Tuscan Bean Soup

I read a site devoted to foodies called "Chowhound" because it has one of the more active forums and communities among various food-related web sites. Unfortunately, as is the wont of foodies everywhere, they can be rather snobbish when it comes to food. I once bore witness to some of the more common variety of this in a discussion about garlic. One person turned his nose up at the very notion of using powdered garlic in recipes. Another, quite appropriately, said that he couldn't imagine using raw garlic in his egg or tuna salad.

The irony of a lot of food snobbery is that the attitudes were the opposite in the distant culinary past. The reason we have dried spices rather than use fresh ones was that they wouldn't travel well. People in England who were fortunate enough to have access to dried, ground cinnamon saw it as something worth more than an equivalent weight in silver. They had something rare and precious that would last. 

The only reason we can be snobs about fresh vs. dried spices is that we have the luxury of allowing spices to go to waste. When I buy a bunch of fresh cilantro for 99 cents at the market, I know I'm never going to use all of it before it goes bad, and I make some pretty cilantro-heavy recipes that use more than most. I have to freeze the remainder or toss it when the remains go off.

When I found this recipe for Tuscan bean soup, I had to choose between doing some specialty shopping for fresh parsley, pancetta, and dry beans, or use what I had on hand - dried parsley, regular thick-cut bacon, and canned beans. I opted for the latter, but I did my best to retain as much of the original recipe as possible. 

Usually, I don't list the recipes ingredients here because I don't want to rob the Times of their page views. In this case, I changed enough that I'm going to list out what I used, but I didn't change quantities or essential ingredients; I changed quantities (I cut the recipe in half) and form:

Ingredients:

• 2 slices thick-cut bacon
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley
• 1 small bay leaf
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
• 1 (15.8 oz.) can Great Northern White beans
• 3 Roma tomatoes, pureed
• salt and pepper, to taste

Since I was using canned beans, I had to cook the onions separately. My method was as follows:

Heat a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Cook bacon slices until crisp and brown. Remove from the pan, leaving bacon fat and drippings behind (this was my substitute for the olive oil in the Times recipe). 

Reduce heat to medium-low. Add the diced onions and cook for about five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and saute until the strong smell diminishes (about five more minutes). Stir in the parsley and bay leaf; add black pepper and salt to taste. Cook until the onions are no longer releasing moisture through vapor and are thoroughly (about five more minutes). The mix should be very fragrant now.

Add the can of beans, liquid included, and then fill the can with water, add to soup pot, and stir everything together. Bring to a simmer, cover with a lid, and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the pureed tomatoes and simmer for another 15 minutes. 

Remove half of the soup and puree in a blender. Add the puree back into the soup and stir. Taste and add more salt if desired. Crumble the reserved bacon and either stir back into the soup (adds flavor) or serve as a garnish on top (retains texture). 

I actually used more garlic than I'm listing here, but I realized it was too much and have adjusted the recipe here. It isn't overbearing, but I had to really cook it down to diminish the amount of strong garlic flavor. I think that can be avoided by using less garlic.

I have another recipe for Tuscan white bean soup and this one caught my eye because it is so different. Mine uses thyme and lemon juice. This uses parsley and tomato. When I smelled the finished soup, the aroma reminded me of minestrone. The texture was a creamy,  yet still chunky, delight. There is no picture of this soup on the Times recipe page, but this is what mine looked like:

The flavor is more "beany" than some if you don't drain the beans. I prefer it undrained, but I guess drained beans would provide a less robust white bean experience. I liked that the flavors were somewhat delicate while still being very present. Usually, I use some sort of meat stock flavoring (like bouillon) in my soups to give it a strong, savory backbone. This was relying much more heavily on the vegetables and spices so the sense was less intense, but in no way flavorless or boring. The tomatoes also shone through a bit which lent a nice warmth to the soup.

This is an excellent soup to have as a complete meal and I'm sure I'll make it again some time.

