Posts Tagged Asparagus
Creamy Chicken Asparagus Soup
Posted by Van Santos in soup on January 15th, 2010
About two weeks ago Peter, over at Greek Food and Beyond, posted a recipe for Creamy Asparagus Soup. I love Creamy soups, my favorite is the Chicken Pasta soup that J.Alexander’s serves, so when I found a recipe that looked appetizing I needed to go for it. Sure, I have no experience with making any creamy-based soup but I wasn’t going to let that stop me!
I made three small changes to this recipe, but we’ll get to that in a second.
The Recipe
1/4 cup olive oil
3 leeks (white parts)
2 bay leaves (crushed, spines removed)
1 tsp dried thyme
3 Russet potatoes
8-9 cups of chicken stock
2 bunches of asparagus
1/2 cup of cream
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste
1 lb cooked dark chicken chunks (I used the leftovers from the Lemon Chicken)
And the process…
In a nice sized soup pot add your olive oil over medium heat and add the chopped leeks, crushed bay leaves thyme and chicken, stir for about 10
Now grate your potatoes through the large holes of your box grater and stir in with the leeks. Simmer for about five minutes.
While the leek/potato/chicken mix is cooking, cut your asparagus separating the tips and the stem.
Add your stock, salt, pepper and the chopped asparagus stems, bring to a boil. Simmer for about 25 minutes.
Creamy Asparagus Soup? Really?
In a second pot bring water to a boil, add your asparagus tips and boil for 2-3 minutes. Remove and blanche the tips in ice-cold water.
Once the soup is ready puree with a hand blender while adding the cream (I went with one cup).
Place in a bowl, add your asparagus tips – top with freshly ground black pepper and Parmesan cheese.
That looks better, almost like Creamy Chicken Asparagus Soup!
Peter has a great soup recipe here. I couldn’t stop eating this, and I even put some in the freezer for later. On my next go around I plan on making the soup a wee bit thicker, creamier… but one who enjoys a good creamy soup cannot go wrong here.
My changes – I added one tsp of salt as I used stock which, usually, is lower salt. I ground up the bay leaves to a nice flake consistency, and I added the chicken for a little extra something. Have fun!
Fresh Pasta with Asparagus and Pine Nuts
Posted by Van Santos in Main Course, Pasta on May 6th, 2009
With the stress of life and the recent lack of time, I haven’t given much time to Yes, We Cook! This is simply due to the lack of actual cooking I’ve had the chance to do. Well, today I said enough is enough and get back up on the horse.
Some time back we had a discussion regarding fresh pasta. Well, JT, a fellow writer on the site, introduced me to The Pasta Puttana (Yes, if you are Italian – Gianna – you know what this means) and her freshly made pasta. I picked up a package of the fresh white-wine tagliatelle at the local Chicago market, along with some fresh asparagus, and decided to make a quick meal.
As this way my first experience with Pasta Puttana, and with the fact that this was flavored pasta, I didn’t use my saltwater in the cooking. I have never cooked fresh pasta before and didn’t know what to expect, but it turns out the actual cook time is VERY short. Like 1 minutes short. So, I got the water going to a raging boil, dropped in the pasta, and before I knew it was done.
Remembering that the pasta was flavored, I made a quick butter / celery seed / dried oregano mix to drip over the dish. I simply used 1 teaspoon of butter, added a pinch of each seasoning, and melted together.
For the fresh asparagus, I used the technique previously used in the “Fusion” steak recipe.
- 1 bunch Fresh Asparagus
- pinch of garlic powder
- lemon juice
- 1 pad of butter
- freshly crushed black pepper
Cut the asparagus into inch long cuts. Add enough lemon juice to cover the bottom of the pan, include your pad of butter, and boil the juice for roughly 5 mins. Your asparagus will turn a nice bright green when it’s ready. Once bright green, take off the flame and drain off remaining lemon juice. Add the garlic powder and black pepper, mix with the pasta, add pine nuts and you are set.
Let me say, and I’m sad to say, I did not have the camera available for this dish. So there will be no food porn available. Sorry.
First off, the fresh pasta by The Pasta Puttana was some of the best pasta I’ve ever had. The white wine was not overbearing in anyway at all. The addition of the butter mix wasn’t even necessary, actually. I did not take away from the pasta but it didn’t add much either.
