Not Your Mother’s Chicken Soup

What’s cooking? Asian Chicken Soup with Lettuce, Rice, & Ginger

This is the week when you really don’t want to have to work at putting food on the table. Between the menu planning and the ordering and the shopping and the decisions on how to decorate the table, there’s not really much energy left for the meals leading up to Turkey Day. But we all have to eat, even on those other days.

Ta-da! Kitchen Goddess to the rescue. Today’s recipe relies on the simplest of ingredients, tastes amazing, and comes together in less than 30 minutes, including the prep work. Really. Would the KG lie to you?

The back story started with a recipe hunt – something I do way too often. Frankly, any random occurrence can send me off wandering around the internet, looking up food. This time, it was for tempura green beans. I’d had a marvelous plate of them at a restaurant, and as I thought about them a couple of days later in my kitchen, I turned instinctively to my iPad, where I cruised the web for a good half hour to find a way to cook them. I’m still looking for one that doesn’t involve a large of amount of boiling oil, and I’ll let you know when I find one.

But while I was looking, I noticed a tiny window down in a corner of my screen. Some chef was throwing a bunch of ingredients into a pot, and it looked really good, but there was no sound because I wasn’t really on that page looking for what that chef was making.

Just as I went in for a closer look, the video changed, and I found myself watching a YouTube of Colin Josts’s best moments on Saturday Night Live. Now I think Colin Jost is hilarious, but I experienced a mild panic because I didn’t know where that first clip came from. Grrrr... 

Several frenetic back arrows and google searches later, I did find that clip, because – and you’ll love this – I recognized the chef! The dish was a chicken soup, using ingredients I had on hand, so I made it. And ate the whole thing myself. Then I made it again and served it to my hubby, who turned to me mid-bowl and said, “This is delicious! What is it?”

I’ve now made it several more times, finally managing to take photos in the process, because we normally scarf it down so fast there’s nothing left to point the camera at.

So..., chicken soup, eh? You are probably asking yourself what could possibly make chicken soup new and exciting. Well, unless your mother is (or was) Asian, this chicken soup will be a completely new experience – and maybe even then.

The chef was J. Kenji López-Alt, author of The Food Lab and the principal food scientist for the Serious Eats (seriouseats.com) website. He’s the son of a German-American father and a Japanese mother, and the López is from his wife, who is Colombian. So he’s got serious multinational food creds. This soup is decidedly Asian in flavor.

What I love most about it is that it uses a handful of ingredients that often sit in my fridge until I decide it’s too late: leftover rice (mostly from Chinese takeout), leftover rotisserie chicken, and an extra head of lettuce from one of those bags with three small heads of romaine. That will no longer be a problem, because I’ll just make the soup.

The rice here is a brown/white combo, and note the jar of Better Than Bouillon, my new fave.

Almost forgot 
about the fish sauce

Beyond those three, there’s really just the ginger and Thai fish sauce, both of which I try to always have on hand. (The Kitchen Goddess keeps a ziplock bag of ginger root in the freezer.) And I’m just hoping you have Thai fish sauce in the fridge. If not, you should get some, because it’s very umami and lasts forever.

Anyway, this recipe requires dedicated mis en place, because once you have the ingredients together, the “cooking” part takes literally less than 10 minutes.

So about the lettuce. I know, it was a surprise even to the Kitchen Goddess that you can cook lettuce and end up with something good. As it happens, cooked lettuce has long been part of French and Chinese cuisine. And despite its mild flavor, the lettuce in this soup is sort of the secret ingredient, texture-wise. If you cook it just until the leaves wilt, the lightly cooked stalks still have a bit of crunch that’s quite fresh-tasting and delicious.

Also, if you have any soup left over for the next day, just heat it and throw in more lettuce. The flavor doesn’t really change from the additional lettuce, and you revive that light crunch as well.

Asian Chicken Soup with Lettuce, Rice and Ginger

Adapted from J. Kenji López-Alt at seriouseats.com

This recipe is a doubling of the original, because I am always happy to have some in the fridge, so I make extra. You can make half if you’d like, but in the end, you’ll wish you’d made more.

Serves 5-6.

Ingredients

2 quarts good chicken stock (or use Better Than Bouillon with water)
2 mounded cups rotisserie chicken (or other leftover chicken), without skin, cut in 1-inch dice
1½ -2 cups leftover rice (white or brown, like Chinese takeout, or whatever plain rice is in the fridge)
6 slices raw ginger, ⅛-inch thick (peeled or not – I prefer peeled)
4 teaspoons Thai fish sauce
½ teaspoon ground white pepper*
Kosher salt to taste
1 small head romaine lettuce, sliced 1 inch-wide

Garnishes:
7-8 scallions, white and light green parts, thinly sliced
½ cup (loosely packed) cilantro, chopped

*Kitchen Goddess note on white pepper vs black: In a test run by Cook’s Illustrated, they made two pots of a soup that traditionally calls for white pepper, using a teaspoon of black pepper in one batch and a teaspoon of white pepper in the other. Tasters reported that the one with black pepper was more aromatic and had more spicy heat, but they preferred the soup with white pepper for its floral, earthy flavor and greater complexity. So you can use either in this soup, but the taste may not be quite the same.

