Fall’s Bounty: A Golden Opportunity for Soup

Nothing like a trip to Santa Fe with my friends to get the creative juices flowing in the kitchen.  I’ve often thought it was the crisp fall air that makes me so hungry while I’m there. This year proved to be the warmest October in nearly a decade of fall visits. We were greeted with warmth and sunshine; balmy 70 degree days and cool evenings-- not the typical freezing nights we’ve experienced in the past. Still the colors of fall were there in all of their golden glory and the smell of roasting chiles lingered in the air.  My appetite was kicked into gear.

From our first night at Café Pasqual’s with their rich and delicious mole to our last night at Santacafe – a decedent rib eye alongside red chile Béarnaise, lovely food and friendly service from a variety of restaurants graced our evenings in between. The food in Santa Fe has never been a disappointment, this year it was off the charts. Truly an inspiration….

 Home now with a handful of beautiful Anasazi beans fresh from my garden I ponder my options. My first inclination is to just make a simple pot of beans. I love the flavor of beans and have become a huge fan of Rancho Gordo Heirloom Beans. This mail order company based in Napa offers hard to find varieties and it’s hard to argue with the simple methods by which they recommend you use them.

Then I remember the beautiful Chioggia squash on my front porch. This big warty bluish squash was grown on a ranch in Cayucos in our coop garden. Ahhh, what better way to use my handful of beans than to marry it with a delicious squash in a hearty fall soup with a bit of sage and some roasted pasilla chiles. The great thing about soup is that you can adapt a soup to fit what you’ve got in your cupboard. This recipe is adapted from a white bean and butternut squash recipe from an old Gourmet magazine. Here’s the version I made with my Anasazi beans, Chioggia squash and the last of this year’s tomatoes.

Chioggia Squash and Anasazi Bean Soup

1 cup of Anasazi (or other white beans).

3 cups water or broth

1 garlic clove, minced

2 tomatoes, skinned, seeded and chopped

3 cups of Chioggia (or other winter squash)

1 pasilla chile, roasted, skinned, seeded and chopped

1 teaspoon fresh sage, finely chopped

½ cup finely grated pecorino cheese

Cook the beans in water or broth until almost tender. Add garlic, tomatoes and squash adding broth or water as needed. Cook until squash is tender.  Smash some of the squash against the side of the saucepan to thicken the soup slightly. Add pasilla chile, sage and cheese. Season with salt and pepper to taste, serve.

 

 

 

 

 

Bon Appetit's Dish of the Year

How to Make a Porchetta in 4 “Easy” Steps             

1. Take a trip to Italy to research the origins and classic traditions of this national culinary treasure.  Like the ubiquitous taco trucks on L.A. street corners, Porchetta trucks abound in central Italy, especially Umbria. There, Italians line up patiently for some of this porcine goodness which the porchetta vender will slice off of the mahagony colored roll to order.  Most enjoy it on the spot, thinly sliced into a Panini (sandwich). Traditionally this amazing roast is from a pig that’s been boned, stuffed with savory aromatic herbs like Sage, Fennel Pollen and Rosemary, and rolled tightly around some of the entrails, like the liver, and the heart.  The skin of the pig keeps things moist while it roasts for long, slow hours on a spit over a wood fire.  

The trip to Italy should include further research into which cooking methods to avoid when making a DIY Porchetta. For instance, a novice porchetta maker should definitely avoid trying to cook a ready made one from an Italian grocery store in one’s vacation rental kitchen where the only pan is a non-stick frying pan and the kitchen is Barbie doll sized.  There, where you have no recipes to rely on, you and your friend Tim may wrongly attempt to sear it first in the teeny tiny frying pan which will immediately fill the Barbie doll sized kitchen, and the rest of the apartment, with smoke.  Luckily the final product will still be delicious, albeit scorched blacked in spots, and will be enough to convince you more research is in order.

