Mushroom Soup for the Solitary Soul

Left to her own devices, caribougrrl looks around at her life and takes stock... duck stock, that is.  And makes the best mushroom soup Fefe Noir never ate.

This mushroom soup has a mixture of sauteed and roasted mushrooms.  It has the classic Hungarian mushroom soup flavours of paprika and dill, but without the cream.  Don't worry though, it's got some duck fat in there to fill you up.

This-Ain't-No-Cream-of Hungarian Mushroom Soup

loosely adapted from Mollie Katzen's The Moosewood Cookbook (with duck fat apologies to Mollie Katzen)

Whenever you roast a duck, hang on to
the rendered fat.  Less waste and
more taste!

3 c. duck broth* (or chicken broth or vegetable broth)
a handful of dried chanterelles (or other dried mushrooms, or none at all)
1-1/2 lbs fresh mushrooms**
5 shallots, very thinly sliced
3 tbsp duck fat* (or chicken fat, or goose fat, or other lovely fat dripped from a roast, or olive oil)
2 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp smoked hot paprika
a sprig or more of fresh dill, finely chopped
2 c. water (or if you are feeling fancy, 1 cup white wine + 1 cup water)
juice of 1/2 Meyer lemon (or other lemon or a splash of cider vinegar)

*On Boxing Day, we made Jamie Oliver's Citrus Roast Duck, reserving the fat for later. After a meal of roast duck, then a meal of duck tacos and a lunch of duck on leafy salad, Fefe Noir used the remaining carcass to make a big pot of broth.  I found it in the freezer then remembered the duck fat in the fridge, so that's what I used.  Feel free to use chicken broth, but I can't vouch for the results (it will probably be awesome, but not as awesome as duck broth).  If you've been looking for an excuse to roast a duck, duck tacos and mushroom soup are reason enough.

**Any kind of fresh mushroom.  Or a mixture.  White, brown, cremini, portabello, baby bello, etc.

In a small sauce pan, heat the broth to a boil then remove from heat.  Crush up the dried chanterelles or other dried mushroom and add them to the hot broth to rehydrate.  If you aren't using dried mushrooms, which is perfectly acceptable too, then just skip this step.

Pre-heat the oven to 400F.

Fefe is always telling me, when she is taking photos, that everything is
information. Clearly, she is better at seeing the information in-camera than
I am.  So here's the information: the counter is crowded, the espresso machine
is under-utilized, we have a lot of vinegars, the curtains could use a wash...

Clean your mushrooms as needed and slice about half a pound of them.  If you bought them pre-sliced, you are done, move on to the next step.  If you bought your mushrooms whole, then halve or quarter the remaining mushrooms rather than slicing, just for a variety of shapes.  If you do slice these ones though, slice them thickly.

Take the halved and quartered mushrooms (or two-thirds of your pre-sliced mushrooms)  and, using your hands, coat them well in 1 tbsp of the fat.  Spread them over a shallow baking pan and put them in the oven to roast.  Roast until they are shriveled and have lovely browned edges.  This will take 10-20 minutes depending on the mushrooms.  Don't interfere with them until at least 10 minutes are passed, then you can check them, maybe stir them around, and either remove from the oven because they are done, or stick them back in for a bit.

While the mushrooms are roasting, heat the remaining fat in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat.  Add shallots and cook, stirring frequently but not constantly, until they are soft and browned.  Add the remaining mushrooms stirring only occasionally until they are soft (3-5 minutes).

Add paprika and dill, stir to coat the shallots and mushrooms.  Cook, stirring, for another 2-3 minutes.

Pour the broth with rehydrated mushrooom bits and the water into the pan.  Bring to a boil then reduce heat to low.  Add the roasted mushrooms to the pot and simmer, covered, until you are ready to eat.  (Really, it's probably fine right away, but I have this idea that soup should simmer for a while.  So I took the opportunity to wash the kitchen floor and wait for it to dry.  I inadvertently separated myself from a glass of wine on the counter but luckily I found more glasses and more wine in the dining room...)

Just before serving, squeeze the lemon juice into the soup and give it a good stir. 

