Soup's On! Easy to Make Squash Soup Sets the Table for Cold Weather

 My friend Harriet emailed me."’I'm supposed to bring butternut squash soup to a dinner Sunday. There are SOOO many different recipes, even on NYT. Do you happen to have a recipe you love and could share?" A few more exchanges and what she wanted became clear. She had already made a vegetable stock from an Otolenghi recipe. She needed to make soup for six people. 

Making soup is easy. Or, less-easy. Depending on some choices. 

The easiest way to make a squash soup (I prefer Kabocha because it has more flavor than most other squash, but that's a personal preference) is to cut the squash into four pieces. Remove the seeds and fuzzy stuff. Place in salted water (only use Diamond Brand Kosher salt because regular salt is iodized and adds a metallic flavor). Boil or steam (steaming is better so the flesh doesn't get water-logged) until the flesh is softened (5-10 minutes). Remove from the water, cool and cut off the skin (and discard).

Then heat the stock (which can be any stock you like, made from vegetables or land animals, your choice). Cut up the cooked squash. Add to the stock in the pot. 

Now you want to combine the squash with the liquid. The easiest way to do that is with an immersion or wand blender. KitchenAid makes a nice one, but other companies make very good ones. 

If you don't have an immersion blender, you should get one, but if there's no time, use a blender. In either case, you want to puree the pieces of cooked squash with the stock. That will take a minute or less.

Heat the soup. Taste and season with sea salt and freshly ground pepper and your soup is guest-ready in less than 30 minutes.

That's the easy version.

The less-easy version adds one step. Not a big step. A little step.

To add flavor, add other vegetables, which you will first sauté with a little olive oil, if the soup is Vegan. If Vegetarian, in olive oil with a little sweet butter (unsalted).

So here are the details.

Less-Easy But Still Really Easy Squash Soup

Serves 4-6 (depending on whether the serving is appetizer or entree size)

Ingredients

1 medium sized squash (preferably kabocha or acorn or butternut), 2 pounds, washed, cut into 4 pieces, seeds and fuzzy stuff removed

1 medium onion, washed, peel removed, cut into bite sized pieces

1 garlic, washed, peeled, cut into small bits (optional)

2 large kale leaves, washed, stems removed, cut into bite sized pieces

4 large mushrooms, preferably shiitake but brown mushrooms are good, wash, cut into bite sized pieces

1 large tomato, washed cut into bite sized pieces

6 cups homemade stock, vegetable or land animal

Sea salt to taste

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon sweet (unsalted) butter (optional)

Directions 

There are two ways to cook the squash. Roasting or salt water steaming. Roasting is an added step but it also adds flavor.

If roasting, place the quartered squash onto a Silpat (non-stick) sheet in a baking sheet. Season with olive oil. Bake in a 350F oven for 20 minutes. Remove. Cool. Cut off the skin (and discard).

If salt water steaming, put 2 cups of water into the bottom of a small pot, season with 1 teaspoon Diamond Brand Kosher salt, bring to a boil, place the squash into a basket or small strainer so the squash sits above the boiling water. Cover and cook 10 minutes. Remove. Cool. Cut off the skin (and discard). If you don't have a basket or small strainer, place the cut up squash into the boiling salted water for 5 minutes. Remove. Cool. Cut off the skin (and discard).

Heat a pot large enough for the soup. Add olive oil and sweet butter (optional). Add vegetables. Stir together. Over a medium flame, sauté 10 minutes until the vegetables soften. If they lightly brown, that's ok.

Add stock and cooked squash.

Simmer 10 minutes.

Blend, either with an immersion blender or by transferring the stock into a blender, until all the vegetables are incorporated. The soup can be either completely smooth or still have bits of vegetables. Your choice.

Simmer 10 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. You can add cream, if you want. Or a bit more sweet butter, if you want.

Serve hot with bread and butter.

San Marzano Tomatoes Make a Best-Ever Vegan Soup

"You say tomato, I say tomato" say Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong in their classic song about lovers who can't even agree on how to pronounce everyday words like "tomato" and "potato." But today pronunciation isn't the only issue when it comes to "tomato."

Recently, I was brought up-close-and-personal with a controversy that is raging in the culinary world. 

When is a San Marzano tomato a real San Marzano tomato? 

Widely regarded as the best-of-the-best, low-acid San Marzano tomatoes are so prized they have been given a D.O.P. designation along with Italy's other prized food products like Basilico Genovese, Acute Balsamic di Reggio Emilia and Grand Padang cheese, to name a few. 

Officially the tomatoes are called Pomodoro San Marzano Dell'Agro Sarmese-Nocerino D.O.P.   "D.O.P" means "Denominazionedi Origins Protetta" or "Protected Designation of Origin." In the EU, if a can of tomatoes says "San Marzano," the D.O.P. seal must also be visible on the label to confirm that the tomatoes and sauce inside are guaranteed to have been grown in San Marzano and harvested and packaged according to the designation (more about that later).

That seems simple enough. If the label says "San Marzano," then it must be "San Marzano D.O.P." But not so fast. 

In the United States, "D.O.P." has no meaning. U.S. domestic producers can say "San Marzano" if the seeds are from that tomato strain. So it's buyer beware. If you want a San Marzano experience in the U.S., look for "D.O.P." 

