Getting Back to Basics

The other night, I finally had a little bit of time to breathe, so I decided to re-crack open my "textbook," The Professional Chef. Of course, it's been awhile since I've had time to dedicate to broadening my knowledge in the culinary field, so I'm still on that pesky soup section. Lucky thing...I love soup! The first recipe in this section of the text book is a traditional Chicken Rice soup (Canja). A few weeks ago, I made a giant batch of homemade chicken stock, so a few days before making this recipe, I defrosted quite a few small plastic containers for use in the soup.

To start the process, the first thing I had to do was brown up some chicken pieces. The recipe calls for a "stewing hen" cut into 6 pieces, but guess what I found on my Peapod.com expedition this week? I found a whole chicken, already cut into pieces, bones, skin, gizzards and all. Perfect, I still got fresh food, but I took a tiny bit of work out of it...that's what I like to find! So, in batches, I browned up my chicken pieces in one pot, and then placed them in another, larger, stock pot. I think the recipe means to use the same pot all the way through, but since I don't have restaurant-size stock pots, or giant areas of stove top, I actually used a lobster pot to make this soup. I knew I was going to need depth, and that's the deepest I've got!

Once I had browned all of the pieces of chicken (this was done in a few batches so as not to crowd them), and they had all been tossed into the lobster/stock pot, I added a bunch of other things! A nice, rough cut of mirepoix (carrots, onions and celery) got thrown in, along with minced jalapeno, chopped ginger, and a couple of bay leaves. The knife cuts on these things don't need to be precise since the soup gets strained at the end, and all this stuff gets tossed anyway. I sauteed this mixture for about 5 minutes to bring out the flavors before adding them to the pot.

After chopping and adding all of these delicious, fresh ingredients to the pot, I poured in my GALLON of chicken stock, and seasoned it all up with some rosemary, and salt and pepper.

An hour and a half later, I took a leisurely stroll back into the kitchen to find wonderful aromas, and some very tender chicken pieces. I pulled them all out of the broth mixture, and pulled all of the meat from the bones, chopping it all into bite-sized pieces as I went. The soup continued to simmer while I did this.

Once the chicken was all chopped up, and ready for the final product, I strained my soup through a sieve, removing all of the chopped veggies and seasonings. I allowed the broth to sit for a few minutes so that the fat could kind of coagulate on top. I know, gross, but hey - it happens - and you don't want to EAT it, do you? Once a few minutes had passed, I was able to skim the oils and fattiness off the top, leaving a lovely, clear broth that smelled delicious! I sweated some garlic in a pot with some canola oil (the recipe calls for palm oil, but that is expensive and hard to find) before adding it to the broth, re-seasoned it, and since I'd just pulled out all the flavorful bits, allowed it to simmer for a few more minutes. After adding the chicken back to the pot, along with a bag of corn kernels, and some long-grained rice that I had cooked separately and allowed to air-dry for a bit, it was ready to serve! All it needed was a slight garnish of chopped cilantro!

While the soup simmered for the last few minutes, I pulled together a couple of traditional Cubano sandwiches, chock-ful of roast pork, black forest ham, provolone cheese, cilantro, pickles and dijon mustard. I set them on the Panini Grill while I dished out the soup. This was a really festive and delicious meal. The soup was fulfilling without being heavy (although my husband and I both felt like it was missing something - a spice maybe, but something - it was almost like I should have left the ginger and jalapeno IN the soup), and the Cubano - mmm, delicioso!

Bina Osteria

Restaurant Week here in Boston is quickly coming to a close, so I'm going to take full advantage over the next few days! Today for lunch, two of my friends/co-workers and I are going to try Bina Osteria. None of us have been there before today, and we all found the menu to be very inspired.

There were quite a few choices for our first courses...decisions, decisions! My top choices were probably the Little Lamb Meatballs with Goat Cheese Fondue, the Sea Urchin Warmed in Olive Oil, Preserved Lemon and Lardo, or the Warm Mushroom Confit. How do you even begin to decide between such tempting options!?!? Turns out, I didn't have to! We all shared! The sea urchin toasts with lardo were decadent, and I'm glad we shared! The hint of ocean that I got from each bite was very refreshing. As for the lamb meatballs, they came in a delicious tomato sauce which blended so nicely with the bite that the goat cheese flavor offers. Both the meatballs and the mushrooms came in these adorable little warming pots. The mushrooms were very comforting and warm, with a lovely forest-y flavor to them.

For the entree, we had our choice of four different options. Again, we all ordered different things so we got to try almost everything there. The Grilled Shrimp Salad with arugula, citrus, green olives and shaved red onion was very tasty. The shrimp were grilled to perfection and the little pieces of pink grapefruit made my day. I love when unexpected ingredients show up in a dish that would otherwise seem mundane.

As for the Shaved Porchetta Sandwich with grilled red onion, provolone and hot peppers, it was kind of like a different take on a Cubano. There was arugula on the sandwich as well and it offered a great peppery flavor for the pork and mild provolone. The hot peppers were an added bonus! The bread was crispy but not crumbly and was easy to eat. I have a pet peeve about sandwiches that you can't bite into easily. This one was great!

Finally, the Spaghetti with Tomato, Basil and Parmigiano Reggiano - FRESH PASTA! Need I say more!? We asked before ordering and the waitress assured us that all their pasta is made in-house, and was it ever! It was very flavorful and deliciously al dente. It was a nice helping as well, and topped with some fresh Parmigiano. It was an excellent bowl of comfort food on this cold and rainy day.

We had a lovely lunch at Bina Osteria today.We decided to go with the 2-course for our lunch since we had to get back to work. I also had dinner plans this evening, so I didn't want to go overboard on the desserts at all, and I knew I'd be getting one at Radius. This was a lovely break to an otherwise stressful day!