Fefe Noir usually takes the photos for this blog.  Here is a shining example of why... I would have left it out entirely except I feel like there has to be a photo of the finished non-cream version of Hungarian mushroom soup.  I swear, it looks better than it looks, and tastes even better than that.

~~~

I've been abandoned.  Left to fend for myself.

For two weeks.

Two eternal weeks.

I have learned a few things about myself.  Primarily that I am spoiled.

Since Fefe Noir left, I have had to do the following things: wash all the dishes (not just the ones that go in the dishwasher), sweep, vacuum and wash floors, carry mugs back to the kitchen from the various bizarre places they materialize (like the window sill in the front hall... who leaves a mug in a place like that?), feed the dogs TWICE during the day including remembering the appropriate medications on the appropriate days, feed the cats, clean the litter boxes, do my own laundry (do my own laundry!), empty garbage cans, take the overflowing compost bucket out to the composter, prep AND cook meals, remember all the stuff I am supposed to remember without being reminded, make the bed, let dogs out to pee, let them back in, take my coat off the back of the chair and hang it up, put the shoes I left in the middle of the hallway away, take my own photos for the blog***... PLUS all the things I usually do (which, admittedly, are not much of anything at all)...

***you may have noticed the general decline in quality in the photos, my apologies, I have no patience

...it's exhausting.

I realize that most people have to do all that stuff all the time, with or without help from anyone else.  Good lord, some of you even have children to sort out in the midst of all of that.  My hat is off.  I don't know how you keep it up.

So I am not looking for sympathy, just trying to say that I get it.  You're tired, I'm tired.  None of us knows what to make for dinner because all of it seems too difficult.

Which brings me to the prepping (usually Fefe does this before I get home) and cooking of meals.  It turns out that left to my own devices with no one but me to impress, mostly I'm lazy.  Since Fefe's been gone, there have been a lot of salads using pre-washed lettuce and cold leftover things.  As in, all of the leftover things that were already in the fridge before I began this solitary life.  Eventually I ran out though.  Then I ran out of canned tuna too.

So I made soup.  Good nutritious comforting stuff, soup is, and even though it takes a bit of work (but not a lot of work) to prepare, you can make it in great big quantities, saving yourself the bother of cooking tomorrow, and maybe even the day after that.  Or you can freeze it, saving yourself the bother of cooking some day in the future.  

Here's the other thing about eating when Fefe is away: I make a point of eating things she doesn't like to eat because, well, here's my chance.  I've made popcorn five times in the last couple of weeks.  I ate tuna fish directly out of the can once.  I made banana muffins and sweetened them with date syrup and did not use one bit of chocolate in them... all the dessert sins in one dish.

Fefe does not like mushroom soup.  I love mushroom soup.  I made a point of buying a lot of mushrooms in order to make the Moosewood Hungarian Mushroom Soup because I wanted to make a mushroom soup that was not creamy.  I wanted broth and big pieces of mushroom swimming around in a rich but thin broth.  I hadn't made that soup for nearly 20 years (see introductory statement of this paragraph).  So I got home and fed the dogs and let them out and unloaded the dishwasher and moved laundry around and opened up the Moosewood Cookbook to discover that my memory of the soup was nearly completely wrong.  The recipe makes a thickened milky sour-creamy soup, which is undoubtedly lovely if that's what you are looking for.  But I had my heart set by now.  So I made the soup I wanted instead.  

(I ate it for dinner and lunch for three days running, brought some into work for a colleague, and froze a lunch portion.  I got a lot of not-cooking out of this one.)

The Sherry Thief's Stew

You don't want to waste that last packet of moose from the back of the freezer on a recipe that could go wrong, so don't.  Stick to the basics: moose, booze, berries, root vegetables, and a slow oven.

Sherried Moose Stew

2 tbsp bacon fat

Moose, berries and jelly from the wild.  Root vegetables
are about the only local veg available this time of year,
but still in great shape.

4 cups* moose meat, whatever cut is left in the freezer, thawed, cut into stewing chunks
2 tbsp unbleached all purpose flour
3 shallots, finely chopped
a few sprigs of thyme, dug out from under the snow (or perhaps growing or hanging to dry in your kitchen window because you are smarter than we are)
1 bay leaf
5 black peppercorns
5 parsnips, cut in half lengthwise then sliced

The sweet from the sherry and apple jelly, and the tart of the
cranberries are simple ways to add depth.

3 carrots, prepare 2 of these like the parsnips and divvy the third one up amongst your dogs
4 cloves crushed garlic
1/2 c. sweet sherry, stolen from that nice British lady down the street**
1/4 c. apple jelly (or use red currant or rose hip)
3 c. water
1/2 c. frozen wild cranberries

*Fefe would normally weigh this for you but someone (someone of the feline variety for sure, never ever someone of the caribougrrl variety), broke the scale by dropping it pushing it off the counter
**in this case, Fefe's mother... she also might have known we were taking it, but we haven't yet returned the remainder of the bottle so it still counts as stolen...

Comfort Cove parsnips for comfort food.

Preheat oven to 325F.

In a large cast iron dutch oven over medium heat, melt the bacon fat.  Season moose with salt and pepper and toss with flour.  Brown moose, in batches if necessary, and set aside.

Add a bit more bacon fat if needed to saute shallots, thyme, bay leaf and peppercorns in moose juice for about 5 minutes.  Add parsnips, carrots and garlic, stirring regularly for 10 minutes.  Don't let the garlic burn: adjust your heat and/or fat as necessary.

Deglaze with sherry.  Add jelly, browned moose, water and cranberries to the pot.  Bring to a simmery-boil, stirring occasionally.  Don't worry about hunks of jelly, these will meld into the stew before you eat it.

Put lid on the dutch oven and transfer to oven.  Check every 45 minutes or so to make sure there's sufficient liquid; add more water if you need it.  Cook for 2 hours (or more or less; test the moose with a fork for doneness every once in a while... it's done when the moose is tender and the liquid is thickened).

We served it with roasted turnip (rutabaga, swede).  