2. Convince your husband that you and your BFF must take a girls only trip to San Francisco to do yet more Porchetta research. After all, Bon Appetit crowned Porchetta the Dish of the Year in 2011. This thinly disguised journey will happily give you the opportunity to dine and drink in San Francisco’s best restaurants, shop madly, and enjoy the big city sights.  Saturday morning’s breakfast at the Ferry Building Farmers Market should consist of the Roli-Roti Porchetta sandwich, the best porchetta this side of Italy.  This juicy, crunchy, dripping sandwich will be the last bit of inspiration you need. After your sandwich you’ll visit vendors selling locally grown meat and you and your friend will briefly consider buying a ready made Porchetta roast for $110.00.  Reason will ultimately prevail. You will gamely decide to tackle a real Porchetta from scratch. Well, one without the entrails at least.

A trip to the Fatted Calf Charcuterie in Hayes Valley on the way out of town Sunday morning is revelatory. There, in the butcher’s case, crying out to go home with us, is a huge slab of Skin-on Pork Belly. We don’t even blink at the $44.00 price tag.  Baby in tow, we head home.

3. Arrange a dinner party with carnivorous friends and schedule yet another girls night with your BFF to assemble the Porchetta a couple nights in advance.  The girls night can include yet more wine drinking and frivolity but when time comes to roll the pork belly around the pork loin you better have your wits in order.  If not, you’ll find that the pork belly doesn’t fit quite all the way around the pork loin leaving a rather large gap and you will panic. A frightened look at the clock will reveal it’s almost 7:00 pm. And there’s probably no such thing as a 24 hour Porchetta Hotline. If you’re lucky, you’ll remember that there’s probably still someone on duty at the Fatted Calf Chacuterie and if the gods are smiling, someone will answer the phone. A reassuring man’s voice on the other end of the line will talk you off the ledge and assure you that a small gap in the roast is no big deal.

4. Two days later, after the baby has had a long, slow, rest in the fridge, it’s time to cook.  With any luck will this blessed event will take place in the BFF’s kitchen, not yours. Alas, at the last minute you may decide more intensive research is in order to prevent one’s home kitchen from filling with smoke. The Bon Appetit recipe advises cooking at 500 degrees for 40 minutes before turning the temperature down.  Some labored and panicky internet surfing will lead you down a safer path: a lower (less smoky) temperature espoused by the Fatted Calf.

 

5. Pull the roast out of the oven when the internal temperature of the loin hits 138-140 degrees.  Let rest for at least 30 minutes while the temp rises to 145. Now for the easy part: Slice, plate, make a toast to your gorgeous masterpiece, and eat.

Porchetta

Adapted from Bon Appetit Magazine

About 12 servings

>1 5–6-pound piece fresh pork belly, skin on (look for one that’s big enough to wrap around a loin)
1 (trimmed) 2–3-pound boneless, center-cut pork loin
3 tablespoons fennel seeds
2 tablespoons crushed red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons minced fresh sage
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
3 garlic cloves, minced
Kosher salt
1 orange, seeded, thinly sliced

Put belly skin side down; arrange loin in center. Roll belly around loin so the short ends of the belly meet. If any of the belly or loin overhangs, trim meat. Unroll; set loin aside.

Toast fennel seeds and red pepper flakes in a small skillet over medium heat until fragrant, about 1 minute. 

Tip spices into a bowl; let cool. Finely grind spices in a spice mill and transfer to a small bowl, along with the sage, rosemary, and garlic; set fennel mixture aside.

Assemble porchetta according to steps 1-5.

Refrigerate roast, uncovered, for 1–2 days to allow skin to air-dry; pat occasionally with paper towels.

Let porchetta sit at room temperature for 2 hours. Place into a pre-heated 375 degree oven. After about 40 minutes, when the roast begins to brown, turn the oven down to 325 degrees and cook for approximately two to three hours. Your porchetta is done when a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the roast reads 140 degrees.

 If skin is not yet deep brown and crisp, increase heat to 500°F and roast for 10 minutes more. Let rest for 30-45 minutes. Using a serrated knife, slice into 1/2" rounds.

To assemble:

1. Set belly skin side down. Using a knife, score the belly flesh in a checkerboard pattern 1/3" deep so roast will cook evenly.