Why are San Marzano tomatoes so highly regarded?

Grown within sight of Mount Vesuvius in the Agro Sarnese-Nocerino region near Naples, the tomatoes develop their delicate flavor, sweetness and low-acidity in the rich volcanic soil, under the ever-present southern Italian sun. To receive the D.O.P designation, the tomatoes must also be handpicked, steamed, peeled and combined with sauce made from San Marzano tomatoes. 

At the Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers Market, one enterprising farmer had identified his fresh tomatoes as "Sanmarzano." He might have found San Marzano seeds, but his Southern California tomatoes do not have the benefit of the Agro Sarnese-Nocerino terroir. 

The tomatoes are always packaged whole. If you see a label that says San Marzano "cherry tomatoes" or "diced tomatoes," that product might be of good quality but if you want a D.O.P. experience, look for that D.O.P. 

To purchase San Marzano D.O.P. products, search online. I found authentic products on Amazon, Supermarket Italy, Etaly and other online retailers and even many supermarkets like Ralph's and Von's as well as Italian shops and specialty food stores. Try Cost Plus World Market as well.

Please send me recipes and photographs when you make your delicious dishes using Pomodoro San Marzano Dell'Agro Sarmese-Nocerino D.O.P. and I will submit your recipe to enter a contest to win a gift basket of these wonderful D.O.P. San Marzano tomatoes.

The tomatoes I used were provided courtesy of the Consorzio di Tutela del Pomodoro San Marzano dell’Agro Sarnese-Nocerino DOP and ANICAV.

San Marzano Tomatoes-Garbanzo Bean and Vegetable Soup

I knew about San Marzano tomatoes but had never cooked with them because I have used my own roasted tomatoes and tomato sauce. When I was offered several cans of San Marzano tomatoes, I was very happy. I quickly made a favorite recipe, tomato-garbanzo bean and vegetables soup. The result was excellent. The tomatoes thickened the soup and added a layer of flavor that made me a fan.

Please try my recipe and track down authentic San Marzano tomatoes D.O.P. Enjoy!

Cut all vegetables into pieces the size of a garbanzo bean.

Use homemade stock. I keep my vegetable stock in the freezer so its available whenever I want to make soup.

Serves: 4

Time to Prepare: 30 minutes

Time to Cook: 60 minutes

Ingredients

1 medium carrot, washed, peeled, ends trimmed

1 small yellow onion, washed, peeled, ends trimmed 

2 cups kale, washed, stems removed

1/2 cup corn kernels (when in season)

1/2 cup Italian parsley, washed, stems removed

1/2 cup celery hearts and small leaves (celery hearts have more flavor)

1 cup broccoli florets, washed

2 cups green cabbage, preferably Savoy, ribs removed and chopped separately from leaves

6 shiitake mushrooms, washed, pat dried

1 cup canned garbanzo beans with liquid 

2 cups San Marzano tomatoes and sauce 

4 cups stock, preferably homemade

2 oz cheese rind (optional)

2 tablespoons olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Season olive oil with sea salt and pepper and heat over a medium flame.

Add all vegetables except the garbanzo beans and liquid and San Marzano tomatoes and liquid.

Stir well and soften. Do not brown. 10-15 minutes.

Add garbanzo beans with liquid and stir.

Add San Marzano tomatoes and sauce and stir.

Add stock and stir.

Add cheese rind (optional).

Simmer uncovered 30 minutes.

Taste and adjust seasoning and continue simmering if needed.

Served hot with crusty bread and a tossed green salad

Tempura Vegetables and Shrimp Congee

Congee is rice served "wet" in a broth with vegetables, tofu, meat, seafood, or poultry.

Congee is the Asian equivalent of Jewish chicken soup, perfect when the weather is cold and damp or you're fighting off a cold.  Served in a variety of ways, depending on the country of origin or what's in season, the basic dish is made with cooked rice, a liquid, and flavorings.

You'll find dozens of authentic, regional recipes in cookbooks and online, but in our kitchen "congee" is another way of saying repurposed deliciousness.

Whatever we don't eat at a Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai restaurant we bring home. Invariably, a container of rice is included along with the kung pao chicken, tempera shrimp and vegetables, stir fried beef with broccoli, or sweet and sour pork that we couldn't finish. 

Reheating these dishes at home is one option, but transforming them into congee is better.  For example, converting vegetable and shrimp tempura into an aromatic, deeply satisfying and delicious congee is one way this simple technique can turn left-overs into the best comfort food you've ever eaten. 

Tempura Vegetable and Shrimp Congee

Serves 2

Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

2 tempura shrimp, tail removed

4-6 pieces tempura vegetables

1 cup cooked rice

1 garlic clove, skin removed, finely chopped

4 cups spinach leaves, washed to remove grit, stems and leaves finely chopped

4 shiitake mushrooms, washed, tips of the stems removed, thinly sliced

1/2 cup corn kernels, fresh or from a can

2 cups water or miso soup or a combination of both

1 tablespoon olive or sesame oil

Sea salt and pepper to taste

Method

Cut the shrimp and tempura vegetables into bite-sized pieces and set aside.  Saute on a medium-low flame the garlic, shiitake mushrooms, and corn kernels until lightly browned. 

Add the cut up spinach and water or a mix of miso soup and water. Raise the flame and simmer 10 minutes.

