Chicken Tortilla Soup

I don't think I've ever made tortilla soup from scratch before. James and I have occasionally made it from a kit, but in reviewing our shelf of recipe books while looking for a recipe for some chicken breasts I noticed our seldom used The Daily Soup Cookbook where I discovered the tortilla soup recipe. 

Before getting to the recipe, which I only used as a suggestion, it is important for me to discuss our history with tortilla soup. We usually only enjoy this when we eat at Mexican restaurants - something we have not done at all since before the pandemic. Each time we have some of this soup we remince about the first and second times we ever ate it. The first time we couldn't believe our good fortune in finding a restaurant that made such an exquisite soup. The second time we couldn't believe how the soup could have been so thoroughly ruined (too much salt and burned tortillas).

Both times were during our first trip to Mexico in 1989. Both were also at the same restaurant about two weeks apart. 

As I said, I used the recipe only as a guide for what I ultimately made. Which was way better than either the first or second tortilla soups I tried.

I started with making a vegetable broth by simmering some whole peppercorns, whole coriander seeds, chopped onion, garlic, chopped celery, and some canned diced tomatoes in water. Once the stock was made and strained I prepared the soup by frying a chopped onion and three cloves of chopped garlic in Chipotle-infused olive oil (from L.O.V.E. Emporium). I added some dried oregano, fresh cilantro leaves, and some salt, some canned diced tomatoes, six cups of stock, and some fresh lime juice and simmered for 30 minutes. Finally I added the poached and diced chicken breasts. Once everything was cooked I placed broken up commercial tortilla chips into soup bowls and added the soup on top. This was served with shredded cheddar cheese topping and fresh cilantro garnish.

We had enough for leftovers so I made a change to the second-day offering by adding some frozen corn kernels before reheating.

Of course this would have been even better had I included avocado slices when serving, but alas we had none.

FTE Kibbeh

 Note to higher-ed colleagues: by FTE I mean First Time Ever, not Full-time Equivalent

I have seen a few comments recently about food blogs, suggesting (strongly) that bloggers should skip the context-setting stories and go right to the cooking instructions. Regular readers will know that for me there is always a story, and often a complicated one, on the way to the recipe. And often there is a bit of an additional story following the food. For my very first kibbeh, this is going to be even more true than usual.

The story begins long ago and far away, with two friends who operate a restaurant in London and who had lived parallel lives in Jerusalem long before they met. Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi grew up on opposite sides of the Jewish/Palestinian divide in that most divided of cities, yet as adults were connected as friends and professionals by food. For them, the cuisine of Jerusalem is one of connection, not isolation, and so they came to write Jerusalem: A Cookbook, whose simple title belies the richness of its flavors, images, and ... stories.

I know that I learned of the book from an interview on public radio, but I am not sure which one. A quick search of NPR reveals more than a dozen possibilities, mostly on a program (Salt) that is not familiar to me. So I believe it was Yotam Ottolenghi's 2015 discussion of food and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Robin Young that got my attention. (Writing paused while I listen again.)

In addition to the Robin Young interview, I recommend the Good Reads review by user Petra-X as an introduction to this popular volume. I also recommend the review by user Carol Smith. As Robin Young mentions, many people have become Jerusalem completists who cook, eat, and/or blog their way through the entire volume. Although Smith has not done that so far, she does include reviews (and photos) of many specific recipes. She has a personal policy of not posting a review of a cookbook until she can post 10 recipe reviews. In the spirit of this Nueva Receta blog, she avers that a cookbook should be removed from the shelf if the owner does not prepare at least 10 dishes from it.

All of this was in the back of my mind last week, when I realized I would have a couple of days without a lot of Zooming scheduled, and that I could reward myself by tackling a new recipe. I thumbed through Jerusalem, looking for only a modest challenge. I found it on page 160 in a recipe for "open kibbeh," described as a very nontraditional variation on kibbeh itself. True to form for Ottolenghi and co-author Sami Tamimi, the recipe is preceded by a full page entitled "The capital of kibbeh" that describes this food as a perfect exemplar of a food that crosses boundaries. I learned that I am far from alone in not knowing what kibbeh actually is -- or in being uncertain about its spelling: kibbeh, kubbbeh, and kobeba are offered as options.

