Knife Sharpening And Care With Julia Child

I find this video that I bumped into while looking for a French Onion Soup recipe on Youtube so great and charming. It's Julia Child speaking with such conviction about the knives she uses in the kitchen and the importance of using and mentaining a sharp knife. She is bothered by the kitchens she visits in wich she hardly ever finds a sharp knife. I'm so with her on that one!

Mushroom Soup

This is another adaptation recipe from Jamie Oliver's Cookbook Jamie's Dinners. In the soup chapter he gives us a mix mushrooms cream soup with at least three different kinds of mushrooms in it. It's a cream soup with some whole bits in it, too. The idea to make it came to me from the great loaf of bread that I just baked the other day. I could just imagine sinking a torn bit of bread in the mushroomy broth/cream and biting out of it!

INGREDIENTS:

• about 500 to 700 gr. mushrooms of as many types as you can find (wild ones are unbeatable in the taste dept. and porcini are the next best thing; I used two types of champignon - white and brown, and a third Chanterelle mushrooms);
• one large onion;
• few tablespoons olive oil;
• 2 cloves garlic;
• 1 inch cube butter;
• 1 liter water or chicken stock;
• salt, pepper, time, fresh parsley.

HOW TO MAKE:

Heat up some olive oil and the butter in a pan and add the onion (chopped fine). Add salt and then throw in the mushrooms cut into medium pieces (about 1 inch). Stir them around and add the finely chopped garlic cloves, salt and pepper. Stir and notice the mushrooms start to leak a lot of liquid. Add the time and cook on medium heat until the liquid has almost evaporated (about 10 minutes). Don't burn anything. Add water or stock to cover and boil another 20 minutes. 

At this point use a hand blender to cream at least half the soup. The other half or quarter of the mushrooms you put aside and add them back into the pot after blending the rest. The proportions are up to you. I personally like to feel the whole bits of meaty mushrooms in the bowl.

Bring to a last boil, taste and adjust for condiments, then turn off the heat. Now add the fresh parsley, chopped. You can serve it in heated bowls with a drizzle of good quality extra virgin olive oil over it, and maybe some sour cream. Jamie Oliver's recipe calls for two tablespoons of mascarpone cheese mixed into the soup. I thought it would make it to rich and fatty so I didn't use it.

Good bread is a must. A little toasted slice of country bread makes the perfect addition to the hot bowl of mushroom soup. Enjoy!

Soup a la Radauti

Radauti (pronounced rah:dah:utzi) is a small town in Romania, Eastern Europe. This soup is actually the lighter and "tidy"er version of another soup: tripe soup, which is very popular all throughout Romania. The main difference is that in stead of cow tripe, you use plain lean chicken breast meat.

INGREDIENTS (for a medium pot):

1 onion;
1-2 carrots;
1/4 celery root;
1 parsnip root;
1 potato;
1 chicken breast, no skin;
1 cup sour cream;
2 egg yokes;
3-4 tablespoons vinegar;
salt, pepper, soup condiment.


HOW TO MAKE:

Peel clean all the vegetables and put them to boil in a medium pot filled 3/4 with water. When I say all the veggies, I do mean all, onion left whole, do not chop. You can chop up one carrot into round little slices, but not the other veggies. Put the chicken breast meat in too, at the same time, and let it all boil for 20 mins to half an hour, skimming the foam off the top. Don't forget to salt it a little. You will adjust it later. After half an hour boil, take out everything but the little slices of carrot (if you decided to make them). The broth that resulted should be rather clear.

Cut the meat into bite size chunks and throw it back into the boiling pot. Throw the rest of the vegetables away. Let boil for another 10 to 20 minutes. In the mean time, blend together in a cup the sour cream, and the egg yokes with a little water. Add it to the soup in the pot while mixing continuously with a spoon. At the end adjust for condiments and add 3 or 4 tablespoons vinegar. Enjoy with or without more cream, a little crushed garlic or a hot pepper on the side!