Add the cut up tempura vegetables and shrimp to the broth. Stir well and simmer 10 minutes.

Add the cooked rice, stir well and simmer a final 5 minutes.

Serve hot.

Why I Love Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was my mother's favorite holiday. She loved the chance to have her family and friends seated around the table, catching up, telling stories,and eating favorite treats.

Most of the time I do the cooking since I work at home and because we have a kitchen the size of a New York closet. Thanksgiving is my wife's day and I happily step to the side, working as a sous chef, assisting her in executing a meal that usually serves between 15-20.

Even though Thanksgiving is a lot of work, the key is organization. Writing up a menu is the first step, then a shopping list, and finally a time-line for the day before Thanksgiving and the day of the meal.

Along with those first steps, we cover the bottom of the oven with aluminum foil so clean up after the meal is easier. Cleaning out the refrigerator makes room for the turkey after we pick it up from the grocery store and so there's space for all those delicious left-overs after the meal.

Besides shopping at the grocery store we visit our local farmers' market to pick up fresh vegetables for the sides dishes: beets, sweet potatoes, lettuce, celery, carrots, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, corn, leeks, and onions.

But the most important part of the meal is the turkey and no turkey is complete without a great stuffing.

Corn Bread Stuffing with Sausages, Dried Apricots, and Pecans

Over the years my wife has developed a crowd-pleasing stuffing with a contrast of textures: soft (corn bread), spicy (sausage), chewy (dried apricots), and crunchy (pecans).

Yield: 15-20 servings

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

2 boxes corn bread mix

3 celery stalks, washed, ends trimmed, leaves discarded

1 pound mushrooms, brown, shiitake, or portabella, washed, pat dried, finely chopped

2 medium yellow onions, peeled, ends removed, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped

1 stick sweet butter

1 1/2 cups turkey or chicken stock

4 Italian style sweet sausages

1 cup dried apricots, finely chopped

1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped

Sea salt and pepper

Method

Make the corn bread the night before and leave the pan on the counter so the corn bread dries out. Use any cornbread mix you like. My wife uses Jiffy. It's inexpensive and tastes great. The instructions are on the box.

Saute the sausages whole in a frying pan with a little olive oil until browned, remove, cut into bite-sized pieces, and set aside. Pour off the excess fat. Add the celery, mushrooms, onion, and garlic into the pan with the stick of butter and saute. Season with sea salt and pepper. Cook until lightly browned, then add 1/2 cup of the stock, toss well and summer 15 minutes. Add more stock as needed. Taste and adjust the seasoning with sea salt and black pepper. 

Cut the cornbread into chunks and crumble into a large mixing bowl. Add the apricots, pecans, and the saute. Stir well and set aside until you're ready to stuff the turkey.

Roast Turkey

The most difficult part about cooking a turkey is size. Even a 15 pound turkey is larger than any roast you'll ever cook, so it's important to have somebody around to help strong-arm the turkey.

The rule of thumb about cooking time is 15-20 minutes per pound at 325 degrees but there are so many variables, you can also use a roasting thermometer and, our preferred method, jiggle-the-leg and if it almost comes off, the turkey's done.

There's a lot of talk about whether to brine or not to brine. In the Los Angeles Times, Russ Parsons argued for what he calls a "dry" brine, which means salting the turkey inside and out, then wrapping it in a sealable bag and refrigerating it for one to two days.

Yield: 20-25 servings

Time: 7-8 hours

Ingredients

1 turkey, 23-25 pounds

Olive oil

Sea salt and pepper

Method

Unwrap the turkey. Remove the packet with the liver, neck, heart, and giblet. Use a pair of pliers to remove the piece of wire that holds the legs. It can be a real pain to get the wire off. Wash the turkey inside and out. Pat dry on the outside.

Reserve the liver to make a turkey chopped liver. Put the neck, heart, and giblet into a large saucepan with a lot of water, at least five inches higher than the turkey pieces. Replenish whatever water boils off.  Simmer for 2-3 hours or until the meat on the neck falls off if you touch it with a fork. Strain the stock and reserve to use for gravy. Pull the meat off the neck and save to make turkey soup. Use the giblets in the gravy.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

The next step is easier with a friend. Drizzle olive oil on the outside of the turkey. Using your hands spread the oil over the entire bird, front and back. Sprinkle sea salt and black pepper inside the cavity and on the outside.

To put in the stuffing, either my wife or I holds the turkey upright and steady while the other loosely packs the stuffing inside the large cavity, one handful at a time.

Use 8-12 metal skewers and kitchen string to close the large cavity. Carefully turn the turkey over so you can put stuffing into the top area. Use 6-8 skewers and string to close that cavity.

Use any kind of roasting pan. Whether you use a disposable aluminum foil pan or an expensive stainless steel roasting pan from William Sonoma, the result will be the same. The important thing to remember is the pan must be at least 2" wider than the turkey, otherwise as the bird cooks, its juices will drip onto the bottom of your stove and make a mess. To insure that the turkey browns evenly, you'll need a wire rack.

Place the turkey on the rack, breast down and put into the oven. After 30 minutes, reduce the temperature to 350 degrees.

After that, every 30 minutes, baste the turkey with the fat that drips down into the pan. If the skin starts to brown too quickly, put an aluminum tent over the top.