The open kebbeh is a dramatic departure in form, as traditional kibbeh is a deep-fried ball of ground meat, bulgur wheat, and spices, and this was to be a pie made with similar ingredients. The recipe calls for a springform pan, but ours was in the wrong house, and I decided that since the ancient Israelites had no springform pans, I could do without one as well. Of course, they would not have made this as a pie, but still ... I oiled one of our indispensable cast-iron pans and got to work preparing the bottom crust. 

This was the simplest of crusts -- I soaked one cup of fine bulger in one cup of water while I prepared the rest of the dish. I mixed in a little salt, pepper, white flour and water and then pressed this thin dough into the bottom of the pan. Because it was a little wet, I actually put it in the oven (400F) for a few minutes before adding the meat mixture.

The recipe calls for lamb, but I used free-range ground turkey from Vermont that was delivered by our local dairy. I cooked onions, garlic and a hot pepper in olive oil until very soft -- in another indispensable cast-iron skillet, of course -- and then removed them to a bowl so that I could brown the turkey in the same pan. I then returned the aromatics to the pan and added pine nuts, cinnamon, coriander, allspice (except I did not really, because again, wrong house), and cilantro. Once this was nicely melded, I spooned it onto the crust and baked for 20 minutes.

While it was baking, I whisked together tahini paste, water, and lemon juice to make a thin sauce that is a sesame equivalent of almond butter. I had never cooked with tahini sauce, and in fact had done an image search before shopping so that I would have a better chance of finding it at the local grocery -- this proved to be an essential, step, as it was fairly well hidden. I removed the kibbeh from the oven and smoothed the sauce over top. I sprinkled it with more pine nuts and parsley and baked for another 12 minutes. I then turned the heat down to keep the dish warm until Pam was ready to join me for dinner. 

Open Kibbeh

We pronounced the result to be as delicious as it was nutritious. I look forward to cooking more. I was reminded of the excellent food we enjoyed in Jordan while visiting our partner university at Tafila -- well within the realm of Jerusalem's influence -- during our brief 2017 visit. In just a few days, the emphasis on healthy oils, lean meats, and grains had left me feeling as vigorous as our hosts were generous and amiable.

Coincidences 

It turns out that I prepared this dish on a rather ignoble day for the region from which it comes to us. During the last gasps of his term as Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo visited the West Bank with a disruptive mission. He became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit one of the contentious -- and internationally scorned -- settlement, where he was feted with wine bearing his name on the label, to celebrate his role in providing cover for the illegal occupation of the land from which it was produced.

This visit was in stark contrast with the work my geography students were doing, as they studied the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of The Lemon Tree, a novel based on a true story of friendship across that bitter divide. Although the book was published in 2007 and I started using it in my teaching in 2012 -- when the author visited our campus -- I continue to assign it every semester because at this point in the semester I start to receive the student papers, and invariably some of the students actually thank me for assigning it. In a similar vein, I recommend the story of Assel Street in East Jerusalem.

Lagniappe

I cannot think of kibbeh without thinking of my late friend Khalil, who introduced me to it -- in the Brazilian Amazon of all places. During my first visit to Rondônia in 1996 -- and my only extended stay so far -- I frequently visited his family. His wife was a professor in the Department of Letters that was my academic home, and they lived near the house where I rented a room from one of the other professors. 

Our visits involved learning to dance with the three generations of fabulous dancers in that family, and learning about food from Khalil. He did not dance, but he cooked. He had come to Brazil from Lebanon in a prior generation, and was a sometime Middle Eastern grocer. He delighted in making me kibbe (see - yet another spelling) and other dishes from the Levant; and he knew that inviting me to prepare food would be a way for me not just to return the favor, but to share something of myself. I still remember the discussion as we planned a dinner of spaghetti and chicken -- which ultimately made me a minor celebrity for a while. I had not yet cooked or been to a proper grocery store, and had no idea what I would be able to find. One by one, I asked about ingredients I had not seen anybody use during my stay. In answer to each one, he would nod solemnly and proclaim, "têm" -- "they have it" -- stretching the short word to almost three syllables. 

At Casa Hayes-Boh, that is how we declare the availability of ingredients to this day: têm!

Lemony Chicken with Extra Lemon

PROGRAM NOTE: This will be the 601st post on Nueva Receta, which has had 123,083 views as of this writing.  Thanks to everyone for joining us in the ongoing adventure of cooking at home! And if you have not already done so, please read the origin story of this blog, in honor of the late Dr. Bob Phillips.

I picked up some extra chicken during the weekly grocery run. Even though Pam was making chilaquiles on Tuesday, I decided that it would give me a good possibility for a nueva receta later in the week. I checked only one book -- Dishing Up Maryland -- but I did not find anything I had not already tried that would not require returning to the grocery store. (We're still on Covid-19 precautions, so I really try to limit grocery shopping to once per week.)

Being too lazy to return to the cookbook cupboard, I turned to the New York Times, where I found Lemon Chicken by Paul Mones. The byline mentions that it is adapted from a recipe by Nicole Mones, suggesting that this is another couple that cooks and writes together.

Speaking of cooking together, Pamela noticed that yesterday was National Men Make Dinner Day, one of those concepts that sounds egalitarian and sexist and heteronormative all at the same time. The web supports our misgivings by using a Mad Men-era icon of a man sipping coffee as part of the page banner. We decided to play along anyway; I even put on an apron for photographic evidence that I know how to use a kitchen.

I followed the recipe mostly as written, but using our indispensable cast-iron skillet since we gave away our wok between grad-school moves decades ago. 

One departure from the recipe is that I used regular wheat flour instead of potato flour for two reasons: first, to avoid returning to the grocery store and second, because the reader comments below the recipe exhibited a lot of disagreement about how the flour was to be used, or whether its use is intended at all -- with something called potato starch offered as an alternative by one reader.

I am not sure how potato flour would have been different, but the egg-flour mix was essentially paste, even after I added about a half cup of milk to it. This was very different from any egg bath I have used before, but I do think that it worked well. Readers of the recipe will note that the chicken itself calls for no lemon -- it appears only in the sauce, which is essentially a lemonade reduced with cornstarch. 

As a lover of all things lemon, I decided the recipe could use an enhancement: lemon-infused olive oil that we recently received from our friends at L.O.V.E. in Frederick, Maryland. I also used the oil in preparing brown rice as a side.

The result was delicious comfort food during an angst-ridden election week in which comfort was sorely needed.

This is a photo of what mine did not look like:

Photo: Dwight Eschliman NYT with Food Stylist Kevin Crafts

Halibut with Ginger-Raisin Crust

 

We rarely use our For Cod and Country cookbook but it looks like we are starting to turn that around. This is the second post this week from this big book, which has a lot more to it than recipes. The introduction to the recipe in the book starts with "I love raisins with fish-they have the perfect balance of sweet and acid...". It reminded me of a conversation I had with my mother in March just after we all went on lockdown. She was going through her pantry and refrigerator and discovered some raisin English muffins and some salmon cakes and decided to make a sandwich. She was surprised how good they tasted together. We discovered the same thing when I prepared this recipe. 

I chopped 1/4 c. raisins and mixed with 3 T panko bread crumbs, 2 T melted butter, some freshly grated ginger, 2 t mace, and the zest of one orange to form a paste.

The paste was pressed into the halibut which was cooked (breading side down) in our indispensable cast-iron skillet for four minutes. The skillet was then placed into the preheated 300 degree oven and baked for 20 minutes. Once it was cooked through we flipped the fish over and served. It came out light and flaky. We served this with the leftover tarragon rice from James' offering the night before.

Tarragon, Seafood Paragon

 

Photo from Tarragon, King of Herbs
(by someone even more impressed by this herb than I am)

When thinking of seafood options for the weekend (and into Monday, it turns out), I decided to go to Kyler's Catch with some specific recipes in mind. The fish there is always so good that it is easy to do what is easiest -- very simple preparations that foreground the fish (or shellfish) itself.

But in the spirit of Nueva Receta, I sat down with For Cod and Country, which we have cited just a couple times since purchasing it for our seaside weekend house a few years ago. I remember learning of the book on public radio, but I do not think it was as long ago as author Barton Seaver's 2011 interview with Leann Hanson. The book is a paradox: a chef who is deeply concerned about the overharvesting of fish endeavors to teach us to enjoy fish sparingly -- avoiding some imperiled species altogether, and getting the most out of the fish we do use by maximizing both flavor and land-based ingredients.

Many of the recipes appear more ambitious than I was feeling this weekend, but I did find two that seemed to meet the effort-outcome balance I was hoping for. One is a grilled salmon with tarragon butter; the other is a crusty halibut preparation that Pam will be making tomorrow.

The salmon recipe is unusually simple for this book -- it is one of those recipes whose title conveys almost the entire story. I softened butter, and mashed it together with finely chopped tarragon and orange zest, along with black pepper and a small amount of salt. Seaver suggests grilling the salmon (skin on) over high heat to get good grill marks, and then to transfer it to a cooler area of the fire. All I could picture was losing half the salmon through the grill grates, and the Big Green Egg provides only very uniform heat. So I opted to heat the grill to 400 and simply bake the salmon -- I actually used milder Arctic char -- on the griddle inset. Once this was cooked through -- about 12 minutes -- I transferred it to a plate and dabbed the butter mix on it. The result was simply scrumptious.

Meanwhile, I had cooked some brown rice, mixing a bit of the tarragon butter into it partway through the cooking process. This was a delicious accompaniment. Author Seaver suggests that tarragon is a perfect pairing for many fish; I expect to be testing that theory!

Orange Chicken with Vegetables

We can get a lot of things besides milk in our weekly delivery from Crescent Ridge Dairy, including meat. Since the pandemic started, however, we've found that it is harder to get some things than it used to be, especially poultry products, so we were glad to see that there was pound of organic chicken breasts available this week. James seemed a little skeptical that we could do much with a pound, but I knew better. I went right to the New York Times Cooking Page and found this recipe that calls for "1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast, preferably from a small producer of free range chickens..."

This recipe is labeled "One Pot" on the NYTimes page, which is true as far as the cooking goes - everything was cooked together in my indispensable cast-iron skillet. However, I needed two separate bowls to mix different sets of ingredients in before adding them to the skillet. The recipe also says it takes 10 minutes. Again, that is only true for the cooking part. As long as you have sous-chef to do all the chopping and dicing for you it is indeed a quick and easy dish. To be fair this wasn't difficult, and I was ready to serve within 30 minutes of starting. And it was delicious.

Buckeyes

 

Last year when I cleaned out my refrigerators (one at my primary residence, and the other at our beach house) I found one partially-used, expired jar of peanut butter in each. We'd already been empty nesters for a few years and this one-time staple in our household had apparently become superfluous. Our only child came to visit for a few weeks over the summer and requested that we purchase a jar. Unlike some of his other food requests he actually ate some of the peanut butter, but there was still quite a bit remaining after he left. I decided not to wait until this jar expired and instead went looking for a recipe to use it up. I found this recipe for Peanut Butter Balls on the New York Times Cooking page.

These were easy to make. The only "cooking" involved was melting the semi-sweet chocolate chips in the microwave.  A super-sweet, fun treat.