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The
Accidental Soup
BY DANA JACOBI
FOR THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR CANCER RESEARCH |
As
a trained chef, it’s easy to forget how intimidating cooking
can be to the novice. Teaching cooking classes reminds me, however,
just how uncomfortable many people feel in the kitchen. Trying
new recipes is a chief source of discomfort for many of my cooking
students. To ease their anxiety, I often start beginners out
making soup.
Soups
are generally easy to make. Moreover, most soup recipes are pretty
forgiving and yield tasty results even if the final dish does
not turn out exactly as planned. Also, once you know how to make
a particular soup, making variations is easy, giving you a variety
of possibilities to draw from.
When
I started making this soup, for example, I had in mind a wintry
stew based on versions I’d eaten in the Abruzzo region in
central Italy. While the soup I set out to make called for beans,
chestnuts, bitter greens and pumpkin, since it was a raw day
and I did not want to venture outside, I worked with what was
in the house. After searching the kitchen, I had collected my
ingredients: chickpeas, leftover cooked collard greens, a handful
of leeks and a wedge of calabaza, the pumpkin-like squash often
used in Hispanic cooking.
This
“accidental” soup started out, like most, with a base
of sautéed onions. But because meatless soups tend to
need an extra boost of flavor, I added a leek to the base as
well; you could easily substitute garlic. I chose the smoky flavor
of chipotle chile as a stand in for the chopped prosciutto that
Italian cooks sometimes use to deepen the flavor of bean soups.
A quick taste of the soup-in-progress told me it needed a hint
of acidity, so in went another unplanned ingredient – canned
tomatoes. I added chestnuts to the original version, but they
made the soup too sweet, so I removed them.
In
the end, after a bit of ingenuity and some good old fashioned
trial and error, I was left with a delicious – and unexpected
– meatless winter vegetable stew.
Chickpea,
Pumpkin and Collard Stew - Makes
10 servings
- 2
Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
- 1
leek, sliced
- 1
onion, chopped
- 1
1/2 lbs. cheese pumpkin (or butternut squash), peeled and cut
in 1-inch cubes
- 4
cups fat-free reduced sodium chicken broth
- 3
cups cooked collard greens (*see note) or 1 frozen package (10
oz), defrosted
- 6-inch
sprig fresh rosemary, crushed (or 2 tsp. dried)
- 6-8
fresh thyme sprigs (or 2 tsp. dried)
- 1/8
tsp. ground chipotle chile
- One
can (15 oz.) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- One
can (14 oz.) diced tomatoes
- Salt
and ground black pepper, to taste
Heat
the oil in a large Dutch oven or saucepan. Add the leek and onions
and sauté until translucent, 4 minutes. Add the squash.
Cover tightly, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook 5 minutes.
Add
the broth, collard greens, rosemary, thyme, and ground chile.
Increase the heat until the liquid boils, cover, and reduce heat
to simmer stew for 10 minutes. Add the chickpeas and tomatoes.
Simmer, uncovered for 10 minutes, or until the pumpkin and collard
greens are tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Per
serving: 130 calories, 4 g total fat (0 g saturated fat), 20
g carbohydrate, 4 g protein,
4 g dietary fiber, 420 mg sodium.
*Note:
For cooked collard greens, cut tough stem and veins from fresh
collard greens. Cook the leaves in a generous amount of boiling
water for 8 minutes. Drain, then rinse under cold water until
greens are cool enough to handle. Drain, and stack 2- 3 leaves
on top of one another. Roll stacked leaves to make a long cigar,
and cut crosswise into strips. Or, defrost a 10-ounce package
of frozen collards.
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