After 3 hours, turn the turkey over. With a large bird this is easier said than done because now the turkey is not only heavy, it's very hot.

Another set of hands is a big help here. My wife and I have choreographed this crucial moment. I lift the roasting pan with the turkey out of the oven, placing it on the cutting board. Michelle stands at the ready with a pot holder in each hand. As I lift the rack with the turkey, she removes the pan. I flip the rack with the turkey onto the cutting board, having first put a kitchen towel along the edge to prevent juices from falling to the floor.

We pour all the juices and fat from the pan into a basting bowl, scrapping off the flavor bits on the bottom of the pan to make gravy.

The rack goes back into the pan. The turkey goes onto the rack, breast side up. After a good basting, the turkey goes back in the oven, covered with an aluminum foil tent.

As the turkey continues to cook, if the wing tips and drumstick ends brown too quickly, wrap them in aluminum foil.

Continue basting every 30 minutes. When the turkey is finished, remove from the oven and let rest 5 minutes.

Carve the turkey on a cutting board, removing the wings first, then the legs, thighs, and the breasts. Either place the pieces on the platter whole, to be carved at the table, or sliced for easy serving. Open the cavities and spoon out the stuffing.

Mushroom-Giblet Gravy

While the turkey is cooking, start the gravy.

Yield: 15-20 servings

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

2 medium yellow onions, peeled, ends removed, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped

1 turkey giblet, cooked, grizzle removed, finely chopped

2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary, tarragon, or Italian parsley

1/2 pound mushrooms, brown, shiitake, or portabella, washed, finely chopped or sliced

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups turkey stock

Sea salt and pepper

Method

Saute the giblet, onions, garlic, fresh herbs, and mushrooms until lightly browned. Add turkey stock and the flavor bits you scraped off the roasting pan, simmer and reduce by 1/3. Taste and adjust the flavors. If too salty, add more stock and a pat of sweet (unsalted) butter.

Reheat before serving.

Turkey Stock

When you're eating Thanksgiving dinner, odds are you aren't thinking about your next meal, but I am. Admittedly, it's a bit obsessive, but before I sit down to join the dinner, all the bones and scraps go into a large pot filled with water. By the time we're clearing the table, the stock is finished.

Turkey stock is rich and flavorful. Perfect for making soups, stews, and pasta sauce, and like chicken stock, freezes beautifully.

Yield: 15-20 servings

Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

1 turkey carcass, skin, scraps

Water

Method

Put the carcass into a large pot. If any of stuffing makes it into the pot, all the better for flavor and richness. Cover the bones with water. Simmer 1 hour. Strain and refrigerate. Pick the meat off the bones to use in a soup or stew.

The stock keeps in the freezer for six months.

Vegetable Soup Beats Back the Cold

Fall's brilliantly colored leaves are nature's consolation prize. Summer's warmth becomes a fond memory as the air cools and days grow shorter. Then when we "fall back," gaining an hour--another consolation prize--we're faced with ever increasing darkness.

Fall is accompanied by a sense of loss and regret as we move inexorably towards winter. For cooks, however, this moment of sad transition is a happy time because we open our cookbooks and pull out recipes for roasts, braised meats, baked squash, and, of course, soups.

During summer's heat, we avoid the kitchen, preferring the outdoor grill, salads, sandwiches, and finger food. With the weather cooling, we happily reenter the kitchen, igniting all the burners, cranking the oven up to 350 F degrees with abandon.

On dark, cold nights, nothing is more comforting than a warm kitchen filled with the wonderful aromas of food being prepared. Garlic and mushrooms sauteing in olive oil. Pear tarts coming out of the oven, their sweetness bubbling and reaching out to us to have a slice after dinner. And there are the soups.

As the temperature drops outdoors, we hunger to raise our internal temperature.

Staring out the window at blustery, darkening skies and steady downpours, we feel we are well protected with a hot bowl of soup in hand. Matzo ball soup, split pea with ham, French onion soup with a fat topping of toasted bread and melted cheese, mushroom-barley soup, lentil soup with browned disks of Italian sausage, oxtail soup with crispy croutons--everyone has a favorite soup they long for when they feel tired, cold, and moody.

Most carnivores enjoy their soups prepared with chicken or meat stock. But non-meat eaters learned long ago, a satisfying soup can be made entirely of vegetables.  The clean flavors of freshly braised vegetables in hot broth are perfect to fight off winter's cold embrace.

In the fall, nature's bounty stands at the crossroads. A few summer vegetables like tomatoes and corn are still available, even as cold winds blow across the fields and the sun descends mere hours after lunch.  Those soups have a lightness, reminding us of the season just ending.  But as winter forces cooks to scratch in the earth for root vegetables, soups become more serious, offering up more deeply layered textures.

To prepare an easy-to-make vegetarian soup just saute carrots, onions, garlic, and parsley in olive oil and then simmer them in a vegetable stock. Add whatever favorites are seasonally available--corn, potatoes, broccoli, beans, zucchini, kale, turnips, mushrooms--and the result is a soup that is warm, comforting, and deeply satisfying.

A cook's tip: the soup freezes well for up to a month. That way if you come home tired and hungry, you are only a microwave moment away from a nutritious bowl of soup.

