So why, pray-tell, you ask, have I been blessed with this early edition Recipe Friday? Well friends because Fall is upon us and it's making me giddy with delight and visions of large batch soups and stews (perfect for the freezer, take note you busy workin' folks). We've had the most perfectly lovely weather lately that I wanted to share this recipe early so you could procure all the necessary ingredients by the weekend, because ground lamb isn't the easiest thing to find, but it's oh so worth the hunt (no you don't actually have to hunt the lamb...it's a figure of speech people).
This recipe hails from Finland, and although I am entirely unfamiliar with what exactly the good people of Finland have contributed to this earth, (I'm sure there are plenty of spectacularly diplomatic things, I just skipped that class in college) even if they only invented this soup, it would be enough to pledge my allegiance to the Finnish flag. I will admit, this shopping list alone doesn't exactly scream "best soup ever" but trust me this is bowl-licking-good soup.
Finnish Style Cabbage Soup
What you'll need:
6 oz bacon, minced
9 oz ground lamb
3 oz onion, julienned
3/4 pound cabbage, chiffonade
1 1/2 oz celery, finely chopped
1 1/2 oz carrots, finely chopped
1 1/2 oz turnip, finely chopped
3/4 oz garlic, minced
3/4 tsp cracked black pepper
Salt, to taste
3 oz tomato, concasse and diced
48 oz chicken broth
dill, as needed for garnish (but it's not just pretty, it's for flavor too, so don't skip it!)
sour cream, as needed for garnish (see: dill explanation)
What to do:
Heat a large pot over medium heat and add the bacon. Cook until the fat has rendered about half way and then add the ground lamb and onion. Continue to cook until well browned. Add the cabbage, celery, carrots, turnip, garlic, salt and pepper. Sauté until the cabbage has softened, but do not brown the vegetables (we want the caramelized flavor to come from the meat but the veggies to remain uninhibited, free to let their fall veggie flags fly). Add the tomatoes* and the broth and bring to a simmer (a simmer people, NOT a boil, we don't want to cook the ever living flavor out of these veggies) and cook slowly until the veggies are tender, approximately 30 minutes. And there you have it...it's that simple...and it's somewhere in that simplicity that I fell in love with this soup and you will too. I'm not sure really when the lovely people of Finland partake in this soup (a lot I would imagine, as the few facts that I actually know about Finland involve its flag, which is blue with a white cross, the white of course representing all the snow) but I think it's perfect for the Fall. It's not really hardy enough to be a rib-sticking Winter soup, but just as you begin to feel the dependable chill of September air roll in, that's the exact moment you want to have a steamy bowl of this soup in your lap (well not in your lap, but in a bowl ON your lap as you enjoy one of the last outdoor meals before Fall officially descends).
*And now a word about concasse:
Concasse is a French technique for getting all the guts and skin and seedy bits out of a tomato so that you are left only with plump tomatoey flesh. It requires you to cut out the core end, score the other end, blanch, shock, squeeze, and peel. In my personal opinion this is a whole lot of rigamarole for purely aesthetic purposes. If you don't mind seeing more tomato parts in your soup, then I say skip this fussy step and just dice the stinking tomato, trust me Finland won't mind
No comments:
Post a Comment