~~~

Fefe made this stew during the last major deep freeze.
 

It's difficult to gauge the weather by looking outside... 

So cold, the dishwasher has been clogged with ice nearly every morning.

Our thyme, when we can find it, is holding up rather well despite the winter.

So cold, the cats have taken to sleeping under the covers.

Not only were there cats under the covers, but they refused to get out of bed.

So cold, we are supplying our neighbours with water via garden hose, because they forgot, just one night, to leave a drip and the wait list for water line repairs is weeks long.

So cold, the frost is clawing at the windows to get in.

Okay, maybe the windows hint at the weather outside even if you can't see it.

So cold, the only way to keep the kitchen warm is with the baseboard heaters and the oven.  So cold, we need a low and slow cooked meal. 

Raid your freezer, your root cellar, your pantry, your liquor cabinet... do whatever you have to do to minimize the time you spend out in the bitter cold.  Steal sherry from your mom mum if it means you can avoid a trip to the store.

I got up for this?

(In the interest of full disclosure, as I'm typing, it's raining outside -- such is March, or perhaps such is Newfoundland -- but guaranteed we've got some more too-cold-to-eat-salad weather to get through.  Perhaps the most comforting of comfort foods, a slightly sweet moose stew, can get us through.)

It's About Time: A Recipe for Moose Curry

There's a lot more to moose than stew and sausage.

Let the moose marinate in the rubbed seasoning while you prepare the remaining ingredients for the curry.

Moose Curry, Variation 1:
Fefe Noir's Been-Lied-To* Moose Curry

*see commentary below

for the marinade:



Measuring out your ingredients into cute bowls will make you happy.

2 tbsp cumin seed
1 tbsp whole coriander
1/2 tsp black mustard
2 tbsp sunflower oil
3 fresh hot red chilies 
5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 onion, quartered
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp salt

~ 2 lbs moose blade roast (or other braising part, like the unrecognizable cut of moose from your uncle)


for the curry:

2 tbsp sunflower oil
1 bay leaf
3 whole cloves
small handful of cinnamon bark (or 1 cinnamon stick)
4 green cardamom pods
4 black peppercorns
2 onion, finely diced
4 tomatoes, diced
1-1/2 c. water

Make the marinade: Heat oil over medium-high in a small saucepan; add cumin, coriander and mustard seeds.  Watch them closely until they begin to pop.  Immediately put the lid on the pan, remove from heat so they don't burn, and let them continue to pop.  Leave them aside until the oil is cool enough to handle.