Easy-to-Make Vegetarian Soup

Yield 4 servings

Time 60 minutes

Ingredients

2 large carrots, washed, ends trimmed, peeled, peels reserved

1 medium onion, ends and outer skin removed, roughly chopped

2 large garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped

2 cups Italian parsley, washed, leaves only, finely chopped, stems reserved

2 ears corn, husks and silks discarded, washed, kernels removed

6 cups spinach or 1 bunch, root ends discarded, thoroughly washed, stems removed and reserved, leaves roughly chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon sweet butter

Sea salt and pepper to taste

Method

Roughly chop the reserved carrot peels and parsley and spinach stems.  Add to a large pot with 8 cups water.  Boil on a high flame 30 minutes. Pass the liquid and vegetables through a food mill.  Extract as much pulp as possible and add to the broth. Discard the pulp in the food mill. Should make 5-6 cups. Set aside.

While the vegetable stock is simmering, saute the chopped carrots, onion, garlic, parsley, and corn kernels in the olive oil, seasoned with sea salt and pepper until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.

Add the vegetable stock and simmer on a medium-high flame for 20-25 minutes.  Stir in the chopped spinach and simmer another 5 minutes.

Taste and adjust seasoning with sea salt and pepper. Serve hot. Can be topped with croutons.

Variations

Add 1 medium sized Yukon gold potato, washed, peeled, peels reserved, roughly chopped. Add the peels to the vegetable stockpot. Saute the potatoes with the other vegetables.

Add 2 cups broccoli crowns, washed, cut into bite sized pieces to the saute.  Roughly chop the stems, add to the vegetable stockpot.

Add 1 medium tomato, washed, stem removed, roughly chopped to the soup along with the spinach.

Instead of spinach, add 4 cups kale leaves, washed, center stem removed, roughly chopped to the saute. Roughly chop the stems, add to the vegetable stockpot.

Add 1 medium sized zucchini, washed, ends removed and added to the vegetable stock pot, roughly chopped to the saute.

Add 2 cups brown or shiitake mushrooms, washed, stems trimmed, thin sliced to the saute.

Instead of carrots, add 2 medium sized sweet potatoes, washed, ends trimmed, peeled, finely chopped to the saute. Add the peels to the vegetable stockpot.

Home Made Matzo Ball Soup for Passover

Making Passover dinner takes a bit of planning, but it doesn't have to be a chore. If you're cooking for a big group, hand out assignments so you don't do all the work. If your kitchen is large enough, invite people over to help. Cooking the dinner with friends and family can be as much a part of a celebration as the meal itself.

Everyone wants to save money these days. But keeping an eye on food costs shouldn't mean cutting corners on quality and flavor. Avoid buying packaged or frozen meals and you'll be way ahead of the game. Besides saving money, you'll be eating healthier food.

For me it's not Passover without matzo ball soup. But soup is only as good as the stock. Canned and packaged chicken broth are very high in salt content and, in my opinion, have an unpleasant flavor. It's much better to make your own.

The broth can be made days ahead, kept in the refrigerator or even frozen. Also, when you buy the chicken, buy a whole one, preferably a free range or organic chicken, and cut it up yourself. Whole chickens cost under $2.00/pound, while chicken parts range from $3.50-$8.00/pound.

Cutting up a Chicken

If you haven't done it before, cutting apart a whole chicken is easier than you think. Having a sharp boning or chef's knife is essential.

To remove the wings, thighs, and legs, slice through the meat and separate at the joints. Cut the wings apart, reserving the tips for the stock. To debone the breasts, glide the knife along the side of the breast bone. As you cut, pull back the breast meat, continuing to slide the knife against the ribs.

For health reasons, I remove the skin and fat from the breasts, legs and thighs. Add the skin and fat to the stock. If you're going to debone the legs and thighs, add those bones to the stock as well.

Drizzle olive oil on the breasts, legs, thighs, and wings. Put them into an air tight container and refrigerate. If you want to freeze them, put the pieces into a Ziploc style plastic bag, squeeze out the air, seal, and freeze.

Here's another tip about freezing the chicken. When you put the pieces into the plastic bag, make sure they don't touch one another. That way, if you need only one piece, say a breast, you can leave the other pieces frozen until you need them.

Chicken Stock

When my mother and grandmother made chicken stock, they added onions, celery, and carrots to the water. I don't because I want the stock to taste of chicken. If I want other flavors, I add them later.

Yield: 2 quarts

Time: 60 minutes

Ingredients

Skin, wing tips, carcass, and bones from one 4 1/2 pound chicken
4 quarts water

Method

Put the wing tips, skin, carcass, and bones into a large pot with the water, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 60 minutes. Skim off and discard the foam. The volume will reduce by half.

Strain the stock. Pick off any meat from the carcass and reserve for later use in a salad or a chicken-vegetable soup. Discard the bones and skin.

Refrigerate overnight to easily remove the fat solids. If you're rushed for time and need the stock right away, float a slice of bread on top of the stock to absorb the fat.

The stock can be kept in the refrigerator in an air tight container for a day or two or in the freezer for months.

Matzo Ball Soup

Yield: 6-8 servings

Time: 30 minutes

For the matzo balls, we use a mix, but if you want to make them from scratch, Mark Bittman has a very good recipe.

