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French Fridays with Dorie: Warm Weather Vegetable Pot au Feu
This week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie took me by surprise. I love vegetables, and I love soups and stews. And yet, when I read the recipe through, I felt ambivalent. Even the picture didn’t help. But I carried on.
Though Dorie says to use whatever’s fresh in this recipe, I stuck with the vegetables called for, including the lemongrass, because they all looked great at the market. The asparagus and the baby spinach were local. Also in the mix were a Vidalia onion, a leek, carrots, baby potatoes, and shiitake mushrooms.
I found the recipe a little vague about how to cut up some of the vegetables. It seemed like the leek and asparagus were left whole, but I don’t like having to cut things when I’m eating with a spoon. I ended up thinly slicing the quartered leek and cutting the (unpeeled) asparagus spears into 2-inch pieces. Also, I used only half the spinach called for because more seemed overwhelming.
Because this dish was simply vegetables in broth, I knew the flavor of the broth would be key to the success of the dish. I thought I had homemade chicken broth in the freezer, but instead, I struck gold when I came across a container of duck stock I’d forgotten about.
When the pot au feu was done and I tasted the broth for seasoning, I was surprised by how sweet and springy and delicious it was. I loved it! After our violent midweek thunderstorm (fortunately no tornadoes here), the oppressive heat has been traded for crispness in the air (almost like fall, even though it’s June). A bowl of light soup was perfect for the cooler weather.
I served this in low and wide pasta bowls, with a poached egg in each bowl. I also snipped from herbs from the garden: chervil, tarragon, and parsley to sprinkle over top.
I was pleasantly surprised how fast it all came together. Dinner was ready in less than an hour. I did have help. Howard helped with chopping the vegetables and poaching the eggs. He also made some quick guacamole to snack on while we cooked. I like having a sous chef!
I can definitely see making this one again, varying the vegetables with the season. Once again, even though I wasn’t that excited about the recipe at the start, it turned out to be a winner.
Dorie said that leftovers on this won’t be so good, but we only ate half, so we’ll give it a go again tomorrow.
I do have a lot of leftover lemongrass. I had to buy a bundle with several stalks, and only used a 2-inch piece. Anyone have suggestions of how to use the rest?
One of the high points of my weekends is reading the posts of the other FFwD bloggers to see how they changed up this week’s recipe. Check out their links at French Fridays with Dorie. We don’t post the recipes, but consider getting your own copy of the book, Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table. Maybe you’ll even want to cook along with us on Fridays. It’s a blast!
Spring Has Arrived
I finally feel like the transition to spring is here. Sure, we’re still having some chilly evenings, but it’s finally feeling more like it’s warmer than it’s colder. My twice-weekly exercise class made its move from inside the high school field house to an outdoor field last week. The first morning it was 55 degrees, though the second morning, it was 20 degrees colder. It might be time to turn the heat off for the season soon.
Now that spring is in the air, the garden is starting to come alive. I still have some snowdrops lingering. The crocus is over, but the first early tulips and my first two daffodils opened this weekend. Chionodoxa has naturalized on the edges of the lawn which makes me smile.
Yesterday, I cleared out the herb bed and found the chervil volunteers, chives, and tarragon poking up green shoots. The lemon balm, oregano, mints, winter (perennial) savory, and sage are still dormant, but alive. The thyme didn’t make it, so I will get some replacement when I purchase the annual rosemary and lemon verbena to round out the mix.
As for food plants, the gooseberries, currants, and blueberries are starting to leaf out. The raspberries and blackberries haven’t gotten started yet, but I’m sure they aren’t far behind. I forgot to check whether the rhubarb is starting to poke up and unfurl but it should be starting. We planted a bed of peas a few weeks back (under the Remay cloth) but no sign of germination yet.
We’re trying a new approach with the lettuce and radishes this year. Check out my latest planter. It’s a 10-foot section of gutter that I spray-painted and Howard hung on the back of the garage. I planted microgreens, arugula, and mesclun mix along with a mix of radishes and some watermelon radishes. These are all shallow growers, so the gutter shouldn’t hinder them. The added benefit is that the height will keep my tender seedlings out of reach of the bunnies living in that corner of the garden. (Next project is to paint that plywood another bright color.)
A seasonal change is a change in more than weather but in what we eat. I’m just finishing up the last of our Winter CSA vegetables, storage vegetables obviously. There are still a couple of butternut squash left and a couple of pounds of beets.
I used up the last of the beets in a simple but delicious soup. Roasted beets combined with sautéed red onion in chicken stock with a smidge of cream. The whole mixture gets processed in the blender for a smooth, magenta puree. The color is wild. The taste is sweet and earthy and more complex than its short list of ingredients. I’m certainly happy to be saying goodbye to winter, but this soup was an excellent sendoff!
Cream of Beet Soup
Adapted from Joyce Goldstein’s Back to Square One
2 lbs beets
2 Tbsp butter
1 medium red onion, sliced
4 cups chicken stock
¾ cup light cream (or half-and-half)
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Scrub the beets well. Place the unpeeled beets in a roasting pan, add about ½ inch of water to the pan. Cover with foil and bake for one hour or until the beets are tender. When the beets are cool enough to handle, slip the skin off.
Cut 1/3 of the beets into julienne and set aside. Dice the remaining beets.
Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Lower the heat and add the onion. Cook until tender and translucent, about 15 minutes. Add the stock and diced beets. Bring to a boil, and simmer for about 10 more minutes.
Puree the soup in the blender until smooth. Return puree to the saucepan. Add the cream and stir to mix in completely. Season to taste.
To serve, ladle warmed soup into bowls and garnish with the julienned beets.
You could dollop with sour cream, but it’s delicious plain.
A Plateful of Happiness 