The days are getting shorter, the temperatures are dropping, the skies are getting grayer and the rich colors on the early vegetable stands are getting rarer as long as you eat only seasonal fruits and vegetables. But rest assured, fall and winter aren’t necessarily synonymous with the spleen, especially for “comfort food” lovers. And we are not necessarily talking about raclette, fondue, or other dishes that are certainly tasty, but should not be abused. There will be soups here.
Far from tasteless images, artificial industrial “tastes”, one can easily prepares soup quickly, with almost all seasonal vegetables, especially since they lend themselves to very comforting and very tasty soups. Also, you can easily prepare a large pot to paint in during the week (keeping cool).
Butternut, pumpkin, chestnuts, potatoes, onions, carrots, sweet potatoes, mushrooms… The combinations are many, and the choice of 5 was even heartbreaking. Note that frozen vegetables, uncooked or cooked, are a healthy alternative.
1 – “Winter vegetables” according to Cyril Linyak
The chef, who never skimps on advice, especially at RTL, recommends first sauteing the onion and garlic in a little salted oil in the bottom of the pot. For a meaty taste, you can add a few pieces of bacon. Then add the chopped vegetables: half a leek, a piece of celery, 5 Jerusalem artichokes, 3 charlotte potatoes and two carrots. Everything is mixed well so that the juices flavor the mixture, then it is poured with water. Let it simmer on low heat, and when the vegetables are cooked, stir, season with salt and pepper and you’re done. Cyril Lignac adds a little crème fraîche for a velvety effect. To taste, add cumin, a mixture of “5 spices” and accompany with croutons (treat yourself).
2 – Mushroom soup CusineAZ
Mushrooms are in season, and they’re not just pan-fried with duck breast and Sarladaise potatoes (even if they’re very good). So let’s stay on the subject of soup, with a recipe from CuisineAZ. For 4 people, provide 600 g of mushrooms, 100 g of onion, white leek, 60 ml of water, chicken broth, salt and pepper.
Start by peeling, cutting off the stems and wash the mushrooms in a large volume of water with vinegar. Then cut them into pieces. Finely chop the onion and leek afterwards. Place the three ingredients in the pot and pour in the water before whisking in the chicken stock. Simmer and stir. If you have a heated blender (or “soup pot”), the blending cooking will take place in the selected mode. Season with salt and pepper, you can add chopped parsley (or basil) and of course the holy croutons.
3 – French onion soup
Everything is said or implied in the title of the dish. It’s a classic, much appreciated by those returning from a lively night out, but one that can be enjoyed at will. In the “rich” version, get onion (1 per person approx), unsalted butter, flour, water, chicken stock or diced vegetables.
We start with Cut the onion very finely with a mandolin or a knife and sauté it over low heat in semi-salted oil. Cyril Linjac points out that you need to go slowly to cook the onions well without necessarily coloring them too much. The chef notes that in his native Aveyron they add duck fat (which is rarely a bad idea). Once the onion is cooked, add the flour and let it cook again before wetting it with water. It is at this stage that the stock cube is added, which is optional. Note that CuisineAZ offers a light version with olive oil instead of butter.
The result switches the soup from “light” to more “heavy”. This is how Cyril Lignac toasted bread grated with garlic, you can also toast the pieces of bacon you just put in the soup. The bread is then placed on top of the soup, before grated cheese covers your preparation (cheese of choice, as tasty as possible). Then place under the oven rack before serving. In the light version, stop before putting the toaster on and season with thyme. A slice of garlic-crusted toast wouldn’t be a crime on the side, though.
4 – Harira for a North African note
First, let’s avoid any useless debate: does North African mean Moroccan, Algerian or Tunisian, no need to (re)start rivalries. Here the recipe will be that of CuisineAZ titled “Algerian Harira”. But cultural boundaries are porous between border regions of each other.
After removing this underwater stone, take 300 grams of meat (lamb shoulder), but you can also try the vegetarian version. Provide 2 carrots, squash or butternut squash to avoid out-of-season zucchini, 2 cloves of garlic, 50 g of green lentils, parsley, 1 tbsp. ° S. ras el hanout, black pepper, 100 g flour, 250 g peeled canned tomatoes (no fresh tomatoes in winter), 4 stalks of celery, 2 tbsp. ° S. turmeric, fresh coriander, 100 g of chickpeas, 2 large onions, yeast and salt. The ingredient list is long, but the preparation is easy.
Mix the flour, yeast with a little warm water and set aside, covering with a rochon. The onion is finely chopped and stewed in olive oil. Add the meat, garlic, spices and fresh herbs, fry for 5 minutes on medium heat without sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add the peeled and finely chopped vegetables as well as the tomato. Cook for ten minutes. If your chickpeas are canned and therefore cooked, they will be added last. If they are dry, they are soaked in water the day before before they are rinsed and put in at this stage of cooking. Then cover everything with boiling water. Salt pepper. Bring to the boil before reducing the heat and simmering for an hour.
Then it will be time to remove the meat and puree it. Then we take some broth that we add to the sourdough from the beginning of the recipe and add it to the pot, stirring. Return the meat and bring to a boil again. You can choose to cook the chickpeas separately so that they are whole in the harira. We will turn them on at the end, cooking for a few minutes on low heat..
Note that cilantro can also be omitted if you don’t like it. A small piece of sugar can also be added to offset the acidity of the tomato. For a “fuller body” recipe, angel hair paste or “bird’s tongue” can be added after cooking in boiling water. Otherwise, we accompany it with homemade semolina breadcrumbs or purchased from a bakery. “Bsakhtkum”.
5 – The personal recipe
It’s a personal preference here, simple, quick, but with a delicious result. Provide 3 carrots, a small whole butternut squash, a nice sweet potato, two onions, 4 tablespoons of green lentils, salt, pepper and… chestnuts. For the second, prefer boiled and vacuum-packed. As for the amount, it depends on your taste, but count around 200 grams.
We peel, cut into pieces, put everything in a pot with two broths of chicken, beef or vegetable cubes. Salt, pepper, lovers will add fresh cilantro before covering with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer for about 45 minutes. All you have to do is mix and enjoy. You can add some cream or a lighter version of Skyr (a very thick protein-rich Icelandic yogurt).
The little extra tip: put at the beginning of cooking two chicken legs to be stewed with the vegetables and whose fat will soak up the soup. Remove them before mixing. You can then grill them to sear the skin. This is just an option.