Directions
In a large saucepan, heat the stock with the chicken, the rice, the ginger, and the fish sauce, until it comes to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer for about 5 minutes.

Add the lettuce. Let the soup simmer until the lettuce leaves are wilted. Add salt to taste. (Depending on the saltiness of your broth, it’ll need a lot, a little, or none, so taste carefully.)

Add the garnishes. If you like the flavor of raw scallions, serve the soup in a cup or bowl and sprinkle the scallions and cilantro on top. The Kitchen Goddess prefers her scallion flavor to be a little milder, so she adds her scallions to the soup while it is still simmering, then immediately turns off the heat. Serve the soup in a cup or bowl and sprinkle the cilantro on top.

One final note: If you are serving the soup to guests, you may want to remove the ginger slices, as they don’t really taste good. For yourself or your family, just tell them to pick the ginger out.

Now, how easy was that?! 

On the Light Side -- Marathon Day 3

What’s cooking? Ginger- and Molasses-Glazed Root Vegetables, Fennel-Celery Salad with Lemon and Parmesan

I’ve done it! I’ve made time to give you all four recipes in just less than a week before Turkey Day. I should have a glass of wine. Maybe even two. But first, let’s get on with the reason you clicked in here.

Today’s recipes may seem wildly different, but they have one major factor in common: the mandoline.

Ordinarily, the Kitchen Goddess understands that not everyone has a complete inventory of cooking utensils/equipment. The KG herself has no rice cooker, no sous vide immersion circulator, no air fryer, no instant pot, no slow cooker. Not even a toaster oven. But she has a mandoline slicer.

Both of these recipes are a snap with a mandoline slicer. And this is not the first time I’ve suggested getting one, so.... On the other hand, both recipes can be made the day before you’ll be serving them, which goes a long way toward making the dishes attractive even without any special equipment.

A mandoline is not a machine. It’s a cooking utensil used for slicing. The fancier ones also make julienne cuts, but let’s just stick to our knitting today. According to wikipedia, the name mandoline derives from the back-and-forth wrist motion of the user, which mimics the motion of someone playing the musical instrument of the same name (though the instrument is spelled mandolin, while the utensil is spelled mandoline). How clever is that?

With a mandoline, you can slice fruits and veggies faster than even a skilled chef with a knife. Which will improve both the look and the cooking of your foods in the sense that even cuts produce even doneness. As my CIA chef teacher told the class, “looks the same, cooks the same.”

Ideally, you want a mandoline that’s both easy and safe to use. The blades are sharp and you can wound yourself without even noticing – until the blood starts showing up on the food. I have more than once sliced into a fingernail, and even managed one time to remove the tip of a finger. That was exciting.

Through exhaustive testing, the America’s Test Kitchen crew has pronounced the Swissmar Borner V-1001 V-Slicer Plus Mandoline 5 Piece Set ($49.95 at amazon.com) as the easiest and safest to use. Also, they liked the Kyocera Advanced Ceramic Adjustable Mandoline Vegetable Slicer w/ Handguard ($17.82). The one I use is a Benriner, which though cheaper and easy to use, is not nearly as safe, as you can tell from my history with it. So I’m thinking maybe the Swissmar should be on my Christmas list.

Once you have a mandoline or decide to just plow ahead with a knife, these two dishes are easy and can be made a day ahead (yes, even the salad!).

Ginger- and Molasses-Glazed Root Vegetables

Adapted from David McCann in Food & Wine Magazine

Root veggies – some people don’t even recognize the names, like rutabaga or parsnips or celery root. So I recommend not telling your guests what’s in this dish. After all, once you say, “turnips,” people get that look on their faces and you can just tell they won’t even try it. Just say, “root veggies” when they ask, and move on to the ginger-molasses part. It would be a real loss not to try this.

Serves: 8

Ingredients
1 pound carrots, peeled and cut diagonally into ⅛-inch-thick coins
1 pound parsnips, peeled and cut diagonally into ⅛-inch-thick coins
1 pound medium-sized turnips, peeled, halved, and cut into ⅛-inch-thick rounds
6 tablespoons unsalted butter (3 ounces), cut into pieces, divided
2 teaspoons grated garlic
2 teaspoons grated peeled fresh ginger
2 tablespoons unsulfured molasses (such as Grandma’s Molasses)
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Garnish: fresh flat-leaf parsley (whole leaves or chopped)

Directions
Kitchen Goddess note: In my usual way, I could not leave well enough alone. The directions below for the blanching made me go searching for the best method, and I came upon instructions from the great chef, Thomas Keller. Because of the density of root veggies, he says to start them in the pot with cold, lightly salted water ( I used ½ cup salt to 6 quarts water), bring the water to a boil, and remove the veggies when they taste done. I tried this with only carrots, and was happy with the taste/texture after they had boiled 1½ minutes. But I used the original instructions (below) when I made this dish, and was happy then, too. Your call.

