Black Bean Soup with Toasted Cumin Creme Fraiche

I've had a bag of Cayuga Pure Organics black beans in my pantry for quite some time waiting for the perfect use.  We do eat rice and beans on occasion, and beans certainly go in chili around here.  But it didn't seem right to use these beautiful beans in a supporting role.  I wanted them to be a star. 

Enter Smitten Kitchen and her Black Bean Soup with Toasted Cumin Seed Creme Fraiche.  She had me at chipotle pepper.  I go in waves with chipotles where I need to eat them in everything.  Alright, I lie, it's more like everything I eat could usually be made better with chipotles.  I love the smoky spiciness with just about everything.

 The other thing that made this soup attractive is that the heavy lifting is all done in the crockpot.  The beans go into pot with chopped vegetables, water, seasoning and magically turns into soup in just a few hours.  There was some discussion over at Smitten Kitchen about the different timing required by different crockpots.  Mine was just about the same as reported - 3 hours on high for well cooked beans, maybe just a bit longer. 

This soup is also very healthy and light.  To add a bit of indulgence, I decided to make the creme fraiche as well.  Trader Joe's carries a Vermont creme fraiche which makes this step equally easy.  I toasted cumin seeds and ground them in a converted coffee grinder.  Adding a good dollop of the creme fraiche gave another layer of flavor and creaminess to the soup without overdoing it. The original recipe included chopped sweet peppers which I omitted, but adding those in makes the soup even healthier!

I served the soup and its creme fraiche topping with warm (homemade) pita bread and green salad.  We also experimented with a bit of sharp New York cheddar as a different topping and enjoyed that quite a bit.

Black Bean Soup (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 medium red onions, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 1/2 lbs. dried black beans
• 1-3 tbsp. chopped chipotle pepper in adobe sauce (adjust for your preferred heat)
• 7 cups hot water
• 2 tbsp fresh lime juice
• salt and pepper, to taste

1. Pick through dried beans to remove any suspicious-looking specimens.
2. Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat.  Add onions and cook until soft and just beginning to caramelize, about 10 minutes.  Add garlic and cumin and stir mixture for about 1 minute. 
3. Transfer onion mixture to slow cooker.  Add beans, chipotle peppers and 7 cups hot water.
4. Cover crock pot and cook on high for about 3 hours, until beans are very tender (it's okay to pick up the lid and taste them in order to check).
5. Transfer two cups or more (I did about half) the mixture to another bowl and puree with an immersion blender (or use your food processor or blender). Return puree to slow cooker.
6. Stir in lime juice, salt and pepper.  Serve in bowls with your favorite topping.

Meatless Monday: Rustic Curried Butternut Squash Soup

For this Meatless Monday, I borrowed a recipe from a friend's mother, so really I should call this Mama Russell's Rustic Curried Butternut Squash Soup.  I did tweak a bit here and there; alas it is a bit of a collaboration. This recipe is wonderfully simple, although there is a good deal of chopping.  The great thing about a "rustic" soup, however, is that the roughess of the chop makes it more beautiful and tasty.

I peeled and seeded one large butternut squash - about 1 1/2 lbs.  The squash was cubed and gently steamed until tender, about 20 minutes.  The squash could also be roasted to give additional depth and flavor, although this would take a bit longer and required heating up the oven.  So the steaming is simple, more energy efficient, and keeps a clean pure taste in the squash. I then pureed the squash and set aside.

In the meantime, I melted some butter in a stock pot and added 2 teaspoons curry powder (I tried with both a West Indian and Spicy Indian blend - use your favorite and experiment!)and 1 teaspoon cumin.  Cook this briefly - 30 seconds to 1 minute.  Add 1 cup finely chopped red onion (Mama Russell does not specify type of onion), 1 tbsp minced fresh ginger, 1 large apple roughly chopped (granny smith, gala, honey crisp all work well) and 1 clove of garlic.  Sautee about five minutes, or until soft.

