By L V Anderson
It can be hard to figure out what to eat between Christmas and New Year’s. I mean, yes, leftovers, of course. But eventually leftovers run out, and then you’re stuck with a decision: Continue the holiday overindulgence with more cheese and cookies? Or get a head start on new year asceticism with carrot sticks and fat-free yogurt?
The answer, first of all, is not to set any masochistic New Year’s resolutions that involve carrot sticks and fat-free yogurt. But there is a way to heed your body’s plea for a reprieve from liver-taxing fare without flirting with a crash diet. White bean soup is the perfect recipe for the post-Christmas slump: nourishing, but at the same time richly flavoured, comforting, and filling.
To create that rich flavour and comforting texture, you have to keep a few things in mind. First, home-cooked dried beans are less metallic tasting and mushy than canned beans; it’s worth it to take the time and effort to cook them from scratch. (It’s literally a question of boiling water and then watching to make sure the pot doesn’t bubble over.)
Second, fresh herbs make a big difference: Adding a few sprigs of fresh thyme to your soup gives you all of the herb’s aromatic warmth without the hassle of stripping those tiny leaves from the easily breakable stems. And a handful of basil at the end provides an extra hit of bright stimulation, the flavour equivalent of Camera Obscura’s peppiest tracks.
Finally, and most importantly, you have to amp up the broth with extra savouriness. There are two tricks well known among vegetarian cooks for making vegetable broth taste meatier and richer, and together, they work like a charm. (And they also work with chicken or beef broth.)
The first is to add some Parmesan rind to the broth. It softens and releases its cheesy flavour into the liquid, and it’s perfectly edible, if a bit chewy. (If you’re not interested in chomping down on cheese rind during dinner, leave it in a large hunk so you can fish it out when the soup is done; if you do want those chewy bits of goodness, cut the rind into bite-sized pieces before adding it.) The second trick is to add a splash of soy sauce near the end — this adds not only crucial saltiness but also subtle complexity.
This recipe calls for kale, because someone decided at some point along the line that white bean soup should have kale in it, and that person was right.
WP-Bloomberg