Ingredients

1 box matzo ball mix (no soup), Manischewitz, Rokeach, or Streit's
Other ingredients per the directions on the packaged mix
2 quarts chicken stock

Method

Prepare the matzo balls per the directions on the box. Make them large or small as you like. Remember that the size of the matzo ball will double as it cooks in the salted water. 1 box of mix will make 24 small matzo balls or 12 large ones.

Put the chicken stock into a large pot. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the matzo balls from the salted water to the stock. Heat over a medium flame. Because the matzo balls are delicate, don't let the stock boil.

Serve hot.

In my next post I'll talk about what to do with all those wonderful chicken parts.

How to Store Shiitakes and a Mushroom Soup That's Perfect for Chilly Days

At most supermarkets, shiitakes aren't cheap so they have to be used sparingly. But at Asian markets, they're inexpensive. $3.99/pound at Mitsuwa in Santa Monica and $2.69/pound at SF Supermarket in Little Saigon. At those prices, it's reasonable to buy several pounds.

In general, shiitakes come in two forms: the slender stemmed variety and the ones which are fatter, with thicker stems and caps. Mitsuwa and SF Supermarket sell the fatter variety, which have a meater flavor.

With so many on hand, they can be used liberally in pastas and soups, grilled, and sautéed with garlic and shallots.

But how to store the ones not eaten those first couple of days?

Everyone knows that mushrooms should only be stored in the refrigerator in paper bags because kept in plastic they quickly go bad. Use a brown paper bag--not a white one, which is coated with wax so the moisture stays inside the bag--in combination with paper towels. The moisture that normally accumulates on the outside of the mushroom is absorbed by the layers of paper.

Kept in the refrigerator another week or two, the brown paper bag-paper towel combination acts as a dehydrator pefectly drying the mushrooms. This technique only works successfully with shiitakes.

If by chance any of the dried shiitakes develop mold, discard and keep the good ones. In my experience, more than 95% will dehydrate without harm.

To reconstitute dried shiitakes, put them in a heat proof bowl, pour in enough boiling water to cover, place a smaller bowl on top to keep the mushrooms submerged. Leave for 30 minutes until they soften.

Gently squeeze out the water but reserve the liquid for later use. Cut and discard the stems. At this point the mushroom caps can be cooked as if they were fresh.

Shiitake Mushroom Soup with Garlic

Shiitakes have a meaty, sweet flavor that is deliciously satisfying in this easy-to-make soup, perfect for a drizzly winter day.

Yield: Serves 4

Time: 45 minutes

Ingedients

2 cups shiitake mushrooms, fresh (stems and caps) or reconstituted (stems removed), washed, thin sliced
4 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped
4 shallots or 1 small yellow onion, peeled, findely chopped
4 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
1 tablespoon olive oil
Sea salt and pepper

Method

In a large sauce pan, sauté the mushrooms, garlic, and shallots with the olive oil until lightly browned. Add the chicken stock and, if using reconstituted mushrooms, 1/2 cup of the soaking water. Simmer 30 minutes.

Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper as needed.

Variations

Substitute water for the chicken stock to make a vegetarian version, in which case simmer the mushrooms a bit longer and add 1 tablespoon of butter for flavor

Season with 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

Add to the saute 4 cups spinach leaves, washed, stems removed, roughly chopped

Add to the saute and brown 2 Italian sausages, roughly chopped,

Add to the saute and brown 1 chicken breast, roughly chopped

Add to the saute 1 cup fresh, deveined shrimp, roughly chopped

Add to the soup 1/4 cup cream and 1 tablespoon butter

Add to the soup at the end 2 packages ramen noodles cooked first in boiling water for 10 minutes then divided equally among the 4 servings

Thanksgiving Turkey, Cornbread Stuffing, and Mushroom Gravy

Thanksgiving was my mother's favorite holiday. She loved the chance to have her family and friends seated around the table, catching up, telling stories,and eating favorite treats.

Most of the time I do the cooking since I work at home and because we have a kitchen the size of a New York closet. Thanksgiving is my wife's day and I happily step to the side, working as a sous chef, assisting her in executing a meal that usually serves between 15-20.

Even though Thanksgiving is a lot of work, the key is organization. Writing up a menu is the first step, then a shopping list, and finally a time-line for the day before Thanksgiving and the da y of the meal.

Along with those first steps, we cover the bottom of the oven with aluminum foil so clean up after the meal is easier. We also clean out the refrigerator so there's room for the turkey after we pick it up from the grocery store. We also want room after the meal so there's space for all those delic ious left-overs.

Besides shopping at the grocery store we also visit our local farmers' market to pick up fresh vegetables for the sides dishes: beets, sweet potatoes, lettuce, celery, carrots, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, corn, leeks, and onions.

But the most important part of the meal is the turkey and no turkey is complete without a great stuffing.

Corn Bread Stuffing with Sausages, Dried Apricots, and Pecans

Over the years my wife has developed a crowd-pleasing stuffing with a contrast of textures: soft (corn bread), spicy (sausage), chewy (dried apricots), and crunchy (pecans).

Yield: 15-20 servings

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

2 boxes corn bread mix
3 celery stalks, washed, ends trimmed, leaves discarded
1 pound mushrooms, brown, shiitake, or portabella, washed, pat dried, finely chopped
2 medium yellow onions, peeled, ends removed, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped
1 stick sweet butter
1 1/2 cups turkey or chicken stock
4 Italian style sweet sausages
1 cup dried apricots, finely chopped
1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped
Sea salt and pepper

Method

Make the corn bread the night before and leave the pan on the counter so the corn bread dries out. Use any cornbread mix you like. My wife uses Jiffy. It's inexpensive and tastes great. The instructions are on the box.

