Fish Soup

This soup is delightful, and easy to make. Serves 2-3 people.

Ingredients:

4 T butter
1/2 onion, chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled & diced
thyme
water
3 c. milk (or cream)
2-3 fillets of white fish

Procedure:

Melt butter in soup pot. Saute chopped onions until transparent.
Add diced potatoes. Saute for 1-2 minutes.
Add fresh or dried thyme.* Stir.
Add water to cover, enough to completely cook the potatoes. Boil lightly for about 10 minutes.
Gently stir in milk, a little at a time, and simmer until hot enough to cook fish.
Add 2-inch pieces of fish, and cook about 3 minutes.

If you use cream this dish will be decidedly richer, and probably better as a side dish than a complete meal. (Great for an appetizer to impress dinner guests!) Otherwise, dilute soup with milk to reach the consistency that appeals to you.

Serve with toast.

*When using fresh thyme in soups, bundle twigs and tie together, then remove when the soup is ready to serve. Dried thyme can more accurately be measured in pinches, to please your palate.

I'm a big herb freak, so I use a lot of dried thyme in this delicious soup.

Let the Sky Rain Potatoes

M.F.K. Fisher is an American icon of food writing. I know very little about her, having just discovered her. She lived from 1908-1992, in California and France. Despite her pedigree, she was a very down-to-earth person when it came to food. She reminds me a little bit of Arianna Huffington. Someone who has the privileges of the rich, yet remains an advocate for the less rich. Rare.

M.F.K. wrote about potatoes more than once. At first, it seemed she despised the tuber, because it was served unceremoniously at every meal of her childhood. Meat & potatoes, meat & potatoes, meat & potatoes. Later, she wrote about its discovery. The glorious discovery of the potato, and then the monarchy that pushed its edibility on the poor, who then starved to death when the potato curated its own disease. And then later, she wrote about the wonder of the potato, describing its fluffiness with a sensuality I will probably never achieve on this blog.

Let me try to tell you about my own experience of potatoes, and then give you a new recipe.

My first intense potato experience was when I had my wisdom teeth out, at about age 13. All I wanted to eat was mashed potatoes, soft enough with cream & butter to be practically put through a straw. That magical food saved my life. I didn't want to die as long as I had mashed potatoes, with black pepper. I think there is somewhere a picture of me in bed recovering, with an almost-smile on my face, only because of mashed potatoes.

Years later, I tried to understand how to cook potatoes. My, my, my... they are hard to cook. Consider the varieties. I read "The Man Who Ate Everything" by Jeffrey Steingarten, who, in journalistic fashion, tried to master potato cooking, and dissected the starch content down to a science. It confused me more.

DH prefers long-cooked oven baked potatoes with thick skins. I prefer fresh red potatoes boiled softly.

My friend, who was a chef at the Modern Cafe for years, told me that he can easily cook gnocchi. "Oh, my!" I said, "Gnocchi is easy?"

"Yes, totally easy," he said. And then he went into all the complications of picking the proper potato. He warned me about farmer's market potatoes (too fresh), and of grocery store potatoes (too old). After a few minutes of this, I was tuning out. Because really, how can you know a proper potato for gnocchi? Please, spare me.


POTATOES WITH ROSEMARY & GARLIC

In a pan, heat olive oil.
Add diced potatoes.
Saute, adding a lot of rosemary and fresh crushed garlic, and of course, salt. Cover the pan and cook, stirring ocassionaly, for however long it takes, because as I've said before, I know y'all know how to cook!

It is an oily dish, but delicious!

I love potatoes, so much. Today at the grocery store I perused all the frozen types of potatoes, and I was totally grossed out. Let's just review a few of the grossest things available for purchase.

sweet potato fries
hash browns
tater tots
potato pancakes

None of these are good food. Even though I am a mom who wants desperately to make food more instant, I cannot, will not, serve this crap to my kid. And neither should you.

Except once in a while.

Root Veg

Adapted from page 435 of "The Joy of Cooking": Winter Root Vegetable Braise.

This differs considerably from the Joy recipe, mainly because my cooking method was in the oven instead of on the stove. As always, do it your way! I will let you know the essentials to making a dish taste good. Also, I don't follow measurements very carefully, because who knows how much is a pound of turnips? So again, do it your way. Because I know y'all know how to cook.

INGREDIENTS

root vegetables (I used parsnips, potatoes, japanese yams, and onions)
garlic
butter, olive oil
herbs
white wine
chicken stock
flour
cream
dijon mustard
chopped parsley
s&p

PROCEDURE

Preheat oven to 375F. Cut vegetables as you wish. I cut large pieces. Place in a baking dish. Add 2-4 T butter, and some olive oil. Include about 4 whole cloves of garlic (no need to peel! I love that!)

Shove some herbs in there. I used fresh tarragon, dried thyme, and a bay leaf. Oh, and some dried dill.

Bake until sort of bubbling/sizzling but not burning, about 10-15 minutes.

Stir. Add 1/4 c wine. Stir. Cook until alcohol cooks off. Stir in 1 T flour.

Add 2 - 2 1/2 c. chicken stock. Stir. Bake about 20-35 minutes. Cooking time totally depends on your baking dish, oven, amount of veg, etc. You know this. You want the veg to be tender. This is great if it turns out like a meatless stew.

When looking good (I mean the dish, not you. Of course, you may be looking real good by now if you are drinking the wine. Whatever!), reduce heat to 310F. Combine 3 T cream + 1 T dijon mustard with chopped parsley. Add to pot. Stir. Cook about 5 minutes. Taste & add salt & pepper to taste.

It's done!

Truly, you could make this dish countless different ways. Honestly, it's the flour thickener and the cream/mustard/parsley that really make it. If you skip that, you are making something different.

Bon appetit!

P.S. Still taking contestants on the turnip butt pun contest.

Fish On!

In celebration of Father's Day, my mom and I arranged for my husband and my dad to take the boat out on Lake Johanna. You see, the first boat trip of the season is an event full of frustration and foul language, and I didn't want to go this year. So, it worked out great! DH caught a fish on his first cast: a very nice bass. He brought it home for dinner. It tasted like fresh spring water, which is not always the case, but we've had so much rain this year that the fish tasted very clean. DH pan-fried it covered in Saltine cracker crumbs. I made the side dish.

This is a classic recipe my mom used to make when we were kids. I have always loved it. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to cook, but it is worth it.

FISHERMAN'S POTATOES
Serves 3-4 people

3-4 potatoes (I like gold or yellow potatoes)
1 large onion (I like Vidallia sweets)
1 stalk celery, sliced or diced
2-4 T vegetable oil
herbs (I used rosemary, oregano, and tarragon; you can use whatever you like!)
salt & pepper

Cut onion into dice. Saute in oil in a cast iron pan. Add celery. Saute until transparent and soft.
Wash and peel, if necessary, potatoes. Cut into chunks. Add to pan and use additional oil if necessary.
Add salt to bring the water out of the vegetables.
When the pan is almost dry (but not burning; this takes about 5 minutes) add water to cover, just barely. You can always keep adding water. The more water you have to continue adding, the more the potatoes will break up and become mushy and sloppy. I recommend putting in just enough water the first time.
Add delicious herbs; I prefer dried herbs for this dish.
This dish requires a lot of stirring, that's why the potatoes break down.
When the potatoes are cooked and the consistency looks good to you, remove from heat and serve.