Cream of Broccoli Soup

A rainy Sunday here in California. Also trying to use up a backlog of holiday ingredients. All of that meant is was a great day to make some soup before heading back to the work grind tomorrow.

We had three weeks of broccoli from the CSA box and the oldest was getting a bit tired. So I decided to use the oldest broccoli and a good part of the second oldest for a soup today.

But cooking with broccoli reminds me that you also need to be using the stems. I admit to many years of tossing the stems. But more recently we have been discovering the subtle, tender flavor of broccoli stems. They are great in everything you use broccoli florets for. Here's a YouTube video on how to trim the broccoli stems.

One of the original recipes I riffed off for this version called for an additional 3/4 cup of half and half but I don't think it needs it. This is pretty rich already with all of the butter. 

Serve it sparingly with other things for dinner or lunch and you'll find it's very satisfying as is. 

Cream of Broccoli Soup

Ingredients

Butter - 1 stick (I used salted), softened
Flour - 2/3 cup
Yellow onion - 1/4 cup or more, chopped
Broccoli - 4 cups florets and peeled stems, cut into bite sized pieces
Broth - 6 cups
White pepper - 1/8 teaspoon or to taste
Salt - to taste

Directions

In a large saucepan, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Add onion and some black pepper and stir until onions are softened. Add the broccoli, along with a pinch of salt, and stir to mix. Cook, stirring often, until broccoli softens a bit and the florets have turned a deeper shade of green (about 6-8 minutes).

Add broth to the broccoli mixture and turn up the heat and bring to a boil. Once boiling, turn off heat and let the soup cool a bit with the cover on. 

While the soup is cooling, melt 6 teaspoons of butter over medium heat in a small saucepan. Add flour and stir constantly until the roux is well-blended. Break out the immersion blender at the end to take care of the last of the roux crumbs. Take off of the heat and set aside. 

When the soup is cool enough to work with, use an immersion blender to break up the softened broccoli pieces. Return to heat and add the roux. Stir constantly, seeking out chunks of roux to break up. Reheat and stir for about 8-10 minutes or until you think you have no more chunks of roux. 

Add white pepper and salt and stir to mix. As the soup nears boiling, turn off heat and move the saucepan to another location to cool a bit. Let it cool enough to taste and then salt and pepper to taste

Stir Fry Shrimp and Vegetables with Chinese Chili Sauce

The second half of my college years was a formative time in my cooking life. My roommate and I lived off campus in a rented condo and we really got into cooking Chinese stir-fry. This cookbook became our bible and we spent lots of time making stir-fry sauces and chopping vegetables.

The main spicy stir-fry sauce stayed with me in the years after college. I shared it with others who loved it and they even named the sauce after me. It was fun to know that coast to coast people were cooking a recipe with my name on it.

For the past few years, I've been making the sauce again and doing some tweaks on the recipe. After a few years of trials, I'm ready to reveal the 2.0 version.

Let's start with Chinese Chili Sauce:

For the red chili paste, you should start with a bottle of Huy Fong Foods' Chili Garlic Sauce. But there are other options. With the current Sriracha sauce craze, you likely have a bottle of that which you can use. For a twist, I've sometimes added a Thai element by using Thai Kitchen's Red Curry Paste.

In a large bowl mix together the ingredients in the recipe below and set aside.

Chinese Chili Sauce

• red chili paste - 3/4 - 1 teaspoon (adjust to your taste)
• soy sauce - 2 tablespoons
• sherry - 1 tablespoon
• sugar - 1/2 - 1 teaspoon
• cornstarch -1 teaspoon 
• fish sauce - 1 tablespoon (optional)
• sesame oil - a few drops (optional)
• water - 1/3 cup

Stir Fry Shrimp and Vegetables

Frozen shrimp can be tricky to work with. Because each shrimp is coated with ice, it's easy to create a runny, tasteless stir-fry. So take the shrimp out of freezer early and allow it to defrost in its bag at room temperature until you can see the ice separating from the shrimp. When that happens, open the bag and pour the shrimp into a colander and rinse with hot water while shaking the colander. I also like to wrap the shrimp in paper towels to draw out any more water.

I cook the shrimp ahead of time to make sure they are done well. I also use a little butter in order get some browning on the outside.

In a wok or large skillet, heat a high-smoke oil (peanut, grape seed, canola, etc.) and an equal amount of butter. Add some minced garlic and then add the shrimp. Season with salt and pepper. Squeeze in some lemon juice. Cook shrimp until done with some browning on the outside. Set aside.

The vegetables are next and you should prepare them well ahead of time. You can use any vegetables of your choice. But the following are some of the basics:

• celery - sliced on the diagonal
• carrots - sliced
• broccoli - florets
• mushrooms - sliced
• bell pepper - sliced
• bok choy - quartered

On this particular evening I was using up some Brussels sprouts and broccoli.

Add your prepared vegetables to a hot skillet or wok and stir constantly over high heat. As they approach being done, add back in the cooked shrimp and stir to mix. 

Give the sauce another stir because the cornstarch has likely resettled to the bottom. Break up the gooey base by stirring to mix. 

Add the sauce to the stir fry and mix constantly spreading the sauce to allow it to coat everything. 

Feel free to add some peanuts or cashews at this point. 

As you stir, the sauce should add a glisten to everything once it has coated the stir fry. If it seems too gummy, add a bit of water and mix it in. 

Serve as is or over rice.

First Broccoli

Things continue to go well in the garden. With the days so long I'm able to come home from work and spend some time working on the beds. This afternoon, I picked a bunch of lettuce to share with co-workers and neighbors.

But the big news was I harvested my first broccoli bunch. Truly amazing! I cut off the broccoli head and brought it in, washed it, and ate some raw. The texture of the stalk was what struck me most. It actually had texture and flavor not found in store-bought broccoli.

I lightly steamed the broccoli and added it to some cooked tortellini along with some pesto. A salad of red leaf lettuce just-picked from the backyard, heirloom tomatoes from the box and gorgonzola cheese made for a great meal.