Saute the sausages whole in a frying pan with a little olive oil until browned, remove, cut into bite-sized pieces, and set aside. Pour off the excess fat. Add the celery, mushrooms, onion, and garlic into the pan with the stick of butter and saute. Season with sea salt and pepper. Cook until lightly browned, then add stock and summer 15 minutes.

Cut the cornbread into chunks and crumble into a large mixing bowl. Add the apricots, pecans, and the saute. Stir well and set aside until you're ready to stuff the turkey.

Roast Turkey

The most difficult part about cooking a turkey is that it is big. Even a 15 pound turkey is larger than any roast you'll ever cook, so it's important to have somebody around who's strong enough to strong-arm the turkey if you need help.

The rule of thumb about cooking time is 15-20 minutes per pound at 325 degrees but there are so many variables, you can also use a roasting thermometer and, our preferred method, jiggle-the-leg and if it almost comes off, the turkey's done.

There's a lot of talk about whether to brine or not to brine. Recently, Russ Parsons argued for what he calls a "dry" brine, which means salting the turkey inside and out, then wrapping it in a sealable bag and refrigerating it for one to two days. That's what we're going to do this year.

Yield: 20-25 servings

Time: 7-8 hours

Ingredients

1 turkey, 23-25 pounds
Olive oil
Sea salt and pepper

Method

Unwrap the turkey. Remove the packet with the liver, neck, heart, and giblet. Use a pair of pliers to remove the piece of wire that holds the legs. It can be a real pain to get the wire off. Wash the turkey inside and out. Pat dry on the outside.

Reserve the liver to make a turkey chopped liver. Put the neck, heart, and giblet into a large saucepan with a lot of water, at least five inches higher than the turkey pieces. Replenish whatever water boils off. Simmer for 2-3 hours or until the meat on the neck falls off if you touch it with a fork. Strain the stock and reserve to use for gravy. Pull the meat off the neck and save to make turkey soup. Use the giblets in the gravy.

The next step is easier with a friend. Drizzle olive oil on the outside of the turkey. Using your hands wipe the oil over the entire bird, front and back. Sprinkle sea salt and black pepper inside the cavity and on the outside.

To put in the stuffing, either my wife or I holds the turkey upright and steady while the other one loosely packs the stuffing inside the large cavity, one handful at a time.

Use 8-12 metal skewers and kitchen string to close the large cavity. Carefully turn the turkey over so you can put stuffing into the top area. Use 6-8 skewers and string to close that cavity.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Use any kind of roasting pan you want. Whether you use a disposable aluminum foil pan or an expensive stainless steel roasting pan from William Sonoma, the result will be the same. The important thing to remember is the pan must be at least 2" wider than the turkey, otherwise as the bird cooks its juices will drip onto the bottom of your stove and make a mess. To insure that the turkey browns evenly, you'll need a wire rack.

Place the turkey on the rack, breast down and put into the oven. After 30 minutes, reduce the temperature to 350 degrees.

After that, every 30 minutes, baste the turkey with the fat that drips down into the pan. If the skin starts to brown too quickly, put an aluminum tent over the top.

After 3 hours, turn the turkey over. With a large bird this is easier said than done because now the turkey is not only heavy, it's very hot.

This is when a friend is a big help. My wife and I have the choreography of this moment worked out pretty well. We take the roasting pan with the turkey out of the oven. I raise the turkey and the rack above the pan. My wife moves the pan. I turn the turkey over onto the cutting board, having first put a kitchen towel along the edge to prevent juices from falling to the floor.

We pour all the juices and fat from the pan into a basting bowl. We scrap off the flavor bits on the bottom of the pan and reserve those to make the gravy.

The rack goes back into the pan. The turkey goes onto the rack, breast side up. After a good basting, the turkey goes back in the oven, covered with an aluminum foil tent.

As the turkey continues to cook, if the wing tips and drumstick ends brown too quickly, wrap them in aluminum foil.

Continue basting every 30 minutes. When the turkey is finished, remove from the oven and let rest 5 minutes.

Carve the turkey on a cutting board, removing the wings first, then the legs, thighs, and then the breasts. Either place the pieces on the platter whole, to be carved at the table, or sliced for easy serving. Open the cavities and spoon out the stuffing.

Mushroom-Giblet Gravy

While the turkey is cooking, start the gravy.

Yield: 15-20 servings

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

2 medium yellow onions, peeled, ends removed, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped
1 turkey giblet, cooked, grizzle removed, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary, tarragon, or Italian parsley
1/2 pound mushrooms, brown, shiitake, or portabella, washed, finely chopped or sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups turkey stock
Sea salt and pepper

Method

Saute the giblet, onions, garlic, fresh herbs, and mushrooms until lightly browned. Add the turkey stock and the flavor bits you scraped off the roasting pan, simmer and reduce by 1/3. Taste and adjust the flavors. If too salty, add more stock and a pat of sweet (unsalted) butter.

Reheat before serving.

