I've discovered how to make soup that's entirely worth the effort
Grandma's Chicken Soup
- Place one chicken (not too big, not too small) in a pot and just cover it with water. Simmer.
- For the next hour stand over the pot skimming foam and scum and schmaltz (chicken fat, which is great for flavoring mashed potatoes if you can enjoy them despite the threat of imminent heart attack).
- Simmer until it's done.
- Remove chicken, cool and cut meat off bones, adding some back into the broth and saving the rest for the palest chicken salad west, or east, of the Mississippi.
- Salt copiously.
- Add big chunks of onion, celery and carrots (live dangerously -- add a parsnip too. Make sure to remove the wax coating first. Woohoo.)
- Simmer until vegetables are soft and limp.
- Retrieve vegetables from the bowls of kids and adults who insist their food contain no green stuff, orange stuff or slippery white stuff.
This is how I've made soup for as long as I've been cooking. There have been occasional experiments and errors, like the time I added giblets, including the liver (bleargh), but generally the soup is the same: pale yellow, salty, full of mushy or slippery vegetables. Chicken soup is meant to be bland. Really, is there any flavor to chicken soup other than salt? You slurp it and try not to drop the vegetables or splash on your clothes.
Granted, when you're sick, there's nothing like chicken soup to help you feel better. Just the thought of it is comforting. But tasty? No.
Julie and Julia may have changed my life.
In 2005 I picked up the memoir of a directionless young woman who challenges herself to blog about preparing every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days. I loved when she tried to hack open a cow's leg bone with the only substantial knife she owned, working in a kitchen about the size of my kitchen table, only to learn later that the butcher gladly would have sawed it open for free if only she'd thought to ask. I loved how she despaired and nearly gave up, only to be rescued by the pleas of a readership she didn't even know existed.
(Hello, all my thousands of lurking readers out there! I know you love my blog, even though you don't leave comments. I can just sense it.)
She accomplishes her goal, builds a fan base, sells her story, does loads of interviews, signs a movie contract, buys new clothes, meets Meryl Streep but does not get played by her, and lives happily ever after, dining on Chinese takeout for the remainder of her days. Or something like that.
I saw the film because I liked the book; because I like Meryl Streep and Amy Adams; because I loved Dan Ackroyd's take on Julia Child. I saw the film because I like to cook.
A few weeks before the movie opened I came across a book called Proust Was a Neuroscientist, by Jonah Lehrer. The author's thesis is that some writers, composers, painters and even chefs, instinctively uncover scientific truths before scientists get there first. The chapter on Auguste Escoffier, the early 20th century French master chef, caught my imagination most vividly. Escoffier discovered how to stimulate an as yet unidentified taste receptor on the tongue for... deliciousness.
According to Lehrer:
"After the meat was cooked in the hot pan... the meat was taken out to rest, and the dirty pan, full of delicious grease and meat scraps, was deglazed.
Deglazing was the secret of Escoffier's success. (A liquid, such as wine, vinegar or even water, is added to the pan after the meat is removed.) As the liquid evaporates, it loosens the fronde, the burned bits of protein stuck to the bottom of the pan... The dissolved fronde is what gives Escoffier's sauces their divine depth."
Is your mouth watering? This might help.
Take a napkin as you ponder: Why is your mouth watering? Why is the mere description of beef stock enough to compel you to Google Julia's cookbook, currently on the bestseller lists, 48 years after it was first published?
Your taste buds are recalling Umami, (not the latest Pokemon, although it sounds like one), which is a Japanese term for deliciousness. According to the Times:
"There are at least five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and the most recently discovered, umami. This last flavor, which means “savory” in Japanese, can be detected in miso, soy sauce and other Asian foods, particularly those that contain monosodium glutamate."
And, according to Lehrer:
"Glutamic acid [the amino acid that gives meat its flavor] is itself tasteless. Only when the protein is ionized by cooking, fermentation, or a little ripening in the sun does the molecule degenerate into L-glutamate, an amino acid that the tongue can taste...
Of course, umami is ... the reason that meat - which is nothing but amino acid - tastes so darn good. If cooked properly, the glutamate in meat is converted into its free form and can then be tasted...
And of course, umami also explains Escoffier's genius. The burned bits of meat in the bottom of a pan are unraveled protein, rich in L-glutamate. Dissolved in stock, which is little more than umami water, these browned scraps fill your mouth with a deep sense of deliciousness."
Deliciousness. Dee-lish-us-ness. It's what makes a char-grilled burger irresistible. It's what makes you fantasize about Grandma's brisket just now, simply because I mentioned it. It's the key to cooking meat.
I read the books. I saw the movie. Since I'm not as dumb as I look, I put 2 and 2 and 2 together and realized: Hey! Grandma got it wrong!
Sorry Gram. Stop swinging the handbag at me. We still love you.
Chicken soup is bland because the process of boiling fails to summon the umami hidden in the meat.
I'd stumbled on this fact after making soup out of a Thanksgiving turkey carcass I couldn't stand to throw away but was too lazy to spend an hour dismantling; the result was richer and more satisfying than plain chicken soup, even though my kids refused to let me add wild rice because they have this thing about eating any food that starts out black. But until I read about Escoffier, and saw "Julie" make boeuf bourguignon in her phone booth sized kitchen, it had not occurred to me that I could get the same result on purpose, by cooking the meat before putting it in the soup.
I've never been too good at recognizing patterns.
Last week I roasted soup bones for thirty minutes, placed them in a pot of water, sloshed some more water around the roasting pan to pick up every remnant of meat, and then simmered the entire concoction for -- wait for it -- 12 hours.
Actually, it was more like twelve hours broken up into four hour increments, because I had to go to bed. I don't know how Escoffier did it. He must have had a team of kitchen slaves. I have two clingy dogs hoping I'll drop something on the floor. I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't be able to rely on them to keep a watchful eye on soup as it simmered overnight.
After removing the fat and shredding the meat off the bones, I sauteed chopped carrots, celery and onions, which I added to the soup pot, along with a cup of barley and some water.
I'd post a photo of the rich and healthy soup that resulted from my exploration, except for two things:
- I dislike any kind of food photographs, and
- We ate it all up
Meanwhile, Little Miss and Miss Puppy are having a glorious time quarreling over the leftover bones.
Have you ever learned something new when you thought you already knew everything there was to know?
