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Friday, October 8, 2010

Recipe: Lemon, Spinach, and Orzo Soup

“Lemon soup? Hmmm” His reaction did not look promising. “Yes, I haven’t tried it before but it sounds good!” I replied with enthusiasm, not letting on that I was just as skeptical as he was. “Alright we have frozen pizza just in case…”

Yes that is the true story of my cousins reaction when I announced that I would be making this soup. He and his wife are no strangers to being my culinary guinie pigs. I have made them some, to put it dramatically, horrendous failures. Yet Still they trust me with the taste buds and stomachs.

Honestly (to my surprise) it turned out to be quite a good, and yes indeed quick, soup. There are a few things I would change for next time but I am planning on a next time so that is promising to say. Final thought before we move on although you may be skeptical try it and hey if you don't like it make sure frozen pizza is on hand. ;o)

On a bit of a business note if you like what you see or have further questions please post it in the comment section! If you really like it please share on facebook, twitter or any of the other easy options I put below the post. If I get enough readers who post comments then I'll start running give-a-ways or drawings for cool food related stuff!! So comment comment comment and enjoy!

Well, let's dive in shall we?
Software
2 tablespoons olive oil (not pictured)
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 large sweet (yellow) onion
2 tsp. red pepper flakes (for the spicy side of life, use less if you don't like spice)
1 tsp. dried thyme
2 cups of chopped, packed fresh spinach (original recipe called for frozen :o( yuck!)
1 1/2 cups orzo
8 cups chicken (you can also use vegetable broth, but veggi broth is only worth it if it's homemade)
4 eggs
2 lemons (I know there are four in the picture and this is one of those changes)
Fresh flat-leaf parsley
Grated Parmesan (I cheated and just bought some pre-grated but I trust my source for good cheese)


Hardware
My Giant pot! (12qt. and you can do smaller but I just love this pot)
Spoon

Alright first heat the olive old in your pot.

On medium heat sweat the garlic and onion. (i.e. just slightly translucent not brown, sweating is like a sauté light)

Crank the heat to medium high and add red pepper flakes, spinach, and orzo. Let that go for a minute, then add the broth.

Let it come to a light simmer, then turn the heat down and continue the simmer for 15 minutes, basically you want the orzo to be barely tender.

Take the soup off the heat and let it cool down for a minute. This is very very important!

While that is cooling whisk the eggs in a large bowl (you will be adding soup to this bowl so a larger bowl is key)

Next whisk in the lemon juice (this is why I dropped it to two lemons, you don’t really have a chance to add to taste here)

Whisk until your egg/lemon juice mix is thick, creamy and a pale yellow color.

Here is the tricky part! We need to temper the egg mixture. Start by adding a small ladleful of the soup broth to the eggs and immediately whisk your little heart out! To really be sure not to scramble the eggs, take a second and even third ladle of soup and whisk each well and letting them cool before adding it. If your eggs do curdle/scramble try again with another set of eggs and let everything cool a little more than last time.

After you temper the egg mix add to the soup pot, whisking all the while.

Bring it all back to low heat, stirring the whole time and carefully warm over the low heat until the soup starts to thicken. When it has thickened to your liking bring the heat up again a notch or two and warm for 3-4 minuets.

Finally serve it garnished with parsley and Parmesan!


(This was Adapted from gimme some oven)

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