Pour warm (or fully cooled if you were busy with other things and not staring at the pan, waiting impatiently) oil and spices into a blender, chopper, or food processor.  Get a load of this: someone overly generous and now guaranteed to be well-loved, gave us a mini-chopper over the holidays.  That's the most exciting thing to happen to this house since the pasta machine.  Grind up the spices and oil.  Add chilies and garlic, whiz them around until ground.  Add the onions, tumeric and salt and grind again.  

Roughly cut your moose roast, leaving the bone-in.  Don't worry about bite-sized pieces.  First, we'll assume you will serve this to people capable of using a knife and fork and that if not, you'll be cutting it for them anyway.  Second, you want all the good flavour from the bone to be part of your curry.  Embrace the moose juice. 

Combine the moose and marinade in a bowl, massaging the marinade into the moose meat.  Set aside while you prep the remaining ingredients, or for a couple of hours, whichever is most convenient.

Make the curry: Heat about a tbsp of oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Brown the moose meat (in batches if necessary); remove and set aside.

Add 1 tbsp of oil to the pan, and quickly sautee the remaining spices in hot oil.  Add minced onion and cook until golden brown (but not burned).  Take your time, there's no hurry.  Add the tomatoes and cook until softened.  Add the moose meat, scraping any remaining marinade into the pan with it.  Add the water, stir it around a bit, bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for about 2-1/2 hours.  While it is simmering, check occasionally to see if it needs more water.  It's done when the sauce is the thickness you want and the meat is pulling from the bone.

During the meal, be sure to remind everyone to watch out for the whole spices and the bones...  unless you went to the trouble of searching them out and removing them before serving.  (This is much easier if you use a regular cinnamon stick rather than the teensy flakes of mexican cinnamon bark.)

Serve your aromatic moose curry with things you like to eat with your curry.  We heated up some naan, broke open a jar of chili pickle, made a quick onion salad and dished out some plain yogurt.  We won't need to eat again for days.  Ha.

~~~

If you are a hunter, be assured that when you share your meat with other people they are really, truly, grateful.  It is not a wasted overture.  You will win loyal friends for life.

Neither of us hunts (yet, says caribougrrl, but she's been saying that for years), so we rely on the kindness of friends and neighbours  - but most especially a particular colleague and friend of caribougrrl's who always comes through with the holiday gift we look forward to most.  This year especially, because once we had some moose in the freezer, we knew we'd be able to answer to our blog name.

Fefe decided the first moose curry recipe should be a simple one.  Something that could be done without too much effort, without any fancy equipment or experience, without multiple dead-end trips to supermarkets and specialty shops to find the right spices.

Which was how Fefe Noir and caribougrrl ended up in a grocery store not buying anything for the blog-edition moose curry.  Everything used in Fefe's fast and easy weeknight moose curry recipe is a staple in the home, including the hot curry paste. 

What?  You don't see curry paste in the ingredient list?

Right, caribougrrl swore up and down that yes, absolutely, just the other day when she was looking for a new jar of apple ketchup, she had seen at least one jar of curry paste in the cupboard.  Her recollection was very particular... just to the left of the partridge berry jam, right behind the priced-to-sell coconut milk that's been there for a couple of years.  And caribougrrl is, afterall, taller than Fefe Noir and thus can see things in the cupboards with more ease.  So against her much better judgement, Fefe Noir did not put a jar of curry paste into the shopping basket.

Well, as it turns out, the first blog-edition moose curry is not a Monday-night-after-work curry (unless you made it Sunday afternoon).  Not only was there no curry paste, but the fresh ginger had started to wither and rot and we were out of a couple other spices.  What does it say about you when your pantry has obscure mexican cinnamon bark but not even one piece of ordinary cinnamon stick?

So make it up and make do.  Make a good moose curry with what's on-hand, just like so much of the cooking we do.

Late Summer Stew

The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting cooler.  Use late summer vegetables from the garden for this warming and nourishing stew.

 

Lamb and Broad Bean Stew (if you are Fefe)

Lamb and Fava Bean Stew (if you are caribougrrl)

450g (more or less) lamb, cubed
salt and pepper to season
2 tbsp olive oil
4 black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
4-6 sprigs thyme
2 onions, quartered then sliced
7 carrots, sliced crosswise
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 cups chicken stock (see below)
3 tbsp minced garlic
100g shelled fava beans

Plan a couple days in advance if you need to get the end of last year's lamb out of the freezer to make room for the new stuff.  Thaw and cube; bones in or out, whichever you prefer.

Season cubed lamb with salt & pepper.  In a large heavy-bottomed saucepan heat olive oil and sear lamb until browned on all sides, then remove and set aside. You don't want the lamb crowded in the saucepan or it will not brown well; do this in batches if necessary.

Add peppercorns, bay leaf, thyme and onion to hot oil and sautee until onion is translucent and slightly browned.  Add carrots and continue to sautee until carrots begin to soften.  Add garlic and stir to combine.

Add lamb and chicken stock to pot.  Bring to a boil then reduce and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes.  That's about the right amount of time for cleaning and freezing the berries you undoubtedly picked earlier in the day.  Check the stew once in a while and give it a stir; add more stock or water if necessary.  

Add the parsley and fava beans and cook for an additional 8 minutes (or until broad beans are cooked).

Serve with boiled new potatoes and steamed yellow wax beans (or whatever other veg is coming out of your garden).  Season to taste with Worcestershire sauce.