Turkey Stock

When you're eating Thanksgiving dinner, odds are you aren't thinking about your next meal, but I am. Admittedly, it's a bit obsessive on my part, but before I sit down to join the dinner, I start making turkey stock. All the bones and scraps go into a large pot filled with water. By the time we're clearing the table, the stock is finished.

Turkey stock is rich and flavorful. Perfect for making soups, stews, and pasta sauce, and like chicken stock, it freezes beautifully.

Yield: 15-20 servings

Time: 1 hour
Ingredients

1 turkey carcass, skin, scraps
Water

Method

Put the carcass into a large pot. Cover the bones with water. Simmer 1 hour. Strain and refrigerate. Pick the meat off the bones to use in a soup or stew.

The stock keeps in the freezer for six months.

Cioppino with Roasted Tomatoes and Garlic-Parsley Toasts

Cioppino is said to have originated among fishermen who made their dinners out of the fish and shellfish they couldn't sell in the morning. Although it has evolved into a pricey item on upscale menus, at heart cioppino is comfort food.

Traditionally cioppino features fresh crab, reflecting the origin of the dish in San Francisco where Dungeness crabs are plentiful. When crab isn't available or affordable, shrimp works just as well. Clams and mussels are essential to the dish, as are cubes of fish fillets. Flounder sole, tilapia, salmon, or halibut all work well.

Find a reliable supplier of seafood. To ensure we're getting the freshest ingredients, we buy our clams and mussels from Carlsbad Aqua Farm at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market (Wednesday and Sunday) and our flounder sole from Tropical Seafood at the Pacific Palisades Farmers' Market (Sunday).

Tomatoes are as important to making cioppino as is good quality seafood. If the tomatoes are roasted, the soup has a beautiful sweetness edged with the tomato's natural acidity.

One of the helpful aspects of this dish is that many of the elements can be prepared ahead and frozen for later use. I pick up overly ripe tomatoes at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market when they're discounted. I'll buy several pounds, roast them, freezing some whole in an air tight container and turning the rest into tomato sauce, which I also freeze.

The clams and mussels can be cooked, taken out of their shells, and frozen. If the meat is submerged in the broth, there's no danger of freezer burn. The fish fillets can be cut into 1/2" squares, tossed in olive oil, and frozen in a Ziploc bag. That way all the essential parts of the cioppino are waiting in the freezer whenever you want a taste treat.

Cioppino with Roasted Tomatoes

While serving cioppino with shellfish in the shell is more picturesque, my vote is to take the clams, mussels, and crab out of their shells so eating the dish is easier.

Yield: 4 servings
Time: 30 minutes plus 45-60 minutes for the tomatoes

Ingredients

6 large ripe tomatoes, washed
8 cloves garlic, skins removed, finely chopped
1/2 cup Italian parsley, washed, finely chopped, leaves and stems
1/2 pound mushrooms--shiitake or brown--washed, thinly sliced
1 pound Dungeness crab legs, cooked, washed, cut into 1" pieces or 1 pound shrimp, shelled, deveined, cut into 1" pieces
2 pounds butter or little neck clams, washed
2 pounds mussels, washed, beards removed
1 pound fish fillet--sole, salmon, tilapia, or halibut--washed, cut into 1/2" cubes
Olive oil
Black pepper

Method

Roasting the Tomatoes

Remove the remnants of the stem at the top of the tomato and discard. Put the tomatoes on a Silpat or aluminum foil sheet on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil, season with sea salt and pepper, and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45-60 minutes.

Transfer the tomatoes to a large bowl, reserving all the liquid on the bottom of the baking tray. When cooled to the touch, remove the skins and discard. With your fingers, tear the tomatoes into small pieces. Set aside.

Parsley-Garlic Toasts

To make the parsley-garlic toasts, heat 1/4 cup olive oil, seasoned with half the garlic and parsley. Make two slices for each person. Saute the bread on each side until lightly browned.

Cioppino

In a large stock pot, drizzle olive oil on the bottom, heat on a low flame, saute the remaining garlic and parsley until softened. Add 1/4 cup water, the clams and mussels, turn the flame to high, cover, and cook for 5 minutes.

Remove all the clams and mussels that have opened. If any are still closed, put the cover back on and continue cooking another 5 minutes. Any clams and mussels that still haven't opened at that point should be discarded.

Slowly pour the broth into a large bowl. Discard any grit remaining in the stock pot. Return the pot to the stove, drizzle more olive oil, and saute the mushrooms over a low flame until lightly browned. Add the broth and roasted tomato pulp and sauce. Simmer 15 minutes.

Add the fish fillets, stir well, and cook 5 minutes. Add the crab or shrimp and cook for 2 minutes. Finally, add the mussels and clams, stirring them into the broth, being careful not to break apart the fish fillets. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.

Place 1 slice of garlic-parsley toast on the bottom of each bowl, add the cioppino, then place the 2nd slice on top.

Variations

Instead of garlic cloves in the cioppino saute, use 1 whole green garlic, outer skin of the bulb and root end removed, white and green parts thinly sliced

Add 1 cup cubes of cooked, peeled potato, preferably Yukon Gold or fingerlings, unpeeled and quartered

Add kernels from 1 grilled corn on the cob

Substitute cilantro for the parsley

Saute thin rounds of Italian sausage or chorizo, add to the broth

Use 1/4 cup white instead of water