Around My French Table (15 page)

TO MAKE THE CREAM TOPPING:
In a medium bowl, with an electric mixer (use the whisk attachment for a stand mixer), beat the cream on medium-high speed until it holds soft peaks. Add a pinch of salt and some of your chosen spice. Start with ½ teaspoon spice, taste, and then add more until you get the intensity you're after, whipping just until the cream holds firm peaks.

Alternatively, you can use a siphon to whip the cream. Season the cream, pour it into the siphon, and keep it chilled until serving time. (If you're seasoning the cream with pink peppercorns, it's best to salt the cream, whip it in the siphon, and then sprinkle the cream with the peppercorns before serving.) When you're ready to serve, follow the manufacturer's directions for inserting the charger and whipping the cream.

Ladle or pour the soup into bowls or glasses and top with the cream.

MAKES 4 STARTER SERVINGS OR 8 HORS D'OEUVRE SERVINGS

SERVING
Pour the soup—or soups—into bowls or glasses and top with the cream. If you've whipped the cream with a beater, you can form the cream into quenelles or dollops; if you've used a siphon, the cream will be very soft, and when you spoon it over the soup, it will spread on its own. No matter what you do, it's going to be stunning.

STORING
Well covered, the soups can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Serve them cold or warm them over gentle heat before serving.

BONNE IDÉE
Chilled Red Pepper–Raspberry Soup.
This is a terrific combination—the berries intensify the color of the soup and add both acidity and mystery to the flavor. Once the red pepper soup is chilled, puree about 2 cups fresh raspberries and push the pureed berries through a strainer to remove the seeds. Whisk the puree into the soup (taste as you go, so you get just the balance of berries to pepper you like). Serve, or chill for another hour or so. This soup is good with the piment d'Espelette or pink peppercorns you'd use with the plain red pepper soup, but it's also good with crushed black pepper or herbs like rosemary, thyme, or lemon verbena. If you'd like, scatter a few berries over the cream.

P
AIRING CELERY ROOT AND STALK CELERY
gives you a soup that is both sweet (that's from the root) and bright (that's the work of the stalks). I love that two vegetables from the same family can deliver the same underlying flavor in such different packages and with such different high notes. I've had double-celery soups all over France, but the one I remember as a standout is the one from the Paris bistro Les Papilles (whose mushroom soup is also memorable; see
[>]
), where a little sauté of curried apples is spooned into the bowl before the soup is ladled in. It's a sweet surprise and a nice flavor tie-in, since the soup has apples too. If you'd like another surprise, top the soup with tiny croutons, which can also be curried. (See Bonne Idées for more on both the apples and the croutons.)

Melt the butter in a large Dutch oven or soup pot over low heat. Toss in the sliced celery, onions, and apples, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. Add the celery root cubes and turn them around in the butter. Toss the herbs into the pot, add the broth, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and cook at a gentle simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the celery root is soft enough to mash with the back of a spoon. If you can, pull out the bay leaf and what's left of the thyme.

Working in small batches, puree the soup in a blender or food processor until it is very smooth; or use an immersion blender. (If you're using a processor or immersion blender, you probably won't get a super-smooth soup. If you'd like, you can push the pureed soup through a strainer, but it's really not necessary) Reheat if needed and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Ladle into bowls, and garnish with cream, if you like.

MAKES 8 TO 10 SERVINGS

SERVING
For a little richness, you can swirl crème fraîche, heavy cream, or sour cream into the soup at serving time.

STORING
This can be kept covered in the refrigerator for a few days; in fact, I think it's best the day after it's made. You can also freeze it, packed airtight, for up to 2 months.

BONNE IDÉES
Curried Apples.
Peel, core, and cut 2 apples (tart or sweet) into spoonable cubes. Melt 1 tablespoon unsalted butter in a large skillet and stir in ¼ teaspoon curry powder. Add the apples and sauté over medium heat just until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Taste and stir in a pinch more curry, if you'd like. Spoon some apples into the bottom of each bowl before pouring in the soup.

Curried Croutons
. Cut enough crustless stale bread—white, country, or baguette—into small cubes to measure about 2 cups. Melt 1 tablespoon unsalted butter in a large skillet and stir in ¼ teaspoon curry powder. Toss in the bread and cook, stirring and turning, over medium-high heat just until the croutons are browned. Season with salt and pepper and perhaps a pinch more curry powder. Sprinkle croutons over soup.