Just be sure to have a really cold ice bath – equal amounts of ice to water. Once the veggies are done, you want to have the cooking stop as quickly as possible.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rapid boil over high. Set a large bowl of very cold ice water to the side. Add the carrots and parsnips to the boiling water. After 3 minutes, add the turnips, and continue the boiling for another 2 minutes. As you reach that 2-minute mark, test to see that the vegetables are crisp-tender.

Turn off the heat and, using a slotted spoon or a spider, immediately transfer all the veggies to the ice bath. Let them sit in the ice bath for 2 minutes, then drain. Lay a kitchen towel out on a baking sheet and top it with a couple of layers of paper towels. Spread the veggies out on the paper towels. In the interest of getting them as dry as possible, I made several layers of the veggies, separated by more paper towels.




When you are about ready to serve, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium heat until it sizzles. Add the garlic and ginger, and cook, stirring often, for about 2 minutes. Add the vegetables, the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, the molasses, 2 tablespoons water, and salt/pepper. Cook, folding the vegetables gently into the glaze in order to cover them completely. Stir continuously until the vegetables are fully glazed, 3-4 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat, and transfer the veggies to a serving platter. Garnish with parsley, and serve immediately.

Kitchen Goddess P.S. –
What you can do ahead: 
Carrots, parsnips, and turnips may be blanched 1 day ahead.

* * *

Fennel and Celery Salad with Lemon and Parmesan

Adapted from David Tanis in The New York Times

The most wonderful thing about this salad – aside from the fresh, zippy taste, is that it was as crunchy and flavorful on the second day as it was on the first. I can hardly wait to make it again. Next time, I may consider adding julienned (matchstick) pieces of crisp, green pear.

Serves 6-8

Ingredients
For the dressing:
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, plus zest from one large lemon
1 or 2 garlic cloves, crushed
Kosher salt and black pepper (start with ¼ teaspoon salt, pepper to taste)
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

For the salad:
2 medium fennel bulbs (tops removed, fronds reserved), sliced 1/16th-inch thick (about 2 cups)
1 or 2 celery hearts, including pale ribs and leaves, sliced 1/16th-inch thick (about 2 cups)
8-10 radishes, trimmed and sliced ⅛-inch thick
¼ cup roughly chopped parsley
Parmigiano-Reggiano (about 2 ounces), for serving
Garnish: reserved fennel fronds




Directions
For the dressing, combine the lemon juice, zest, and garlic in a small jar. Add salt and pepper. Stir in the olive oil and shake well. Set the dressing aside for at least 10 minutes.

In a salad bowl, toss together the fennel, celery, radish slices, and parsley.

Discard the garlic from the dressing, and shake the dressing again. Pour the dressing over the salad, and toss gently but well. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Serve in the salad bowl or transfer the salad to a platter. Use a vegetable peeler to shave Parmesan generously over the salad. Garnish with reserved fennel fronds (optional, but they do look pretty!).

Kitchen Goddess P.S. – 
What you can do ahead: 
1. Make the dressing.
2. Slice the fennel, celery, and radishes. (Wait until you’re ready to serve before chopping the parsley.) Keep the celery and radish slices in an airtight container in the fridge. Wrap the fennel slices and fennel fronds in damp paper towels and store overnight in an airtight container.

The Kitchen Goddess wishes you all a warm and wonderful Thanksgiving, filled with gratitude for our many blessings!

Cure for the Summer Cold What’s cooking? Mustard-Ginger Chicken

Kitchen Goddess alert: This is the KG’s 300th post. You know what that means, don’t you? It means the Goddess is officially nuts. But we’re all crazy in some way. This blog is mine. Or at least one of them. This post is about another.

It seems almost inevitable. You handle 104 different decks of cards over four days in a row – 208 hands of 13 cards each. A total of 2,704 cards that have been handled by 104 other players. And it’s not like you can wash your hands after every round.

I’ve just returned from Washington, DC, where my hubby and I competed in the American Contract Bridge League’s Summer National Bridge Tournament. It’s a game dear to both of our hearts, but it has its share of health issues.