Nova Scotia Fish Cakes

During much of my life, fish has been off the menu. It's only in the last year that I've taken to regularly eating fish. It might be menopause, or it could be that, once people stopped telling me I should do it, I decided to give it a chance. I'm not a stubborn person, but I prefer to try things based on curiosity rather than being pushed. It doesn't help that those who recommended fish only pushed it for health reasons and really didn't describe the experience in any other terms. If you can't tell me that it has some sort of textural delight or flavor potential, then I'll stick to other, cheaper, healthy dishes.

It also did not help that I was in Japan and most of the fish I was told to eat was raw. I really dislike the texture of raw fish and I was raised to think uncooked flesh of any sort would result in dire healthy results. And, of course, my mother's home cooking of fish was not especially impressive. It usually meant a carp or trout wrapped in foil and cooked with lemon, salt, and pepper until it had had all of the textural delights steamed out of it.

I've tried to overcome the disadvantages of my youth in this regard. Pollock has been helpful in this regard as its the least "fishy" fish. It's also cheap. I've been trying it in various preparations and have generally been pleased. I had not folded it into a recipe which wasn't simply a way to make a whole piece of fish so the Nova Scotia Fish Cakes recipe caught my eye.

This was my first experience cooking fish in milk. I did as instructed, but I didn't know why this was of value until I did a little research. It's supposed to remove the "fishy" smell and taste and restore fish to a fresher flavor and impart a better texture. I do believe this worked and was effective. The fish did taste good without being overly "fishy" (which is an unpleasant taste  and odor that comes from the aging of the fish).

Since the recipe called for any white fish, my stash of frozen pollock which was a little over 14 oz. fit the bill well. I soaked it in milk as instructed, though some of the fish was partially frozen and it froze the milk so I wonder if that may have undermined the soaking effects. I also cooked it in milk, but for a very short time (about 4 minutes) because my fillets were very thin. This worked well as the fish didn't seem rubbery or overdone when I flaked it.

For the potato, I weighed it out to be sure to get the proportions correct and I used a ricer to mash it. This allowed for a much more even mashing than using a fork and I was pleased with how uniform it was when I made the cakes. I am dubious, however, about boiling the potato as part of the cooking and wondered if steaming my not have been a better idea. When I prepared the cakes for frying, they were delicate and it was hard to keep them from falling apart in the egg mixture. I had to roll them back into shape to some extent when I applied the bread crumbs. One cake broke in half, but cooked fine anyway. My best guess is that making smaller "appetizer" size cakes would have made this less likely, but I was prepping these for an entree. Mine looked like this:

The original potato patty was actually round. The shape change occurred because of the softness of the patty and the need to roll it around in the bread crumbs (I used panko) to keep it together and firm it up after the egg coating.

In terms of how this was, it was actually pretty great. The outside is crispy and not too oily. The inside is tender and soft and there's just enough flavor variation to keep things interesting without overwhelming the potato and fish flavors (which can be faint). I would make these again in a heartbeat if I had the fish on hand. I modified the recipe little, but the one thing I did do was add a 1/8 teaspoon of Old Bay seasoning. I'm not sure that it made any difference given how tiny the amount was, but I might throw in 1/4 teaspoon next time to see if it has an impact. These were very flavorful on their own because of the scallions, salt, and pepper, but I don't think adding more complexity would do any harm.

The only problem is that this makes a lot and I am the only person in the house eating them. My batch made five cakes and I cooked them over two days. I allowed the leftovers to cool and froze them immediately. My hope is that fast freezing (while the coating was still crisp) and then cooking them still frozen and in a toaster oven will keep the delightful crispy exterior's charms intact.

Update: Freezing them (in plastic wrap) shortly after they'd full cooled and then re-heating in them in the toaster oven straight from the freezer worked very well. It retained the crispy exterior and tender interior. This is a winner for long-term use and a way to avoid process breaded products and make your own.