S
OUPS DON'T GET SIMPLER OR MORE
French than leek and potato. One of the most elemental versions, called
soupe Parmentier
in honor of Antoine-Auguste Parmentier, who championed potatoes as a food to feed the poor in the eighteenth century, is nothing more than leeks and potatoes cooked in water and then mashed, pureed, or left chunky. Often bolstered with cream or butter, it's proof that Parmentier was on to something when he opened soup kitchens throughout Paris and nourished the masses with his
potage.

As good as the plain soup is, it's tastier made with chicken broth and better yet with a mix of chicken broth and milk. Then there's no need to add cream or butter—you've built what the French would call the enrichment into the soup at the start.

I like this soup chunky, but you can certainly puree it. And, if you'd like, chill it and turn it into that Franco-American classic, vichyssoise, which was invented in 1917 by the French chef Louis Diat, who ran the kitchens at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City. Not surprisingly, the soup can be the base for lots of add-ins, among them spinach, watercress, fennel (one of my favorites), and, if you're willing to throw tradition completely to the winds, corn, which is bound to put you in mind of New England chowder (see Bonne Idées). cups chicken broth (or water) cups whole milk (or water)

Melt the butter in a Dutch oven or soup pot over low heat. Add the onion and garlic and stir until they glisten with butter, then season with salt and white pepper, cover, and cook for about 10 minutes, until the onion is soft but not colored.

Add the remaining ingredients, along with a little more salt, increase the heat, and bring to a boil. As soon as the soup bubbles, turn the heat to low, mostly cover the pot, and simmer gently for 30 to 40 minutes, or until all the vegetables are mashably soft. Taste the soup and season generously with salt and white pepper.

You've got many choices now: you can ladle the soup into warmed bowls and serve as is, mash the vegetables lightly with the back of a spoon, or puree the soup through a food mill (my first choice—you'll get a more interesting texture) or with a blender—regular or immersion—or food processor. If desired, garnish with the topping of your choice.

MAKES 6 SERVINGS

SERVING
Serve the soup plain, or top each bowl with minced herbs, snipped chives, a sprinkling of cheese, a few croutons, or the teensiest drizzle of truffle oil.

STORING
The soup can be kept covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days or, packed airtight, in the freezer for up to 2 months.

BONNE IDÉE
Vichyssoise.
Reduce the liquid to 6 cups and use all chicken broth. Puree the soup and chill for at least several hours, or, preferably, overnight. When you're ready to serve, stir in 1 cup heavy cream. Taste again for salt—saltiness diminishes on chilling. Ladle into chilled bowls or cups and, if you'd like, top with snipped fresh chives or chopped fresh parsley.

ANOTHER BONNE IDÉE
Leek and Potato Soup with Spinach, Watercress, or Corn.
Five minutes or so before the soup is done, add a generous handful of washed and shredded spinach, washed and stemmed watercress, or about 1 cup corn kernels. While a soup with spinach or watercress can be pureed or not, the corn soup is best served in its naturally chunky state.

ONE MORE BONNE IDÉE
Leek and Potato Soup with Fennel.
Trim a medium fennel bulb, cut it lengthwise in half, and cut away any tough parts near the base. Slice the fennel into short thin strips and add them to the pot either when you're sautéing the onion and garlic or when you toss in the leeks and potatoes. Like the original, this soup is good pureed or chunky.

C
AULIFLOWER HAS AN ENTHUSIASTIC FOLLOWING IN
France, where it is one of the staples of the winter market, its big, nubbled, snowy white heads standing out among the season's mostly brown vegetables. The hefty heads, the majority of which come from Brittany and are beautiful enough to be centerpieces, often serve as the base for rich sauces and cheesy toppings. Cauliflower's earthiness does lend itself well to cream and cheese (try it in a wonderful gratin,
[>]
), but the vegetable also has an elegant side, the one that shines in this light, smooth, pale soup, which has the look and texture of a
velouté
(cream soup) but not a drop of cream (there isn't even a potato in it to thicken it). This is the soup I served to American friends in Paris in the hopes of making cauliflower converts of them—and it worked.