For starters, playing 8 hours of bridge a day is mentally exhausting, so it’s important to get enough sleep. I went into the tournament well rested, but didn’t remain that way long. Our hotel room faced East, and the blackout curtains worked really well... except for just that little bit at the top of the window, where the summer sun came in laser-like at a very early hour. The evening sessions at the tournament don’t end until about 11:15, so the very best you can do is to be in bed by 12:30 or 1a.m. As a result, there was hardly a night that I got more than 6-7 hours of rest.

Then you have the playing area, which for the first two days was a perfectly reasonable temperature. But the event for our last two days took place in what felt like a meat locker. So... hot outside, freezing cold inside, back outside to the heat, back inside to the North Pole – nothing more than the reverse of winter conditions, and a perfect recipe for immune system vulnerability. According to an article I read in the Wall Street Journal, extreme cold constricts the blood vessels in your nose and throat, which makes you more susceptible to viruses. Which takes me back to the germs.

That said, we still love the game, and the form of competition. So it won’t stop us from heading off to another tournament. Next time, maybe I’ll take a sweatshirt and wear gloves.

So here I am, with a summer cold. And as we all know, one of the best foods when you’re suffering from a cold – winter or summer – is chicken soup.

How do I love thee, chicken soup? Let me count the ways.

1. First, soups work well because nutrients are easier to absorb in liquid form, and even a small amount of oil promotes absorption of vitamins A, D, K, and E.
2. Hot liquids get all that nasty nasal mucus out of the body faster, thus easing congestion.
3. Organosulfides (found in garlic and onions) stimulate production of certain immune cells.
4. Carrots – big chicken soup veggies – help with antibody production.
5. Researchers at the University of Nebraska have found that the combination of vegetables and poultry in soup can help you feel better by alleviating respiratory tract inflammation.

So I had a chicken, and was preparing to roast it using just salt and pepper and a little olive oil, when I remembered a Silver Palate recipe that was one of my old reliables in the days when my kids were teens. The Silver Palate ladies called it “Bobbie’s Chicken,” after their friend who developed it; but I don’t know Bobbie, so I’m just calling it Mustard-Ginger Chicken. It’s ridiculously easy to make – though a bit more cooking time than a plain roast chicken – but the result is very long on flavor, and incredibly moist. In fact, the dish is almost more of a stew than roast chicken, so you’ll definitely want to serve it over noodles or rice; whatever you call it, it’s delicious and one of the most popular among Silver Palate fans.

If you want to summer it up, serve it with a nice, big salad of summer greens. That’s what I did, and the next day, I made soup from the leftovers.

Kitchen Goddess note: The ginger/mustard combination here is unusual but quite nice – you have to trust the recipe and its legions of fans. One of the best features of this recipe is its flexibility: you can use a larger or smaller chicken and simply adjust the spices and amount of time in the oven for each stage. Also, the original recipe calls for 6 onions. Well, folks, the KG doesn’t always have exactly 6 onions, and what size would that be in any case? The recipe didn’t say. So the Kitchen Goddess has used – at various times – 4 large onions, or 5 medium ones, or 2 large and 2-3 small onions. Pretty much whatever’s in the pantry, and that’s hardly ever 6 onions of the same size. And if they’re large onions, you may want to cut them into eighths. Use your judgment and don’t fret.

Mustard-Ginger Chicken (a.k.a. “Bobbie’s Chicken”)

Adapted from The New Basics Cookbook (Workman, 1989), by Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins

Serves 4.

Ingredients
1 young chicken (also called broilers or fryers or roasters), 4-4 ½ pounds, with giblets
1 lemon, halved
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons ground ginger
2 tablespoons dry mustard
4-6 onions, quartered (see Note, above)
bouillon cubes for 2 cups of broth (KG prefers Knorr, but use what you like)

Procedure
Rinse and dry the chicken. [Kitchen Goddess note: The great chef Thomas Keller, of French Laundry fame, recommends doing this part ahead of time and letting the chicken sit uncovered in the fridge for at least an hour or up to overnight. That dries out the skin which makes it crispier in the cooking. Just a suggestion.]

About two hours before you are ready to serve, preheat the oven to 425º.

Squeeze the lemon over the chicken and rub the juice inside and out. Place the chicken into a baking pan that allows room for 3-4 of the onions. Salt and pepper the bird (all sides) to your liking. Mix the mustard and ginger together and rub it all over the chicken. Scatter 3-4 of the onion pieces around the pan.

Put the pan into the oven and bake the chicken 30 minutes, undisturbed.

While the chicken cooks, rinse the giblets and put them – minus the liver, which adds an overly strong flavor – into a small saucepan with the remaining onion, 2 cups of water, and the bouillon cubes. Bring to a low boil and simmer 30 minutes. Reserve.

After the chicken has been 30 minutes in the oven, turn down the heat to 375º, and add ¾ cup water to the pan. Return the chicken to the oven and cook another 30 minutes, basting once or twice.

