Recipes with Julie Van Rosendaal: New year, new soup

Any blustery, snowy time of the year is prime soup season — but particularly post-holidays and mid-pandemic, when most of us have kitchen fatigue and are trying to use what we have, minimizing trips to the grocery store.

For the most part, soup is cheap. Unless you're making a lobster bisque, it utilizes small quantities of meat, plenty of veggies and pulses, pasta and grains.

Even stock is inexpensive (and free, if you simmer the bones of your roast chicken or turkey), and you can usually get away with just using water.

It addresses food waste. You can use all kinds of leftovers from the fridge, wilting or wrinkly veggies, half cans of tomatoes (or beans, or pumpkin puree) and the last of the cream.

It requires little culinary skill. It can be as simple as tossing everything into a pot and letting it simmer until it's done. 

It's comforting — something we could all use a little more of these days. 

• Bookmark cbc.ca/juliesrecipes to keep up with all of Julie Van Rosendaal's dishes

And here's another bonus: if you're at your desk all day, or taking a walk at lunchtime, a pureed, sippable soup can take the place of a mug of coffee or tea.

When it comes to soup, you truly can wing it. Most soups start with a sautéed onion — or a trio of onion, carrot and celery — often built on with aromatics like garlic, ginger, chilies, herbs and spices, or flavourful sausage.

And then in go your vegetables — peeled, diced squash, sweet potato, cauliflower, mushrooms, tomatoes, root vegetables, cooked or raw … perhaps some dry lentils, and some stock, water or other liquid like canned tomatoes or tomato juice.

Dry pasta or grains like rice, barley or farro can be simmered in the pot (pasta in the last 10 minutes, so it doesn't overcook), or cooked separately and stirred in.

You can also leave cooked or canned beans or fresh greens for the end, which you want to just wilt into the hot soup.

If you want your soup creamy, you can add a splash of cream, sour cream or coconut milk at the end, and puree all or part of it right in the pot with a hand-held immersion blender.

Green Pea, Ginger and Coconut Soup

I came across this remarkably delicious soup in In Bibi's Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean, by Hawa Hassan and Julia Turshen.

I love that it utilizes frozen green peas, which many overlook as a great source of protein.

I tweaked it a bit, adding a handful of cilantro to the soup itself rather than leaving it as a garnish, and used the half can of coconut milk I had left over in the fridge.

Ingredients:

• canola oil, for cooking
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp minced ginger
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• ½ tsp cayenne
• salt
• 2 cups water
• ½-1 14 oz (398 ml) can coconut milk
• 2-3 cups frozen peas
• a handful of cilantro, roughly chopped

In a medium saucepan, heat a drizzle of oil and sauté the onion, ginger, garlic and cayenne. Salt to taste for 8-10 minutes, until the onion is soft.

Add the water and coconut milk and bring to a simmer; add the peas and cilantro and cook for about 5 minutes, until the peas are bright green and tender. 

Puree the soup with a hand-held immersion blender right in the pot, or transfer to a regular blender to puree until smooth.

Add salt if needed and serve hot, topped with extra cilantro leaves if you like.

Serves 4.

Soup-soaked Cheese Toast

Chef Gabrielle Hamilton once shared a recipe for chowder-soaked toast in the New York Times, and I found the idea irresistible.

It's sort of a reverse French onion soup in which the toast goes into the bottom of the bowl and the soup is ladled overtop, which softens the toast enough to eat with a spoon.

This tomato soup can be made with tomatoes in any form — fresh, overripe, frozen, canned, sauce, paste, juice … as with most soups, use this as a rough guide. (From Dirty Food, by Julie Van Rosendaal)

Ingredients:

Soup:

• olive or canola oil, for cooking
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• salt, to taste
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 2-4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 28 oz (796 ml) can good tomatoes — whole, diced, crushed or San Marzano-style
• a few basil leaves or a sprig of thyme
• ¼ cup whipping cream (optional)

Toast: 

• thickly sliced crusty bread
• butter
• grated aged cheddar, Gouda, or your favourite cheese

Set a medium pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat, add a drizzle of oil and a chunk of butter (about 2 tbsp) and cook the onion for a few minutes, sprinkling with salt, until soft.

Add the garlic and cook for another minute.

Add the stock, tomatoes and basil or thyme and bring to a simmer.

Cook for 20 minutes or so, until the tomatoes are very soft and the soup thickens a bit.

Remove from the heat, add a splash of cream if you like, and purée with a hand-held immersion blender (I do this right in the pot, but just remember to pull out any sprigs of thyme you tossed in) until it's as smooth or chunky as you like.

Meanwhile, toast your bread, butter it, sprinkle with cheese and melt the cheese in the toaster oven or under the broiler.

Place the cheese toast in shallow bowls, and ladle the soup overtop.

Serves 2-4.

Coconut Sweet Potato, Carrot & Red Lentil Soup

This smooth, flavourful soup is easily made vegan with vegetable stock; the recipe is easily doubled to feed a larger crowd, or if you want leftovers to stash in the freezer.

I always go for the darker-fleshed sweet potatoes, often labelled yams.

Ingredients:

• canola oil, for cooking
• 1 onion, chopped
• ¼ cup chopped cilantro stems
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
• 2 tsp curry paste or powder (or to taste)
• ½ cup dry red lentils
• 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and diced    
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• salt, to taste
• 1 14 oz (398 ml) can coconut milk
• fresh cilantro, for garnish (optional)

In a medium pot, heat a drizzle of oil over medium-high heat.

Add the onion and saute for 3-4 minutes, until soft.

Add the cilantro, garlic and ginger and cook for another 1-2 minutes.

Add the curry powder or paste and stir until heated through and fragrant.

Add the lentils, sweet potato, carrots, stock and a pinch of salt and bring to a simmer.

Reduce the heat and cook for 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are very soft.

Stir in the coconut milk, remove from the heat and puree right in the pot with a hand-held immersion blender (or carefully, in batches, in a regular blender).

Taste and add salt if needed. Serve hot, garnished with fresh cilantro.

Serves 6.

• Check out Julie Van Rosendaal's full interview on the Calgary Eyeopener below: