Parmesan Rind Soup

Just getting ready for a ride and enjoying a bowl of one of my all-time-favourite soups, which I have adapted from this recipe for Tortellini in Parmesan Broth from Epicurious.com ...

Tortellini in Parmesan Broth

Gourmet | April 2006

This is an ideal recipe if you enjoy eating Parmigiano-Reggiano as much as I do - save those rinds! I keep mine in a plastic ziplock container in the freezer until I have four or five of them, then it is time to make soup. I begin by preparing two L. of stock - I generally use either 'Better Than Bouillon' turkey or chicken base. After the stock comes to a boil, thinly slice eight to ten cloves of garlic and add to stock, in addition to four or five bay leaves, and the cheese rinds. Cover soup pot and simmer for up to two hours.

While stock is simmering away, cook six (or so...) chorizo sausages over medium heat. Allow to cool, then slice and set aside. Mix a bit of water to pan scrapings and add to stock. Next wash a bunch of chard (rainbow chard works nicely), remove stems and chop coarsely, and set aside. With a slotted spoon remove rinds, bay leaves and garlic from simmering stock and then add the chorizo and chard. Lastly boil up a bunch of fresh pasta (two cups is fine), e.g. tortellini, for about three to five minutes, drain and then add to soup. You can add fresh chopped Italian parsley or cilantro to finish the soup, or not. As for garnish I like to top this soup with homemade croutons and more grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. Enjoy! And save those rinds!

Black Bean Soup with Cumin and Cilantro

Now, finally, something about soup! Soup can almost be considered the perfect food, if such a notion were possible. Many soup recipes require only a handful of ingredients, little in the way of specialty cooking equipment, and minimal time requirement. Most soups can be frozen for later enjoyment. Soup hydrates you. I could go on, but its time to get to it.

A couple of postings back I detailed my successful efforts to soak/simmer dried black beans for this soup recipe, from Epicurious.com:

Black Bean Soup with Cumin and Cilantro

Bon Appétit | February 2000

I already had most of the ingredients, and all I had to pick up was some cumin, cilantro, onions and garlic. Since this was my first go at this recipe I decided to hew closely to the recipe, and not to proportionately increase the yield.

One word about the stock I generally use. I should be making stock from scratch, and this year I do intend to use homemade as much as I can. If I don't have fresh stock at hand I use Better Than Bouillon brand soup stock paste. It has considerably less sodium (and much better taste) than cube or powder bouillon.

If you have a look at the recipe you will see it calls for 8 cups of vegetable stock, which equals about 1.9 L. so I rounded up to 2 L. of prepared stock. I used Better Than Bouillon turkey base, and my usual measure is one tablespoon per L. I obviously had pre-soaked and simmered my black beans beforehand, and did not cook them unprepared in the stock as the recipe instructs. After simmering for about an hour and a half I pureed the soup with an immersion blender. I am enjoying a bowl as I write this blog, and I can tell you that the soup is quite good, not terribly spicy, and that I will definitely make it again. And likely up the jalapeno measure to 1/3 of a cup. Oh one last thing: I omitted the lime wedges as garnish only because I forgot to pick up some fresh limes. A generous scoop of sour cream would also be a good idea for a garnish in this instance.