When the second 30 minutes is up, strain the stock (discarding the solids) and remove the chicken from the oven. Pour ¾ cup of stock over and around the chicken, and bake another 30 minutes, basting occasionally.

Remove the pan from the oven (leaving the oven on) and remove the chicken to a cutting board. (You may want to place the cutting board into a sheet pan, to keep from spilling any of that yummy chicken juice.) Cut the chicken into fourths, and return it to the baking pan. [A final KG note: This part is easier than it sounds, because the chicken will be so tender the bones can be cut through with almost no effort, and the KG says that as a person who really doesn’t like cutting up poultry. For presentation purposes, the KG recommends removing the backbone and discarding it or saving it for stock.]

Pour the remaining stock over the chicken and onions, and cover or tent the pan with foil. Put it back into the oven for 15 minutes. Serve over noodles or rice, and all else you’ll need is a simple green salad.

Battling the Post-Holiday Blues What’s cooking? Parmesan Crisps and Roast Chicken Provençal

January is such a dismal month. Cold, gray days, and the bills for all that Christmas frivolity have replaced the jolly cards that only a few weeks ago were appearing in your mailbox. On the other hand, the days are getting longer (yes!), and the Kitchen Goddess is here to perk up your cooking.

If you’re like me, all that holiday entertaining has severely depleted the pantry. And since global warming doesn’t all happen at once, you’ll want to be prepared in the event of... WEATHER. (I don’t want to tempt the fates by mentioning the s-word.) So here are a handful of items you’ll want to be sure are on hand as we move into winter:

1. Fresh ginger – Freeze it whole or grate it and freeze it in teaspoon-sized knobs. The Kitchen Goddess likes it in Roasted Sesame Green Beans, Sweet Potato Ginger Soufflé, and Chestnut Ginger Soup, and she often tosses candied ginger into scones, sugar cookies, and muffins. Ginger is also a time-tested aid to congestion, so if you or a loved one has a cold, try making tea with honey and lemon and ginger.

Cut into 1/2-inch cubes

2. Parmigiano rind – That tough cheese rind you used to throw away? Never again. Just add a piece into any chicken soup or vegetable soup, and you’ll be amazed at the improvement in flavor. And – here’s a flash – it makes a great nibbler for your next dinner party. Would the Kitchen Goddess kid you? Take that tough-as-nails piece of rind, cut it into cubes about ½ inch square and microwave the little bits 30-45 seconds. Crispy, chewy, salty, cheesy. Also amazing. You’re welcome.

After microwaving

Parmesan crisps - ready for snacking

3. Parsley – For something so cheap, parsley adds impressive zip to soups, salads, and fish or chicken. And you can make it last longer than you’d ever have imagined. Cut an inch off the stems, then let the bunch swim around in cold water for 15-20 minutes. Dry it in a salad spinner, wrap it in a paper towel, and store it in a plastic ziplock bag with all possible air pushed out. It’ll last a couple of weeks. When I’m adding it to soup, I put some in early with the other herbs for the flavor, but I always add a bit more at the very end, to contribute color and that little extra zing.

herbes de Provence

4. Your spice cabinet – It’s that time of year to assess your inventory of dried herbs and spices. Specifically, do the smell test. Properly stored (in a cool, dark, and dry environment – not next to your stove), herbs and spices will last a year – two at most. Open each jar, and first take a look, as spices that are fresh will still have their original color. Take a toothpick and stir them up a bit; if the scent isn’t fresh and clear, replace them (and remember to date the new jars). If you’re routinely tossing big jars of herbs and spices, try buying smaller quantities. Penzey’s (my favorite source) sells ¼-cup jars of almost everything, so I buy large jars of dried thyme and dill and cumin because I use them so often, but small jars of odd fellows like turmeric and white pepper. And I’ve learned that it’s even better – for that one recipe you make that uses Chinese Five Spice Powder – to check the bulk aisle of your grocery. For today’s recipe, in fact, I turned to the bulk aisle for herbes de Provence. In all my years of cooking, I’d never come across a recipe that called for it. Of course, this one recipe is so perfectly perfect that I may take to buying large jars of the stuff.

5. Mirepoix – Onions, Carrots, Celery. The basics for 1001 soups, so you always want to have them at hand. To keep carrots fresh, I cut off any greenery and put the carrots in air-tight zip-lock plastic bags. For celery, I trim an inch or so off the top and bag them as well. (If I only have smaller bags, I just cut the celery in half before bagging it.) If the veggies seem limp when you go to use them, try cutting an inch off the ends and soaking them in cold water for 20-30 minutes. Most of the time, that will improve the crispness. Keep onions in a cool, dry place (not in the fridge) and away from light. Not in plastic bags and not near your potatoes. Potatoes need the same kind of storage conditions, but don’t keep potatoes and onions near each other – both give off gasses that increase the rate of spoilage in the other.

