What makes a recipe more than just a recipe?  How about when a cooking school instructor incorporates her vast knowledge into the recipe?  This is exactly what Linca Carucci provides in “Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks”.  Linda presents details on every aspect of preparing the recipe combined with ingredient definitions, cooking term definitions, pronunciations, related background information, preparation tips and menu ideas.  The result is not only amazing recipes, such as “Red Pepper Bisque”, but the knowledge needed to prepare those recipes flawlessly without needing to attend culinary school!  

Red Pepper Bisque

From “Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks” by Linda Carucci. Chronicle Books

For the past several years, this has been the workhorse recipe I use in my Cooking Basics classes to teach the concept of seasoning to taste. It's a fairly simple recipe for beginner cooks to replicate at home. A bisque (pronounced bisk) is a smooth, puréed soup, often made with seafood, and usually enriched with cream. When made with lobster or shrimp, a bisque is sometimes thickened, or enriched, by adding a tablespoon or so of raw white rice when the stock is added. The rice disintegrates as the soup cooks, releasing its starch and thickening the soup in the process. Given the texture of peppers or mushrooms, it's not necessary to add rice to a bisque made with either of these vegetables, but a little cream goes a long way to enhance the "mouth-feel" of a bell pepper or mushroom bisque. To enhance the satisfying sensation of umami (see page 38), this vegetable bisque is prepared with chicken stock. But, if you prefer a vegetarian soup, simply substitute commercial or homemade vegetable broth for the chicken stock. The amount of salt you’ll need when seasoning to taste depends on the saltiness of your stock.

Secrets

• This recipe calls for 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper. The smaller amount will simply add a note of complexity without the heat. More makes the soup spicy.
• If you double a recipe that calls for spicy-hot ingredients such as cayenne pepper, don’t double the spicy ingredients. The capsaicin (pronounced cap-SAY-ih-sin), which gives cayenne and other hot spices their heat, increases exponentially as you add more of the spice. Start with "one times" the cayenne, and, if desired, add more when you season the soup at the end.
• Dairy products such as cream and yogurt mitigate spicy heat. As an eye-catching counterpoint to the cayenne, garnish this soup with a drizzle of crème fraîche (pronounced crem fresh) or a dollop of sour cream. For homemade crème fraîche, see the recipe at the end.
• As with most soups, this bisque tastes better the next day. If you prepare it a day ahead, season with salt and pepper, but don’t add the cream until you reheat the soup.

Serves 4 to 6

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
• 1 medium yellow onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped (if you don’t plan to strain the soup, peel celery before chopping)
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 4 medium red bell peppers (about 1 3/4 pounds), stemmed, seeded, and chopped into 1-inch pieces
• About 4 cups chicken stock, homemade or low-sodium, if canned
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• About 2/3 cup crème fraîche or sour cream, stirred to a smooth consistency, for garnish

Place a heavy 4-quart pot over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil. When oil is hot enough to sizzle a piece of carrot, add the carrots, onions, and celery. Sauté until carrots turn bright orange and onions become translucent, about 8 minutes. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon of the cayenne pepper and add the bell peppers. When the peppers start to soften, after about 5 minutes, add enough stock to just cover the vegetables and bring to a rolling boil. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, until carrots and peppers are soft, about 30 minutes. 

In a stand blender, purée soup in batches until very smooth: Blend just 2 cups at a time and hold down the blender lid as you slowly increase and decrease the speed. Alternatively, purée with an immersion blender. If desired, strain puréed soup through a medium-mesh strainer into a clean pot. As you strain the soup, extract as much pulp as possible from the solids by pressing on them with the bottom of a ladle.

Stir in heavy cream and season to taste with kosher salt and black pepper, as well as additional cayenne pepper, if desired. If necessary, reheat soup over low heat, stirring constantly. Ladle soup into warm bowls and drizzle with crème fraîche or garnish with a dollop of sour cream.

Variation: Substitute unseasoned Roasted Peppers--red, yellow or green--for the raw bell peppers. If you plan to strain the soup, you needn't peel the peppers after roasting them.

Recipe Testers' Comments: "Very easy soup to make and quick: 35 minutes from start to finish. …You can't mess up this recipe…I discovered that what I own is a fine-mesh strainer, and just as you predicted, it separated out too much of the pulp. So I ended up putting some of the pulp back in because I liked that texture better…I used a blender and didn't strain (I like the slight pulpiness)…I served a quesadilla with this and they went well together."

Homemade Crème Fraiche

Crème fraîche (pronounced crem fresh) is rich tasting, thick, European-style sour cream that's used to garnish everything from hors d'oeuvre to soups to desserts. In her well-documented book Nourishing Traditions, nutrition researcher Sally Fallon cites a variety of health benefits from eating cultured dairy products such as crème fraîche. Look for crème fraîche in the dairy case of well-stocked supermarkets. Or, it's quite simple—and inexpensive—to make your own. Just be sure to plan ahead, as homemade crème fraîche  can take up to 48 hours to thicken sufficiently. 

Combine 1 cup pure (with no additives and preferably not ultra-pasteurized) heavy cream with 2 tablespoons cultured, whole-milk buttermilk in a clean crock or glass jar. Stir, cover, and let sit at room temperature for 24 to 48 hours, until mixture is no longer runny. It should be thick enough to fall from a spoon in a clump rather than in a ribbon. Refrigerate crème fraîche for up to 2 weeks.

Copyright Linda Carucci, 2006.

About Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks

In “Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks” Linda Carucci, a cooking instructor with more than 20 years of food industry experience, reveals the indispensable everyday secrets and shortcuts that professional chefs use constantly in their cooking.“Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks” contains more than 100 recipes including soups and salads, pasta and risotto, main courses and side dishes, and indulgent desserts.  Each recipe offers truly useful guidelines and tips combined with illustrations demonstrating techniques, user-friendly charts, menus, and other resources that will educate any new cook—as well as the not-so-new ones.

Available at Amazon.com

PermaLink