Salmon and tomato soup
We’re not fully operational yet in our new kitchen. Although the unpacking is almost done, we had been cooking on a borrowed “super kalan” for the past few days while waiting for the new cooking range to be delivered…
Not that we’ve been eating badly. It’s a pain cooking with one stove but we manage, believe me. For instance, for lunch yesterday, we had a delicious soup made with salmon head, fresh tomatoes and basil picked from the garden…
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Kalabasa (squash) soup
In the Noche Buena blog, there is a recipe for kalabasa (squash) and potato soup which I made using the broth from the bones of a duckling. I added cubes of squash and potatoes, and chopped onions to the strained broth, simmered everything until soft then pureed the mixture in the blender.
I did another version of this wonderful soup a few nights ago but, instead of pureeing the chopped onions along with the rest of the ingredients, I sauteed them in a little butter. Amazing how one little step can change the soup in such a substantial way.
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One pot of broth, 2 soup dishes
As I’ve previously mentioned, I like simmering bones in a large pot then dividing the broth into several portions. I freeze the broth that I won’t need immediately and take them out as needed. But how many soup dishes can you make with the same pot of broth? In terms of number, that depends on how much broth you have and how many people you intend to serve the soup dishes to. In terms of variety, it’s endless actually, but you really want each soup dish to be so distinct that even if you serve soup three times a day, each will be as exciting as the last.
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Bulalo (beef bone marrow) noodle soup
This bulalo noodle soup was a way of putting to good use a large pot of broth made with beef bones. This is not a bulalo soup in the strict sense of the word because the bones used were not bulalo-cut bones but scrap (soup) bones with the bone marrow intact. I get them cheaply from Shopwise. I buy a two kilos of bones, simmer them for hours, divide the broth into portions and use them for several different dishes. I’ll post two more soup dishes made with the broth from the same pot later. Right now, I’d like to tell you about my bulalo noodle soup.
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Chicken and misua soup, version 2
It’s the same basic chicken and misua soup but without tomatoes. I have also added broccoli florets, the pared and sliced stem of the broccoli, and carrots. I used beef broth instead of chicken broth, having been simmering a pot of bones all afternoon.
What’s the idea? Nothing, really, except that I already had two cooked chicken breasts — I boiled the breasts that I cut off from the chickens that I grilled a few days ago — and there were a lot of vegetables in the fridge…
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Herbed chicken soup with assorted beans
Cook the beans in simmering water for an hour and a half. Cook a whole chicken in lots of water, a whole garlic, an onion, ten tomatoes, a bay leaf, peppercorns, rosemary, oregano and salt. Debone the chicken, peel and mash the garlic, onion and tomatoes. Return everything to the pot, add the cooked beans, simmer for a few minutes and you’ve got yourself a great soup.
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Chicken soup for a rainy day
Ham bones, especially those from Chinese ham, are wonderful for making soup. You just drop the bones in water, add onions and garlic and let everything simmer for an hour. The flavors from the bone will transfer to the water and you get a broth that is simply bursting with flavor.
But who has ham bones at this time of the year? Well, see, Majestic Ham sells bones by the kilo…
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Fish head soup with coconut cream
When you hear the term “fish head soup”, the picture that forms in the mind is fish head in a clear broth with leafy green vegetables…But I’ve often dreamed of a fish head soup that was more filling, more robust and less ordinary. No clear broth with subtle hints of garlic and ginger but full-bodied and with a lot of bite in it. Chilis and coconut cream seemed like a great idea.
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