Taking stock away

As I’ve mentioned here before, my interests in food and cooking date to a college study abroad program in Paris. As I’ve also mentioned here before, I knew little about food and nothing about its preparation before I got there. I did not enroll in any formal cooking program; I did have ‘real’ classes to attend, after all. But I cherry-picked cooking schools and courses that I thought might be helpful or interesting and worked with my schedule. It seemed an enjoyable way to undertake to learn this whole cooking thing, and it was. But it also meant that I showed up for these events woefully unprepared, and left them miserably embarrassed.

The very first class I attended dealt with sauces. For the first half of the day, we watched the chef make veal, chicken, and fish stocks, the three most basic stocks of classic French cuisine. I took lots of notes. Bat your eyelashes at the butcher when you’re asking for the veal bones, blanch the chicken and change the water before you start to simmer the stock, stud your onion with the cloves, a bouquet garni must be bound together with a leek leaf. (It should be noted that I only learned the English words for things like bay and leek many months later, and did not know that a shortened—raccourci—rack of lamb is called ‘Frenched’ in this country until about a week ago.)

But back in France, and before the second portion of our course began, there was lunch. A fat old man (Who says that French men don’t get fat?) sat next to me and asked what I’d thought of the morning’s activities. I’d been perfecting my diagram of the bouquet garni and recall having said that it was a lot of information and that I liked it very much. Oh no, he scoffed, it was all quite basic. You sink zat eez complicated? He grunted. I went back to my diagram, and he had another glass of wine.

Although I do make dashi, the Japanese sea stock that requires 3 ingredients and 15 minutes, I still won’t make Cordon Bleu-style stocks. And I don’t need them, either. Sorry, Frenchie.

Beet soup with caraway + crème fraîche

I love soup, and I don’t understand why our president doesn’t love beets. This preparation is a bit more purely beet than borscht, but I did try to pick up on the Eastern European flavors with the additions of caraway and soured cream. (I used crème fraîche, but you can use regular sour cream as well. They’re not much different.) A few things I didn’t do but imagine would be good: Toast the caraway seeds in the soup pot before sautéing the vegetables. Dump them out, grind, and add to the crème fraiche instead. Add an additional garnish of a small dice of cucumbers or some dill. Serve with dark bread.

1 bunch beets (about 4 or 5)  |  olive oil or butter  |  a mirepoix: ½ small onion, 1 small carrot, and 1 stalk celery, small dice  |  salt and pepper  |  caraway seeds, a small palmful (about 2 tsp)  |  a bouquet garni: bay leaf, couple thyme sprigs, couple parsley stems, bound with a leek leaf or not  |  some water  |  crème fraiche

Wash and peel the beets, reserving the greens for another use. Cut into chunks of approximately the same size.

Heat a pot over medium heat, and add enough oil or butter to coat the bottom very lightly. When the oil is hot or foam from the butter subsides, add the mirepoix, and season with salt and pepper. Let sweat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Toss in the caraway seeds and stir to coat with the oil. When the caraway smells toasty, add the beets, and stir to coat these in the oil as well. Let them sauté for a couple of minutes, and then add the bouquet garni and enough water to cover the beets by about a half inch, for a thick soup or more for a thinner soup. If you’d like to call this borscht, and if you make stock, you could use beef stock instead.

Bring to a boil, season with more salt and pepper, cover partially, and let simmer until the beets are quite tender. This will probably take something around the 30 minute mark. Fish out the bouquet garni. Run through a blender if you like, adjust the seasoning, and serve with a spoonful of crème fraiche. You don’t need stock, either!