Monday, March 31, 2008

Spring Corn Soup with Chive Biscuits



.
Does your brain ever shout *POP!*?

Like when you have a bitchen recipe idea that just filters up from the grey matter into the lovely stew of today?

Oh yes, you know what I mean. Those kismet culinary kinda moments are the bestest!

*POP!*

This soup is not only a luscious meeting of early springtime form and function, but is super ultra pretty and tasty and slinky sexy (a favorite word of that honey-of-a-girl Pace…check out her fabstatic noveau blog will ya?) in a smooth n’ silky kinda way. Mix that with some warm, chivey, baby biscuits and, well...*POP!*

It's just that luscious my peaches, exactly like you.

Which is why you simply must try it, and taste the joy.

8 cobs of corn
3 tablespoons butter
1 leek, white part only, minced
3 cups vegetable stock
1 cup cold water
salt and white pepper


With a sharp knife, remove the corn from the cobs. Set aside.

In a large soup pot over low heat, melt the butter, then add the leeks and sweat (cook without adding color/browning) until translucent. Add the corn and cook, stirring sometimes (why always occasionally. Why not sometimes?) until cooked through. Add the water and the stock and raise heat to medium. Cook for 10 minutes. Remove half the soup and puree in a blender. (Please be extra careful here, hot liquids expand in a blender, so never fill it more than half way) then strain through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl. Repeat with the rest of the soup.


Before serving, taste and adjust seasonings, garnish with the biscuits and some additional chives.

Serves six

Now, this part of the recipe is taken verbatim from the fine folks over yonder at Cooks Illustrated. Nothing has been changed (much). I just cut them into small circles and used three per bowl of soup. Sass-tastic!

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
3 tablespoons minced fresh chives
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.


Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and chives in medium bowl. Add 1 1/4 cups cream and stir with wooden spoon until dough forms, about 30 seconds. Transfer dough from bowl to counter-top, leaving all dry, floury bits behind in bowl. In 1 tablespoon increments, add up to 1/4 cup cream to dry bits in bowl, mixing with wooden spoon after each addition, until moistened. Add these moistened bits to rest of dough and knead by hand just until smooth, about 30 seconds.

Shape the dough into a round, 3/4-inch thick. Cut into small rounds with a biscuit cutter, making sure not to twist the cutter as you cut the biscuit out. Place rounds in groupings of three on parchment-lined baking sheet and bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking.


© 2008 Fresh Approach Cooking
______________________________________

Scoop: The Los Angeles Times is going to be naming Two Stoners Dudes Catering (recently seen on the Food Network) the "Best Catering Company in L.A." in an upcoming edition. The Dudes do not have a website, or business cards. They DO have a cookbook coming out soon though. You heard it here first.

BACON SALT!!!!

The Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River have disappeared. The almost complete collapse of the richest and most dependable source of Chinook salmon south of Alaska left fisheries experts struggling for reliable explanations — and coming up dry. The $150 million fishery, which usually opens for the four-month season on May 1, is almost certain to remain closed this year from Oregon to the Mexican border. As a result, Chinook, the most prized species of Pacific wild salmon, will be hard to come by until the Alaskan season opens in July. Even then, wild Chinook are likely to be very expensive nationwide. - LA Times