~~~

 

Simple Chicken Stock (Really)

fresh or frozen chicken backs and wing tips*
2 large onions, peeled (optional), topped and tailed
1-2 carrots, peeled (optional, but if not peeled, scrubbed free of dirt)
a few peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 sprig thyme**
1 sprig parsley**

*or the carcass of a roast, or some chicken necks, or other parts trimmed from chicken when prepping for other meals... we usually have a bag in the freezer where we keep the back and wing tips (spatchcocked chicken is a staple during bbq season) until we're ready to make stock
**vary your seasonings according to what you have and how you might use the stock, if you don't know how you will use it, err toward very basic (peppercorn and bay leaf only)... you can add flavour later, but you can't remove what's there

Place chicken peices in a large saucepan or stock pot or dutch oven.  Add enough water to cover.  Add vegetables and seasonings.  Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for a couple of hours.  That's enough time to play a round or two of a German board game.

Let the stock cool to room temperature, strain through a sieve into a large bowl and cool completely in the refrigerator.  Scrape surface fat off the cold stock.  If you are not using the stock right away, portion into useful sized freezer safe containers (1 or 2 cup volumes), and freeze until needed.

~~~

If you don't normally make your on stock, you should start to.  I know that makes me sound like someone without kids (true) or much of a social life (also true), but homemade stock makes all the difference in the world. And it's easier than you think, it practically cooks itself.  More importantly, you don't have to wait until you need it to make it: stock freezes very well and won't be harmed if you have to thaw it by putting it in a saucepan and heating it up from frozen.  Plus, what else are you doing on Sunday afternoon?

Okay, it doesn't have to be a Sunday, but whenever you have a few minutes to fill a pot with water and roughly cut up some vegetables, followed by an hour or two where you are puttering around the house and can check on the pot once in a while.  Like a Thursday night after dinner when you're poking around the internet reading food blogs, hanging around in case your hypothetical children need help with their hypothetical homework.  Or in the wee hours of the morning if you're an early riser and the weather's too nasty for a long dog walk.

I know you can buy pre-made broth or stock in tins and tetra-packs.  You can even buy them in the organic section.  Or you can substitute water.  But don't.  Water doesn't give you the layered-flavour richeness of broth.  And even if you can find a commercial broth that you can honestly read the ingredient list and sodium content and be happy purchasing, that broth someone else made won't fill your house with the smell of nuturing, hand-crafted coziness.