2. Flip belly skin side up. Using a paring knife, poke dozens of 1/8"-deep holes through skin all over belly. Don't be gentle! Keep poking.

3. Using the jagged edge of a meat mallet, pound skin all over for 3 minutes to tenderize, which will help make skin crispy when roasted.

4. Turn belly and generously salt both it and loin; rub both with fennel mixture. Arrange loin down middle of belly. Top with orange slices.

5. Roll belly around loin; tie crosswise with kitchen twine at 1/2" intervals. Trim twine. Transfer roast to a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet.

Traditions, heros and pumpkins

For the second year in a row Devon and I have gone to San Francisco on Super Bowl weekend. Both years the weather has been spectacular.  Temperatures in the 60’s, sunny skies, calm winds and a minimal amount of tourists lurking about (vs our trip in August with gray skies, howling winds and hordes of tourists). Yet another tradition in the making!

Prior to our departure we spend a fair amount of time researching restaurants and different forms of entertainment. One thing is certain – we have to go to Farmers’ Market at the Ferry Building and feast on the Roti-Roti porchetta pork sandwich, hopefully early enough that we’ll have an appetite in time to have lunch at one of our chosen restaurants.

Our restaurant research this year sent us to Aziza for dinner on Saturday night. A beautifully understated dining room with an unassuming clientele and amazing Moroccan food – fresh out of the oven flat-bread with a variety of spreads; chickpea, yogurt-dill, piquillo-almond. Big fin squid artichoke, citrus, piquillo, olive. Duck confit basteeya, raisin, almond. Chicken, preserved lemon, hen of the woods, celery root. Lamb shank, barley, prune, saffron. Cake, lemon ice cream, mint cream, caramel, blood oranges. Tisane, herbal, fresh mint tea.

The highlight of the meal, outside the food, was that famed food author and my hero, Michael Pollan was seated at an adjacent table. I was lucky enough to be facing the right direction and recognized him the minute he sat down. We were too shy to approach – he was with his wife and I’m guessing her parents. Every time the server placed a dish on their table I was craning to see what selections had been made. And every time I did that Mrs. Pollan took notice. I hope she was flattered rather than annoyed.  I couldn’t have been more excited if it were Mick Jagger sitting at the next table and the sighting left me with an extra dose of inspiration.

Back home in Cambria, with a fresh dose of inspiration, I noticed a recently purchased winter squash waiting to be turned into soup. We are fortunate to have Dos Pasos Ranch bringing some wonderful locally grown heirloom squash to our Farmers’ Market. The proprietor, Beth Kendall, knows her squash. You can tell her you’d like to make a soup and depending on what kind of soup you like she’ll suggest the best candidate or candidates available. Sometimes it is a combination, maybe one variety that has a characteristic flavor and then another drier or fruitier variety to balance the texture or flavor.  Or if you want to make something other than soup she’ll steer you in the right direction of whatever you happen to be cooking up.

My most recent purchase was a Musquee de Provence which looks a bit like Cinderella’s carriage. Its flesh is bright orange and it is sweet. To balance the texture I was advised to add a small acorn type squash. I decided to turn them into a luxurious Coconut Milk, Lime Pumpkin Soup.

 (Besides Cambria Farmers’ Market Dos Pasos sells at Paso Robles and Templeton Markets).

Coconut Milk, Lime Pumpkin Soup

1 large winter squash (butternut squash works)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion

1 jalapeno

1 teaspoon oregano

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper (to taste)

1 can of unsweetened coconut milk

Chicken or vegetable broth

Salt

White pepper

1 lime

Pre-heat oven to 375. Cut squash in half and place cut side down on a rimmed cookie sheet and roast until tender (about 45 minutes)

Chop onion and jalapeno and sauté in olive oil until tender but not brown.

Spoon flesh out of cooked squash halves and add cooked squash, oregano cayenne pepper and coconut milk to onion, jalapeno mixture and bring to a simmer. Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth, adding broth as needed for the desired consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Zest a lime. Add the zest and juice of one lime to the soup and garnish with lime zest.