I used to cook all the time when my boys were little. I was a stay-at-home mom and kept my family well-fed. But somewhere along the way I lost interest, time, and talent. Hub does most of our cooking. I'm good at heating things up that come in containers from Costco. Also I'm good at ordering in restaurants.
But today I made a pot of soup -- a recipe shared by a BFF who is a wonderful and creative cook. Since the list of ingredient wasn't too long and I already had most of them I thought I'd give it a whirl. I mean, it's only soup, right? Here goes:
Hungarian Mushroom Soup.
I decided to double the recipe. If I was going to all the fuss, I wanted it to last awhile. First you chop up a bunch of onion. I eyed the under-utilized food processor I bought at some point thinking it would make me a better cook, but I decided it was too much of a pain to assemble so I commenced to chopping the old-school way -- by hand, with a big knife. Pretty satisfying except for the tears. I started to sauté for 5 minutes while chopping the mushrooms. But first you have to clean them and that takes while so I turned off the heat on the onions.
About 30 years ago I was told you have to peel mushrooms to get them really clean, so that's what I've mostly done all these years, keeping my family safe from forest dirt and wild animal poops. But noting the two pound container on my kitchen counter, I decided to Google cleaning mushrooms and guess what??? You don't have to peel them! You can clean them with a wet paper towel, a mushroom brush (advanced kitchen gadgetry), or use the "rinse and shake" method. I started out with the paper towel and did about ten of them, but could tell I'd go through a whole roll of paper towels and it would take about half my remaining lifetime to do the job, so I defaulted to the rinse and shake and had a pile of clean mushrooms in no time. I sliced them. Very satisfying. What is it about the texture of a baby Portabello?
I was ready to sauté the mushrooms, but remembered I had not finished sautéing the onions, so I did that then threw the mushrooms in with the onions to cook.
As I watched the mushrooms sautéing, suddenly it seemed like there weren't enough onions in there. Oops, forgot to double the onions. So I chopped some more, sautéed them separately and then threw them in with the mushrooms and first batch of onions. This part seemed to be taking forever, so as they mixed and mingled, I decided to get started on making that fancy roué.
Butter, flour, milk. How hard can that be, right? Well, turns out it's a little tricky and takes, like, forever to get a nice creamy mixture. I didn't have quite enough milk, so I added Half 'n Half because in my book you can't go wrong with additional milk fat. Many, many minutes later I had a passable roué to add to the onions and mushrooms, so I dumped it in feeling very happy with my effort. But the soup wasn't very soupy and seemed to be of lesser quantity that I'd expected. Plus, when was I supposed to put those spices and flavorings in that I'd hunted through my cabinets for?
Oh shit! I forgot to actually make the soup stock part! BEFORE adding the roué I was supposed to add chicken broth and spices/flavorings and simmer all that for 15 minutes. Hmmm….
There was nothing to be done now but to just add it all in after the roué. So I dumped in the chicken broth and grabbed the dill weed and measured out double the amount in the recipe and dumped it in. Wow, that looked like a lot of dill! Double-checking the recipe revealed that it wasn't tablespoons, but teaspoons! That is so easy to miss, isn't it? But I figured when all was said and done the doubled teaspoon amount was about equal to the doubled tablespoon amount I'd dumped in. No harm, no foul. In with the rest of the spices, (soy sauce, salt, pepper, paprika), but skipping the optional anchovy paste -- not stocked in my paltry pantry. Then I was to simmer the whole thing, but for how long? I'd already messed up the simmer schedule of 15 minutes before roué and 15 minutes after. Decided to wing it.
I turned the heat to low and waited. And waited. How long does it take to get a big pot of soup up to simmer? All day???? I kicked the heat up a notch. Waited. OK, maybe a bit more heat? Up a notch more. Then I thought, "I'll just take a moment to see if the mail is here, while I am waiting for the soup to simmer." It was! I stood in the living room, thumbing through Yoga Journal when I remembered the soup. It had only been a few minutes, but it was at a rolling boil! Yikes! Well, a few minutes of boiling likely equals 15 minutes of simmering, I thought. Turned off the heat.
I tasted the soup and in spite of the cook it's pretty yummy, if a bit on the dilly side. I'm just going to rename it Hungarian Paprika-Dill Soup.
Really, I shouldn't wander too close to the stove, but when I do, what I say is: "What happens in my kitchen, stays in my kitchen."
At least, that's the view from here... ©
You cook just like I do! By the way, according to Google if you put too much dill in a soup you can add a little sugar to calm it down. I was introduced to the what-to-do-when-you-screw-up-cooking research early on---in high school---when a home economics class gave us a chart. Now, things like that are easy to research and it has saved me many times.
ReplyDeleteI laughed about your milk and half-and-half swap. I have often used Italian sweet creme Coffee Mate for milk because I always have the latter but not always the first. My most recent experiment was in scrambled eggs and it was a pretty a pretty good swap.
Thanks for the sugar tip, Jean! Actually after it sat for a few hours and I heated it up for dinner, it wasn't as strongly dill-y. I should have included the time I made a soup that also called for Paprika but I accidentally put 2 tablespoons of chili powder in it instead. Any fix for that?
DeleteeHow says to add either yogurt, citrus juice, sugar or tomatoes if you put too much chili powder in a recipe. Don't know what you do with a swap like you did but that's how new recipes are created, so just call it an experiment instead of a mistake and you're good to go. LOL
DeleteI only know a few basics - If it is too salty add potatoes or flour. If it is too fatty wick the stuff off. If it tastes bad, throw it out and make toasted cheese sandwiches. I do love to cook and generally do okay but everybody gets distracted - I made spaghetti for dinner tonight and almost forgot to add the meat.
ReplyDeleteSee? This is the kind of thing a real cook knows. I once burned a pot of seafood stew and just told everyone it was BBQ Seafood Stew. I'm not sure they bought it.
DeleteIt's not that I like to cook especially but that I like to play in my food. I baking and serving up showstopper meals of various kinds The daily sort of thing got old very quickly Years ago Rae called from work (possibly with a better offer in mind) and asked what was for supper, and I replied, "Husband Chow." Someone overheard and asked what that was. He told him, "I don't know for sure but when you pour water on it it makes its own gravy."
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