’s complex in flavor yet simple in ingredients and technique. Put it in the freezer for a while until it’s so cold that it’s slushy, and serve it with assorted tropical fruits.

I’ve been exploring new ways to make chocolate soups. In particular, I wanted to find a way to remove the fat and keep a full, deep chocolate flavor, and I thought it would be interesting to contrast cold white chocolate with warm dark chocolate. I’ve succeeded in this recipe, which is a play on temperatures, textures, and techniques. A scale is essential for this recipe. You will also need a hotel pan and a perforated hotel pan, both half size. You can get these online from BigTray. The technique of clarifying the soup base by freezing and slow defrosting comes from Wylie Dufresne of wd-50 in Manhattan and Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck in England.

Working in a restaurant affords me the opportunity to learn the food cultures of many of my colleagues, who often bring home cooking to share for lunch. When that home cooking is Mexican, the dishes are sometimes flavored with chipotles or another chile, and I’ve come to crave that little kiss of heat, even in dessert. The gentle kick in the chocolate soup is tamed by the soothing chocolate-coconut foam.

I go apple picking every year, and I’m always amazed by how easily you can taste the difference between varieties right off the tree. So when I work with apples, I try to capture those flavors. This soup reminds me of mulled cider but lighter and fresher.

These ingredients all strike floral notes and to my mind are a natural combination. Raspberries contribute sweetness; champagne, acidity; rose water, depth of flavor; and the apricots, texture.

I’ve adapted this dessert from one of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s recipes. It starts with his base soup, and I’ve added the tanginess of yogurt and the toasted nuttiness of sesame for depth of flavor and contrasting textures.

Maybe I like rhubarb so much because I started eating it when I was a child; my mother’s strawberry-rhubarb pie is one of my earliest memories. And I love summer fruit soups; that’s something I learned from François Payard. So this combination is a natural for me. You need just the pod from the vanilla bean for this dessert, so if you have saved some used pods, now is the time to recycle. And you will need a whipped cream charger (see page 279) for the foam. You will have leftover consommé (which you can freeze) and foam; you simply can’t successfully foam less liquid than is in the recipe.

Muscat grapes mark the beginning of spring, and they’re a prompt for me to start thinking of new menus, new ideas, and the other spring fruits to come. This soup is designed to keep the distinct musky flavor of these grapes in its purest form. “Cape” refers to the papery husk the gooseberries are wrapped in, which makes them look like tiny Chinese lanterns.

The clam and mussel soups that are specialties of Naples and the nearby coastlines inspired this recipe. I’ve added shrimp for more meatiness and dried crushed red pepper flakes simply because I like it spicy, but they’re optional. Whatever you do, be sure to serve this with plenty of crusty bread; the broth is phenomenal to sop up.

This is something like a chunky seafood stew, but it’s lighter thanks to a bigger dose of veggies and herbs. You can make this with any fish you like in place of the shrimp.

I’m really in love with butternut squash these days and I have been finding lots of new ways to use it. Here it brightens up beef stew, which can be a bit dreary looking, turning a tired old standard into something more unexpected and elegant.

In Venice you’ll find this soup in nearly every restaurant, and every version is a little bit different. I use two kinds of beans because I like the different textures each contributes: the cannellini are creamy while the garbanzos (chickpeas) have a slightly firmer bite. The final herb sauce brightens and freshens the long-cooked flavors. You can substitute any mild white fish for the snapper, but try to keep the fillets whole as the soup cooks. I always feel if I’ve spent the money for a beautiful piece of fish, I want people to see it, not just find tiny flakes throughout the soup.

After tomato, basil, and mozzarella, prosciutto and melon just might be the most classic Italian flavor combination of all time. It gets a whole new lease on life, though, when served as a savory cold soup. The tomato contributes a bit of acidity that tones down the melon’s natural sweetness, and salty prosciutto makes the whole dish sing. If you can’t find canned San Marzano tomatoes, which are a bit sweeter than regular canned plum tomatoes, go for an organic brand such as Muir Glen.

If you love fried calamari, you’ll really like having a new way to serve squid. The soup is thicker than a cioppino but not quite a chowder, and it’s nice and light. My husband, Todd, loves this soup because it’s spicy and the calamari gives it a meaty quality. Don’t add the calamari until right before you’re ready to serve, though, or it will become rubbery.

I love the versatility of cannellini beans. I’ve puréed them to make a dip and have used them as a thickener for soups. They’ve made many appearances in salads and even pasta dishes. This time, though, the cannellini bean is the star, offering a creamy, buttery texture for the base of the soup, which perfectly absorbs the flavors of the aromatics.

I made this for an après-ski menu on Everyday Italian. It is quite hearty and the beans give it nice body without making it too thick. The whipped cream garnish is beautiful and becomes even more fragrant as it slowly melts into the soup.