Once the rustic items are ready, add the pureed squash and 2-4 cups of chicken broth depending on desired thickness.  For a main dish, I used only about 2, although when I made it with 4 cups, it was a lovely accompaniment to a larger meal.  The final touch is about 1/4-1/2 cup coconut milk (another departure from Mama Russell's recommendation of cream).

Served with bread and a green salad, this made a lovely fall meal and was even better the next day.  I made this several times straight out of the pantry since I like to keep the fresh ingredients on hand generally.  I will absolutely keep this recipe on hand for rainy weekends when I don't want to leave the house for a shop.

Daring Cooks October: Pho and Dessert Wontons

The October 2009 Daring Cooks' challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen.  The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.   I can't tell you how excited I was to get started on these recipes.  I love to try recipes from various Asian cultures, but never really tried Vietnamese food on my own.  The trick for this month was to really nail the broth, and the best part is, with a good recipe, it's impossible to fail. 

We were given a short version of Pho Ga (Chicken Pho), but I went with Jaden's longer beef recipe which can be found on her website.  What makes the broth special is attention to detail.  To begin, onions and ginger are broiled very closely to the top of the oven (I used the toaster oven which may not have been ideal, but saved a lot of energy!) until they are nicely charred. This imparts some extra depth of flavor and richness.

 

While the charring is undertaken, whole spices are toasted to add an additional layer of flavor.  The recipe calls for star anise, cinnamon, coriander seeds, fennel seeds and cardamom pods.  I was tempted to add in peppercorns because for me no recipe is a recipe without garlic and black pepper.  I held back in both instances to give the recipe a shot as written.  Also, who am I to judge what a recipe for Pho needs? I've eaten it and enjoyed it, but this was the first time.

Once the spices and aromatics are prepared, they go in the pot with beef bones, fish sauce, sugar and some chunks of meat.  I must say that if I had any idea how good that simmered beef would be, I would have added three times the amount.  I used about half of what Jaden suggested mainly because I didn't get enough when I was at the butcher.  These pieces of meat were some of the best parts of the whole dish. 

I made the broth on a Saturday evening, refrigerated it and then made the Pho on the following day.  I can't say for sure that the broth was even better, but the spices and meatiness really came through once the soup was put together. Most of the work in the broth is waiting and drooling over the simmering pots, so it's silly to say that the broth makes the soup, but it really does.  The extra steps in preparing it from scratch, and preparing it this way were well worth it. 

We used all the traditional (or at least suggested) toppings for the Pho - mint, cilantro, sliced chilis (one Serrano and one Jalapeno from our garden!), bean sprouts and slices of raw skirt steak to cook in the broth.  I took Jaden's advice and made a dipping sauce of chili paste (our Sriracha had turned, so I used sambal olek instead) and hoisin for the freshly cooked pieces of beef.  Delicious. The sauces do also add additional flavor to the soup and once I had a bowl of straight soup, I started mixing a bit in. 

We got 8 good sized meals out of this challenge and easily could have stretched it for more.  I will absolutely be adding this in.  I just wish I had more freezer space to make gallons of the broth to keep around.  Such is the burden of living in Brooklyn.

The next part of the challenge was to make dessert wontons.  Jaden's recipe was for chocolate wontons, but also invited us to get creative.  I made three types of wontons in four shapes.  I made a straight chocolate wonton with 70% dark chocolate, a banana-chocolate combo, and the piece de resistance, a lemon ricotta wonton with blueberry dipping sauce.  These last were inspired by our wedding cupcakes which combined lemon curd, blueberries and lots of buttercream icing.  I struggled to be super creative, but I did enjoy the process of thinking about great combinations to put in the wontons which also turned out to be fascinatingly easy.  I nearly said fool-proof and that's probably dangerous, but as long as you don't over fill the wrappers, you can really put just about anything in them and fry them up.  I can't wait to experiment more in the future.