One of the many things I welcome about fall and the colder weather it brings is the chance to get slightly obsessive about soup. If every chef has a specialty or even a secret passion, mine is probably making minestrones, garbures, bisques and consommes.
Jacques Pepin judges restaurants by how they prepare a simple salad or a roasted chicken. I judge them by their soup. If the soup is a hack job, then I’m predisposed to dislike the rest of the menu.
I once worked with a French chef who made every soup the same way. He would lightly saute a few onions, then sweat the main ingredient, simmer it in chicken stock, then blend it with heavy cream and a few pounds of butter. His soups had the worst features of French cooking: They were rich and bland, without any depth of flavor.
Maybe it’s because of the years I spent laboring under French chefs with their love of purees, but I’ve come to prefer garnish-filled, broth-based soups. Unlike pureed soups, where every bite can be the same, in a broth soup, the first few spoonfuls are light and clean; as you eat your way to the bottom of the bowl, the tiny particles of meat, starch and seasoning wonderfully thicken the last bites.
If you’re making a pureed soup, the way to give some variety and complexity is, besides adding some acidity, to use a garnish that contrasts with the basic character of the soup.
Croutons, of course, if added at the last second, give a nice crunchiness to a pureed soup. But a smoky, acidic reduction, like the bacon and onion and white wine ragout that I use to garnish my white bean soup, works just as well.
The beans are cooked in a pressure cooker — the only way to cook beans evenly and quickly at this altitude — with garlic, rosemary and chicken broth, and then pureed with a little good olive oil. The soup is ladled into wide, shallow bowls and garnished with a generous amount of the tangy, smoky reduction.
John Broening cooks at Duo Restaurant, .
White Bean Soup
Makes about 3 quarts
For soup
Ingredients
2 cups dried white beans
2 quarts chicken stock
1 sprig rosemary
1/2 cup garlic cloves (about two heads)
1 onion, peeled, cut in quarters
1 carrot, peeled, cut in quarters
2 teaspoons salt
Pinch chile flakes
Freshly ground pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
Directions
The night before, cover the white beans with 2 quarts cold water. Refrigerate overnight.
The next day, drain the beans and place them in a pressure cooker with the stock, rosemary, garlic, onion, carrot, salt and chili flakes. Bring up to pressure and cook about 40 minutes, until very soft.
(If you don’t have access to a pressure cooker, substitute 6 cups drained, cooked canned beans for the dried beans and reduce the amount salt in the recipe to 1/2 teaspoon. Combine the beans with the stock, rosemary, salt, chile flakes, garlic, onion and carrots and simmer until the vegetables are soft, about 40 minutes.)
Remove the rosemary and the carrot. Place the soup mixture in a blender. Do not fill more than 2/3 full, and pulse several times before blending (this will keep the hot soup from exploding all over the place). Blend in batches until smooth along with the pepper and oil. Adjust seasoning to taste.
For bacon-onion garnish:
Ingredients
4 ounces smoked bacon, chopped into small dice
1 yellow onion, chopped into small dice
4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 cup white wine
2 cups chicken stock
1 tablespoon minced rosemary
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Directions
In a medium saute pan, caramelize the bacon. Add the onion and cook until golden, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until soft but not colored, about 4 minutes. Add the white wine and reduce by 2/3. Add the chicken stock and reduce by about 2/3 again.
Add rosemary and adjust seasoning to taste.
To serve: Warm the soup. Ladle into wide, flat bowls and garnish with generous amounts of the bacon mixture.
