I mentioned on Facebook that I'd made cream of asparagus soup and steak with cream and sherry sauce last night. One of my Facebook friends (hi, Jeanne!) asked for the recipe for the soup. Well, I'll give you both and some ventures into corn muffins and corn bread.
The secret behind asparagus in soups is to ensure that the entire woody stem (up to the green part) is removed. Otherwise, you will have a very fibrous soup. As for amounts, I'm pretty vague about those because I don't usually measure much unless I'm baking, where measurement is key to success.
A couple (as many as you like, actually) of bunches of mature asparagus
One or two onions, sliced
A green bell pepper, chopped roughly
Perhaps three or four new potatoes, peeled and sliced
About a quart or a quart and a half of stock, either vegetable or chicken. DO NOT USE BEEF!
A tablespoonful of vegetable oil NOT OLIVE OIL!
1/2 pint of single cream (in the US="light cream") and some milk
A glug of dry sherry
Bouquet garni
Salt and pepper to taste
Heat the oil in your soup pot. Sauté the onion and green pepper until they're soft but not burned. Put the stock in the pot. Then top and tail the asparagus. Reserve the tips, and discard the root ends or throw them in the stock pot, not in your soup. Cut it into small (1/2" or 1 cm) pieces. Add the asparagus to the pot, along with the peeled potatoes if you're using them. Put the bouquet garni in the pot and bring to a boil. Then turn the heat down until the pot is barely bubbling, and let it simmer until the asparagus and potatoes are cooked very soft.
Now remove the bouquet garni, and pass the rest through a food processor or blender until smooth. Return to the pot, add the cream, milk and sherry and stir to blend. Taste, and correct seasoning with salt and pepper. Put the heat back on and let the soup bubble gently. Don't let it boil now or the milk and cream will separate from the rest of the soup.
Meanwhile, take the asparagus tips and place in a microwave-safe bowl with a bit of water. Microwave on high for 4 minutes. Dump the cooked tips and water into the pot and stir to blend. When as hot as you like it, serve with warm French bread and butter and perhaps a side salad.
Things I did yesterday that I shouldn't have but have learned my lesson from:
—Don't use the root ends in the soup. At all. It will leave fibers in the soup that the food processor can't deal with and that will floss your teeth while you eat.
—Don't put celery in with the onions and pepper to sauté. There are fibers in that too.
—Make sure the pepper is a green capsicum. Do not use a red-coloured pepper. The colour is not destroyed by cooking. I believe you could use a yellow pepper, but not an orange one.
—The idea of the soup is for the flavour of the asparagus to come out. Thus, strong flavoured things like olive oil or garlic will add their flavour to the soup and mask the asparagus.
—I suppose you could cook the tips in the soup itself after the soup has been processed, but it will take longer.
Now I just made all this up myself; I didn't get it from a recipe book. This has advantages—I only try to use a recipe book when amounts are important as in baking or I'm not familiar with the dish I'm trying to make. Finally, it sounds really complicated but it isn't. Soups have more to do with cutting things up and seasoning them than actual preparation.
The second culinary adventure was Steak with Sherry and Cream sauce. I have an inkling that this is called something else—steak Diane, perhaps? I can't be arsed to look it up at the moment.
Two good steaks (for two)
Butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Cracked peppercorns
About 5 or 6 medium sized mushrooms, sliced.
One medium onion, sliced.
Glug of dry sherry
Some single cream
Crack the peppercorns under a rolling pin, and sprinkle both sides of the steaks with the cracked pepper and salt and press it into the meat. Melt the butter in a frying pan. If you have your mother's black frying pan, that's best. When the butter is bubbling, add the steaks and turn the heat down to medium. Add the mushrooms and onion, and sauté them along with the steak, making sure that the steaks and vegetables share the pan amicably.
When the steaks are done (try them, perhaps by cutting into them, to test doneness. Please don't do them well-done—the spirit of the cow will come back and haunt you that evening, I assure you.) transfer them to a warmed plate in a barely warm oven. Immediately turn the heat up under the frying pan a bit and add the glug of sherry and stir madly until it's combined with the juices and remaining butter. Add the single cream (not a lot, perhaps less than 1/4 pint, but it's up to you how much you use) and stir until warmed through. Put the steaks on the serving plate, spoon the onion and mushrooms over them, then the sauce. Serve with a salad, mashed potatoes, and a green vegetable or perhaps two.
HWMBO thought it was lovely, and he doesn't like beef very much. I suspect you could do this with pork steaks or pork chops as well, or even what we used to call Salisbury Steaks, although you'd probably have to fry them in a separate pan and transfer them, as they will exude lots of beef fat which will probably impart a rather strong oily flavour to the sauce.
Finally, I've been trying for perfect cornbread this week. I won't relate the recipes I've used, as I haven't come up with the one I like best yet. The first two were muffins, and the third is bread in a pan. The first one was too sweet (I used Splenda instead of sugar in a 1-to-1 ratio from the recipe). The second one was too cakey (not enough cornmeal and too much flour). The third one was very corney but my oven screwed up and I had to bake it for almost an hour rather than the 25 minutes recommended in the recipe. My quest continues. I shall have to buy more cornmeal.
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