Crowdsourcing a Recipe

I love The New York Times. I’ve been reading it since 1969. And while I occasionally submit to the online version, I’m much happier with the physical paper spread out in front of me at my kitchen island. There, I can quickly scan the news of the world and the opinions of some of my favorite columnists and op-editors. And there are no brighter moments in my professional history than those days when I could open up the paper and see my own work splashed across a page.

These days, I wait most eagerly for the Wednesday paper and its Food section. Not long ago, in a year-end review, the food editors put together a list of the most popular recipes of 2015, based on the number of Times readers who saved it to an online recipe box. Now, the Kitchen Goddess is generally skeptical of crowdsourced information – except in the realm of recipes. And if NYT readers saved this recipe more than any other from the whole year, well, I had to give it a try.

Oh, my. It was the perfect dish for our family’s Christmas Eve dinner: ridiculously simple to prepare (one small bowl, and a single rimmed baking sheet) and a wondrous marriage of flavors for a winter night. The shallots and garlic were transformed by the roasting into sweet delicacies; even the lemon, after its warm bath in chicken juices and vermouth, was entirely edible. And the chicken went so quickly I didn’t even get a second piece. I can hardly wait to serve it at a dinner party.

The pan juices are not to be ignored, so you’ll want either crusty French bread or rice or noodles as accompaniment. All else you need is a simple green salad.

Roast Chicken Provençal

Adapted from Sam Sifton in The New York Times.

Serves 4.

INGREDIENTS:
3 tablespoons olive oil
¾ cup all-purpose flour
4 chicken legs or 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon, quartered lengthwise
8-10 medium-large cloves garlic, peeled
4 to 6 medium-sized shallots, peeled
2 tablespoons herbes de Provence
⅓ cup dry vermouth
Garnish: 4-6 sprigs of fresh thyme

PREPARATION:
Preheat oven to 400º. Pour the olive oil into a large roasting pan (I used a rimmed half-sheet pan), and use your fingers to spread it evenly around the pan.

Put the flour into a small shallow bowl. Salt and pepper the chicken pieces all over, and dredge them in the flour, shaking each piece lightly so as to remove any excess flour. As you flour each piece, place it in the roasting pan, skin side up.

Cut the shallots in half lengthwise, and scatter them among the chicken parts along with the garlic and the lemon quarters. Sprinkle the herbes de Provence over all and add the vermouth.

Put the pan into the oven for 50-60 minutes, stopping halfway through to baste the chicken with any pan juices. The skin will be very crisp when done.

Serve in the roasting pan or a large platter. If you use a separate platter, be sure to warm the platter with hot water before use. Garnish with sprigs of fresh thyme.

Serve with rice or noodles or warmed French bread, and a simple green salad.

Bon appetit!

Endings and Beginnings -- Celebrating with Elegance, Part 2 What’s cooking? One-of-Each Soup and Chestnut Ginger Soup

When you’re having a formal dinner party – or at least one that you want to structure as formal, even if the guests are wearing jeans – there are lots of choices as to what you feed your guests at the outset. Even the terms can be confusing: appetizer, hors d’oeuvre, or amuse-bouche? The Kitchen Goddess is here to the rescue.

Usually, the difference is in when and how much you serve. An hors d’oeuvre – which translates “apart from the main work” – is a food item you serve before the main meal. It’s supposed to be small, even bite-sized, and can be plated or passed. Normally, it shouldn’t require a fork or spoon to eat. An amuse-bouche (which means “mouth amuser,” although the Kitchen Goddess thinks it’s really bad manners to laugh with your mouth full) is a single, bite-sized hors d’oeuvre, not passed, and usually presented at the table to show off the skills (“Sacré bleu!”) or imagination (“Quelle surprise!”) of the chef. An appetizer is a plated course you serve before the entrée – a bit of food that’s designed to stimulate the appetite. So it shouldn’t be heavy or overly rich.

Soups make a great appetizer, and can even be served (i.e., passed) hors d’oeuvre-style if you have a way to offer small servings. One that I’m particularly fond of is a set of 2½-ounce parfait glasses from Libbey. They’re available at several places on the web (J.C. Penney and Bed Bath & Beyond, for example), and for soups that are a bit thick, I serve them with a straw.

One-of-Each Soup

So today, the Kitchen Goddess has a couple of elegant soups with which to start a special holiday meal. The first is one I’ve written about once before, but had no photos. It’s called One-of-Each because you use only one of each of the ingredients. It appeared ages ago in Gourmet magazine, in response to a reader’s request – a reader who was so effusive that I decided to try the dish regardless of how weird the ingredient list was. I’ve now made the soup many times – always to rave reviews – and today, I have photos that’ll give you an idea of serving options.

