From Barbara Kafka's Vegetable Love, abbreviated.
2 large floury potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 head broccoli, florets only, in 1.5-inch pieces (about 5 cups)
1 cup part-skim ricotta
6 cups chicken stock
1 T. kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
Steam potatoes until soft, about 25 minutes. Set aside. Steam broccoli until soft, about 10-13 minutes. Transfer potatoes to a food processor and puree until smooth. Pour into a medium saucepan. Transfer broccoli to the food processor and puree until smooth. Add the ricotta and pulse until just incorporated. Add 2 cups of stock and puree until smooth. Pour the mixture into a medium saucepan. Add remaining stock. Heat over medium heat until hot. Season with the salt and pepper.
My comments: first, my Mom taught us all the hard way once that it's just a really tragic idea to food process potatoes to mash them. You make an approximation of wallpaper paste. So I gamely went along and did it and made the requisite gloop, which was really hard to scrape out of the food processor into a saucepan (starch taffy, anyone?). I then proceeded with the recipe and added the broccoli mix to the same saucepan, heating and smooshing and stirring, and eventually stick blending to try to get the gloop to mix in. Even that didn't work completely. (Kels tried to make Kloese once and made potato soup--I try to make potato soup and get Kloese. Go figure.) So here's my question. Why do it this way? Susan? Can you think of any reason not to just throw everything in a pot with the stock and then stick blend it?
Is there something else I missed? I have reproduced the recipe as directed in the cookbook, and you'll notice that it never actually tells you to do anything with the potatoes again (i.e. it does not tell you to put the broccoli mixture in the same saucepan, I just assumed that's what they meant but it's not how it's written). Is that because they're so awful after you've food processed them that you throw them out and simply make broccoli ricotta soup? Is it because they meant to tell you to throw them back in with the broccoli/ricotta/stock mixture and process them together there, before returning it all to the pot? Next time I will try stick blending it all in the pot.
I used 4 cups of Kels stock plus some water, and even then only added 2 tsp. salt. I think a T. is too much, but since this isn't in the potato section of the book, it's only got 1.5 times the salt you'd want, as opposed to 4x or so. Also, I peeled and chopped broccoli stems and included them.
I can't really think of a good reason to use a food processor on the potatoes. Gluey potatoes=ick.
ReplyDeleteI can see some possible complications with putting everything into the same pan with the stock:
- the broccoli will take less time to get soft than the potatoes. And it's liable to get that nasty overcooked cabbage smell if overcooked. Solution: add to the pot later.
- it might be hard to get the more fibrous parts of the broccoli pureed with a stick blender. It's not going to break up as well as the potatoes do, and this seems like something you do want to be smooth. Solution: steam separately, food process and add to the stick blended potatoes.
Here's what I think I might do. I think I'd cook the potatoes in stock. We have a steamer that will fit on top of a saucepan. I'd cook the potatoes in the saucepan, and use the steam from the cooking potatoes to steam the broccoli. To puree stuff, I think I'd use a stick blender on the potato stuff and a food processor for the steamed broccoli. This is probably overkill, but it'll work.
If you think the broccoli would stick blend well, then by all means go for it. You might have to temper the ricotta - I don't know what adding it directly to hot soup might do.
There's a pretty serious lack of spicing in this recipe. No garlic? It also seems to me that I've made a good broccoli soup that had lemon juice in it - though where that recipe came from I can't remember. Mark Bittman, maybe? Don't know how that'd play with the potatoes though....
Seems to me that I have everything needed to make this except the ricotta, and I'm headed to the grocery store soon. I'll let you know.
There's a tupperware of fuschia beet soup in the fridge here right now - a modification of your cold beet soup. Yum!