I think you will enjoy the story about the construction of my soup....it took me two days to make it, which in my book, is a record! Normally it would have been made and ate in one night, but I had a little trouble with one of the ingredients, which is what caused it take so long... read on and find out!
So, here's how to start this. I chopped one Vidalia onion and cooked it in the soup pot with a couple of tablespoons of butter. To this, I added about a 2 inch piece of ginger (peeled and chopped) 4 ribs of celery, 1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and chopped, 2 whole garlic cloves, and approximately 5 carrots, chopped as well. The original recipe called for pumpkin cut up, but I couldn't find any, so substituted the squash.
So far, everything is going smoothly... I now add 2 boxes of chicken broth, a cup of white wine, one can of coconut milk, and a can of pumpkin. If you can find lobster broth, use that instead of the chicken broth. I let all of this simmer for a while. The last things to add are 3 tbs of brown sugar, 1 tbs Worcestershire sauce and a cup of creme fraiche. I don't know about where you are, but I can never find this, so I googled it and it turns out you can make it easily. It's a combination of buttermilk and heavy cream. Unfortunately it takes over night for the result to thicken enough. So, I decided sour cream would do the trick, so I substituted that.
Now comes the trouble.... I needed to add 2 cups of heavy cream. I had a small container of cream, just shy of what I needed, so I supplemented with milk I had in the fridge. When I dumped the second cup into my soup pot, the whole thing began to curdle....... Can you believe it? I just stood there, my jaw was on the floor, and my mind is racing with what to do to save the soup!
I decide my next plan of action was to drain out all of the liquid from my pot, and start over again, not losing all of the squash, carrots, celery, and onion. I rinsed everything off and started over again with the 2 boxes of chicken broth, and the rest of the ingredients. I found that I needed to add a lot more ginger to get the flavor back. I just kept tasting the soup and adding whatever I thought it needed. I even added a few sprinkles of cayenne pepper for a little heat. I had fresh light cream that I hesitantly poured into my pot. Luckily nothing bad happened, and it actually looked beautiful. I quickly added my whole package of langostinos (which took the place of the required lobster meat...you could add either shrimp or lump crab meat) and let the flavors meld together...
This soup came out good, despite the horrible curdling effect! The flavors were really delicious. This particular recipe was one where I did a lot of substituting. Was this as good as the original recipe would have been? I'm not quite sure. What I do know, is that the substitutions I made didn't seem to affect the end result. I had a soup made with butternut squash as opposed to pumpkin, chicken broth instead of lobster broth, and langostinos instead of lobster, and sour cream instead of creme fraiche, and it was to die for!
I decide that corn muffins are in order, so I find a great recipe on line:
Ingredients
| 3 c | flour |
| 1 c | corn meal |
| 1 1/2 c | sugar |
| 2 Tbsp | baking powder |
| 1 tsp | salt |
| 2/3 c | oil |
| 1/3 c | butter, melted |
| 4 | egg, beaten |
| 2 1/2 c | half and half |
Mix flour, corn meal, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
Add oil, butter, eggs, and half and half. Fold gently, until just moistened. Pour into muffin tins.
Bake 45 minutes, or until lightly browned.
These muffins were delicious with the soup. Very moist and flavorful! Great meal.....
No comments:
Post a Comment