Chestnut Ginger Soup

The second is a more seasonal soup, a Chestnut Ginger Soup from the Culinary Institute. If you are really into self-abuse, you can buy whole chestnuts in their shells and roast them and peel them. The Kitchen Goddess did that...once. OR, you can follow the KG’s current habit and buy roasted and peeled chestnuts in a jar or can. The soup will not know the difference. But chestnuts are generally available only in the holiday season, so run out and get some now because you will not believe how well the nuts and the cream and the ginger come together – like velvet on the tongue.

Both soups are purées, so you can serve them as passed hors d’oeuvres or on a plate as a first/appetizer course. Both are unusual flavors: the One-of-Each Soup has a mild, fruity, curry flavor; the Chestnut Ginger Soup is a really mellow combination of nutty and (duh) ginger. Both can be served warm or cold, though I have a slight preference for serving the Chestnut-Ginger Soup warm. Both soups are a host/hostess’s delight, guaranteeing a flurry of “Oooh, what is this?” and “Wow – this is great. What’s in it?” You can smile knowingly and say, “It’s a secret.” Or you can tell them. It’s good either way.

One-of-Each Soup

(adapted from Gourmet magazine, December 2001)

Serves 8 as a first course, or 4-6 as a main course.

1 large boiling potato (½ pound), peeled and coarsely chopped
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 celery heart (stalks with leaves), coarsely chopped (½ cup)
1 large apple (preferably Granny Smith), peeled and coarsely chopped
1 firm-ripe banana, coarsely chopped
1 pint chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream (can use light cream if you prefer)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 rounded teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon salt
Chopped fresh chives for garnish

Simmer vegetables and fruits in broth in a 3-quart heavy saucepan, covered, until very tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in cream, butter, curry powder, and salt and heat just until hot (do not boil!).

Purée the soup in a blender until smooth (be careful when blending hot liquids). The soup will be thick; if you prefer a thinner soup, add a small amount of water. Serve sprinkled with chives.

Kitchen Goddess note: You can make this soup ahead and reheat to serve, but do not let it boil, as that will cause the milk fats to separate. It has a tendency to thicken in the refrigerator; if so, just add water or chicken broth to reach a consistency you like. It’s equally delightful hot or cold.

Chestnut Ginger Soup

Adapted from the CIA Book of Soups

Makes 4-6 servings as appetizer, 16 as hors d’oeuvre.

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
½ cup celery, diced
⅓ cup carrot, diced
1¼ cups leek (white and light green parts), chopped
¾ cup onion, diced
1 quart good quality chicken broth
10 ounces chestnuts (roasted, peeled), roughly chopped
2 rounded tablespoons grated fresh ginger root
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
¾ cup heavy cream, heated
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon white pepper, ground
additional salt & pepper, to taste

Garnish: Mix equal parts whipped cream with sour cream and grated fresh ginger to taste.

Heat the butter in a soup pot over medium heat. (I use a 5.5-quart Le Creuset Dutch oven.) Add the celery, carrot, leek, and onion, and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the onion turns a light golden, 12-15 minutes.

Stir in the broth, the chopped chestnuts, and the ginger. Raise the heat until the soup begins to simmer, then monitor the heat to maintain a simmer, stirring occasionally for 35-40 minutes, until the ingredients are soft.

Purée the soup in batches, being careful not to overload the blender, as hot liquids can be dangerous. Return the soup to the heat, add the orange juice, and simmer 2 minutes.

Add the heated cream, salt and pepper, and adjust seasoning (including more orange juice, if you like) to taste. Top each serving with a dollop of the whipped cream/sour cream/ginger mix.

And have a joyful New Year’s Eve, everyone!

Foodie Faves: Ginger

Color plate from Köhler's Medicinal Plants

Today’s bloguette is not only a day late, the topic is nothing new. Literally. Writing about ginger has been a foodie practice almost as old as the use of ginger itself. According to the web site for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (a.k.a. Kew Gardens), the Hindu epic Mahabharata, written around the 4th century BC, describes a meal where meat is stewed with ginger and other spices. Who knew that ancient Hindu Vyasa was a foodie?

I like ginger in almost any form – powdered in ginger snaps, pickled with sushi, grated in Roasted Sesame Green Beans, candied in Sweet Potato Ginger Soufflé,... I have an enduring memory of my mother bringing me ginger ale on ice any time I had the flu as a child. She knew ginger is a tasty way to settle a queasy stomach.

Raw ginger rhizomes, which is a staple in my freezer.

But among these various forms, my favorite is candied ginger. It has the best combination of taste and portability, which is why it’s also the form most often recommended to fight nausea – with chemotherapy patients, with morning sickness in pregnancy, with seasickness, or with post-op nausea. It’s even good as a fat-free snack, though it’s definitely not low-cal.