I love my Lemon Asparagus but it was not appropriate for this dish. The lemon was too strong for the subtle taste of the white wine pasta. I would suggest simply steaming the asparagus in water.
Bottom line: If you have a local pasta source, give it a try. If you are in Chicago, contact The Pasta Puttana and get some of her freshly made goods.
“Fusion” marinated steak and lemon asparagus
Posted by Van Santos in Main Course, Recipes on April 21st, 2009
Ages ago I visited a restaurant here in Chicago that had a unique, well what I thought was unique, marinade for their steak. I couldn’t remember ever aspect of it, so I thought I’d simply give it a go. For this I used filet strip steak that I ended up cubing for before marinating.
Please note you will need skewers and a deep oven pan for this recipe.
Marinade
- 1 tsp curry
- 1 tsp tumeric
- Soy Sauce (enough to cover the steak in my container of choice)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 stalk of crushed lemon grass
Mix your marinade together, place the steak into an air tight container with the marinade and the meat set in the fridge for roughly 24 hours. Make sure you shake the marinade roughly ever 4 hours (if possible).
When ready to cook, preheat your oven to 275. Take your skewers and place roughly four pieces of steak per skewer, and place over your deep oven pan.
Cook in the over for roughly 30 to 40 minutes at 275, basting the meat with the left over marinade ever 10 minutes. This will bring the steak to a very nice medium rare. Obviously, cook to your desire and check the meat often.
Lemon Asparagus
I wanted to keep with the lemon flavored theme, even if the taste was ever so faint. Here is what you’ll need for the Asparagus:
- 1 bunch Fresh Asparagus
- pinch of garlic powder
- lemon juice
- 1 pad of butter
- freshly crushed black pepper
Cut the asparagus to the length of your choosing and place into a deep frying pan. Add enough lemon juice to cover the bottom of the pan, include your pad of butter, and boil the juice for roughly 5 mins. Your asparagus will turn a nice bright green when it’s ready.
Once bright green, take off the flame and drain off remaining lemon juice. Add the garlic powder and black pepper and you are set!
For this dish, I used Trader Joe’s Jasmine Rice for the base and placed the meat over the rice and asparagus:
And for a close up..
Come on, admit it... you want some!
This didn’t match the exact flavor of the restaurant, but it was close. I may play with using lemon paste instead of lemon grass to add a bit more of the lemon zest aspect. The curry and tumeric leave a nice taste after the initial blast of Soy Sauce. Also, the medium rare preparation is perfect for this dish – especially with the cut of meat. I could also see how this dish could easily turn into a BBQ meal.
Bon Appetite!
Pasta with Pesto Cream and Asparagus
Posted by Van Santos in Main Course, Recipes on April 9th, 2009
After my Chicken Pesto dish I had a plenty of pesto left over for future use. I had absolutely no desire to let it go to waste, so I decided to get creative – Pasta with Pesto Cream and Asparagus. It’s quite important to note that I’ve never – ever – made a cream sauce before and I decided to wing it.
So here goes.
Ingredients Needed
- ½ Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
- 1 pint heavy cream
- 2 tbsp Butter
- 1 tsp corn starch
- 4 tbsp Pesto Sauce
- 1 Box Fusilli (well, whatever pasta you so desire)
- 1 Bunch Asparagus, cut
1)Begin Fusilli when you start your cream sauce
2)Heat the heavy cream until it starts to simmer, add butter and mix until it melts
3)Mix in corn starch, simmer for 2 minutes
4)Mix in the pesto sauce and and grated Parmesan cheese, simmer until for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
5)Drain pasta, place into large skillet and add pesto cream sauce and asparagus. Heat over low flame until the asparagus is crisp
I was very, very surprised at how well this turned out. I had expected this to turn out like a really, really bad science experiment, but no! Depending on your taste, you may wish to hold off on the asparagus as it has the ability (especially on how fresh it is) to add a slight bitterness to the dish.
It is interesting to note they sauce is very, very lite in the end. The pesto is not overwhelming, actually it is quite subtile. A great adddition to the dish would be some chopped chicken and pine nuts or sliced almonds.
If you have another cream sauce recipe that you would like to suggest, please do. I’m more than willing to try others.
I hope you enjoy!
