Potage Feuilles de Printemps

Cream Soup of Spring Leaves
(Thank You HS French + food-mad vocab)

Sounds Mad, it does.  What a messy, general, non-specific title.

But - as I alternate between long sleeves, sweater, fleece and a wind breaker and then Short Sleeves as a cloud moves, and then back to rain jacket as the rain falls - a hearty, warming, soothing, absolutely delicious soup seems just the thing.  Especially one that is the fruits (or leaves) of spring.

I've stared at Julia Child's Cream of Sorrel Soup for years.  Literally Years!

Yes... this is my mom's, butter stains and all.

And it seems over complicated.  But as I was turning chicken scraps from my freezer into stock (yeah.... I was going all out for this one), I broke it down into language I could see.  And it really turned out to be easy.

And then when I  got to the end... and it was time to make the toasty cheese sandwiches - but the soup needed a bit of fussing about with salt - and I was able to turn it over to the 5th grader...

Yeah it is worth is - and the soup makes total sense on a blustery spring evening.

So how to do this?

Prep - get the stock on the heat - close to a boil.  Clean your leaves - and cut them up in chiffonade or chopped to smithereens.
Measure everything out.  Mix the 1/2 C milk/cream with the 2 egg yolks.

Now it will be easy.


1/3 C onions or green garlic
cook it to soft in
3 Tbs butter

then make a white roux by stirring in the
3Tbs flour (interesting note - just needs to be starch - wheat is NOT essential)
and cooking for about 3 min to toast the starch - or whatever sort.

Stir in the 3-4 C chopped leaves - and maybe a ladleful of hot stock.  Coat with the roux (starch-butter-onion mixture) and keep stirring until the leaves are completely collapsed and maybe falling apart.

Add in the 5 1/2 C stock a bit at a time, so the roux stirs in and is not lumpy.

Stir 2 ladles of the soup into the egg+cream mixture.  Take the soup off the heat - and stir the tempered egg mixture back into the soup.

If it is not rich and creamy enough - stir in a little more butter.
Taste and check for salt.  This would be a bland, boring disappointing soup if not salted correctly.  I had a 5th grader check it for me (see above).

If photographing for FB or Pinterest, or serving for an important dinner with you S/O's boss, decorate with leaves.

Otherwise, eat as you listen to the rain drum on the roof.

Sorrel Gremolata

Sorrel.  

When poor Bilbo Baggins finds himself on the other side of the Misty Mountains in The Hobbit, pony-less and thus provision-less, one thing he grabs to eat along the trail is sorrel.

One of the first greens of spring, it brings a fresh burst of vitamin C, which in the raw state comes across as pucker sour.  No lemons you say? At the start of spring, get your sour here.

Ingredients:

sorrel - handful

garlic cloves - 1 or 2  

blanched almonds - small handful (optional)

Equipment:

cutting board & knife

or

small food processor

Prep:

Wash the sorrel and remove the stems.

Peel the garlic.

Cook:

Chop the garlic and sorrel (and optional almonds) into smithereens.  

Ta-Da!

Gremolata as sour as you'd ever like, and not a lemon in sight.

Use to top anything that needs a little kick.

I used it on these giant beans, but it is great on cooked carrots, baked potatoes, roasted squash, fish baked in butter, garlic, parsley, salt & pepper, or mixed into mayo on a sandwich.  The last Tbs goes into the base of a salad dressing perfectly.

Spring, Herbs & Tuna Salad

Spring is really here, the new herbs are potted, the old ones repotted at last, and I've finally got a sunny day, so my garden has a chance of growing.

dill, new oregano and tarragon peeking through in the back

And to celebrate the herbs it is Tuna Salad Day*.  Also because it is Tuesday, but that's another thing.  And really it is more of a Take Back Tuna Salad day.  I don't know how we let this perfectly nice, low-stress, tasty way to transform leftovers into something delicious into a vilified sink of greasy blandness, but we have.

It must stop now.  Lunches, snacks and dinners need to be revived with the real deal, and we can all make it ourselves, especially when we're in a hurry, or have nothing in the the fridge.

Basic Tasty Tuna Salad

Eat as a sandwich, or my favorite, scooped up with grainy-seedy crackers. 

Equipment:

fork

knife

cutting board

small bowl

measuring spoons

Ingredients 

3 oz tuna - or other leftover fish (about 1 small can's worth/ 1 generous palm full)

1 garlic clove or a bit of leftover onion

1/2 rib of celery or *additions*

1 tsp mustard 

2 Tbs mayonnaise

splash of vinegar

salt & pepper 

bread or crackers (or tortillas?  flatbread?)

Prep & Cook:

Place the tuna in the bowl.  Slice up the celery and smash, peel and finely chopped the garlic (or something similar to the onion).  Add these to the tuna.  Stir in the mustard, only 1Tbs of the mayonnaise. Taste.  

Add salt, pepper and vinegar until it tastes almost right.  

Taste!

Stir in some of the rest of the mayonnaise until you get to a taste and texture you like.  This may mean a bit more mayo, vinegar, salt & pepper (maybe even a bit more mustard) and it may mean less than the full 2Tbs.

Always add a bit, and then taste again.  Easy to add more, tough to remove.  Let your own personal taste be your guide.

But that is only the basic recipe.  Back to the herbs that brought me here.  Time to get out the scissors and start clipping to make up some spring time specialties.

My three favorite combinations so far this spring have been:

1) French Inspired Tuna Salad 

Take out the watery sweet celery and instead use 

-a few leaves of nice sour sorrel

-a few leaves of mysterious licorice-y tarragon 

-and some lemon (or regular) thyme.  

If it is in your fridge, go for the spiky flavor of dijon mustard.  

Maybe add a few more leaves of sorrel as the lettuce on your sandwich.

oregano front, marjoram next to the ball

2) Italian Leaning Tuna Salad - 

If you have some oil packed tuna - this is a great place to use it.

Track down all the Mediterranean leaning herbs (even that "Italian Seasoning Blend" will do in a pinch!)

Skip the celery, and instead use

- a sprig of thyme

- a few leaves of peppery oregano

- a sprig of marjoram (if you don't have it fresh, toss in some dried)

- leave out the mayo, and use olive oil to make up the creaminess.  

- use red wine vinegar

Bonus: throw in a chopped tomato if you happen to have some about.

chives almost ready to bloom

3) Swedish-ish Salmon Salad 

OK, this one isn't a tuna recipe, but it was the perfect way to rescue the overcooked parts of the salmon.

- replace the celery with a half a pickle chopped into smallish pieces

- add a few sprigs of chopped dill, until it tastes dill-y enough for you

- add some chives if any are on hand

- use onion instead of garlic, and use thin slices of onion instead of chopped bits

- salt, pepper and mayo, and adjust the vinegar accordingly.

*No I don't know if there is really Tuna Salad Day.  In fact I bet there is one, but this has nothing to do with that.

This need not stop with tuna.  Other leftover aquatic denizens - salmon, shrimp, trout... benefit from the same treatment.  Egg salad is begging to be perked up in the same way.  And chicken salad, or even as a way to use up that last little bit of steak.  Stay tuned and learn the secret to cilantro/basil/sriracha steak salad.  It'll be here soon, now that there is enough sun to keep me awake during the day.

Break out the scissors and get clipping.