Candied ginger from Penzeys Spices

In addition to snacking on the stuff, I use it as often as I can with other foods:

■ I sprinkle it on the whipped cream I serve atop my Aunt Marcy’s Pumpkin Chiffon Pie.

■ I mix it with sections of Texas Red Grapefruit (the official state fruit of Texas) for a dessert.

■ I add it with a teaspoon of honey to plain yogurt for breakfast.

■ I substitute it for the raisins in my mother-in-law’s recipe for Scones.

And I welcome any other suggestions!

Summertime and the Grillin’ Is Easy What's cooking? Honey-Gingered Pork Tenderloins

Grilling makes me happy, and not just because it’s a way to get my husband to do the cooking, though that certainly helps. Back when we were first married, for reasons I’ve yet to figure out, we divided household chores into “Woman’s Work” and “Man’s Work.” The rule seemed to be “If it’s inside the house, it’s Woman’s Work; if it’s outside, it’s Man’s.” (And if this sounds sexist to you, ...well, you have to find some way of divvying up the chores.) So trash cans inside the house were my problem; trash cans outside were his. Cooking inside the house was my job; cooking outside became his. And over the years, he’s developed into quite an accomplished grillmaster, even though he professes each time to have forgotten how long, how much heat, whether to baste, etc. I think he just wants to be able to share the blame if something goes wrong. I tell him that if it goes up in smoke, we’ll order pizza.

But my fondness for grilling goes beyond the work-avoidance factor. The wonderful smell of meat roasting over an open fire, the crispiness of the outside of the meat that you really can’t achieve in an oven, and all the wonderful marinades that work with grilled meats.

As we cruise into summer, I offer you one of my all-time favorite marinades for pork tenderloin. (You can even use it with oven-roasting, but don’t tell my husband.)

While we’re on the subject of summer, I want to call to your attention a wonderful summer read by my friend Leslie Davis Guccione, called The Chick Palace. It’s available only as an e-book, on either Kindle or Nook. And in either case, it’s only $2.99 – what a steal. Here’s the review I posted on amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.

“Look, Muffy, a book for us.” Like the Preppy Handbook, The Chick Palace speaks to a generation – or two – of women who have reached a certain stage in life and could use some guidance. But what Guccione offers is not so much guidance as consolation that we all hit these seminal events in our own ways, and the awareness that mostly what we need is the warmth of a solid female friendship as we rethink and reassess our lives. Ever since we discovered that we were all getting underpaid, that no one really wanted to change diapers, and that it was ok to have sex for fun, our collective knowledge has brought us back to center every time. Ms. Guccione uses her delightful storytelling to reaffirm this aspect of feminine bonding.

And what a fun read! Ms. Guccione has such a smooth style and such an ear for dialogue that you will find yourself effortlessly floating along with the story. I laughed out loud at Lilly and her wickedly funny retorts to the man she has twice married and divorced; I teared up with Johanna as she sees herself suddenly as The One in Charge - the Mother Superior of her birth family - and wonders how she matches up with her own mother. And the appearance of Dean Delaney, the boy who broke Johanna's heart in the summer before college, adds a twist that makes you just want to keep on reading.

So download a copy of The Chick Palace, grill up some of this scrumptious pork tenderloin, and celebrate the arrival of summer.

Honey-Gingered Pork Tenderloins
Adapted from Gourmet magazine, August 1998
Yield: Serves 4

two ¾-pound pork tenderloins
¼ cup honey
¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup oyster sauce
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 teaspoon sesame oil
¼ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon cayenne
¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Garnish: fresh flat-leafed parsley sprigs

Pat pork dry and arrange in a shallow dish or heavy-duty sealable plastic bag.

In a bowl, whisk together all remaining ingredients and pour marinade over pork. Turn pork to coat well. Chill pork, covered, turning it once or twice, at least 8 hours and up to 1 day.

Remove the pork from the marinade, reserving the marinade, and arrange tenderloins on a lightly oiled rack set 5-6 inches over medium-high heat. Grill pork, basting with reserved marinade and turning it every 3-4 minutes, for 10 minutes total. Remove marinade, continuing to cook pork, turning it every 3-4 minutes, about 10 minutes more. Let pork stand 5 minutes before slicing in ½-inch slices.

Once you no longer need the marinade for basting, pour it into a small saucepan, add 2-3 tablespoons of water, and bring it to a boil. Keep the marinade on a low boil for at least 5 minutes, or long enough for it to thicken slightly.

Serve pork garnished with parsley sprigs, and with a small pitcher of the thickened marinade on the side.

Kitchen Goddess notes: 1. If you have guests who are allergic to shellfish, you can substitute Asian fish sauce for the oyster sauce. 2. If you have no grill or a monsoon has just struck your neighborhood, you can roast the meat at 400º for 25 minutes, basting and turning it occasionally.