Friday, March 20, 2015

Côte d'Azur Cure-All Soup

 
Per Nana~
This week's recipe reminds me of Stracciatella, except for the added garlic. 
A simple soup to make, the most tedious part was prepping the garlic, removing 
the germ and thinly slicing it. When the soup was completely cooked, I thought 
about removing the garlic pieces but used a blender to puree them instead. 
As delicious as this soup was, and we both enjoyed it, the after taste of the garlic 
was a bit too strong. I use garlic all the time for cooking purposes, but not in 
such quantity. That said, I do not think this will be a recipe I will be repeating.

Per Tricia~
I got a kick  out of this recipe because I had utterly no idea what to expect. 
A "cure-all" is not typically synonymous with "yummy" and with these ingredients
 ....I frankly set the bar pretty low. Basically you slice up lots of garlic, add 
water with a very few herbs and later add an egg yolk/Parmesan cheese 
mixture to thicken it up. Nope, this was new territory for me in the kitchen. 
I had shredded Parmesan on hand and went with that.  I was happy 
to give the soup a taste test and very pleasantly surprised by the results.  
The kicker is that if I simply was making soup, I would not reach for this recipe. 
If I needed something while recouping from a cold or hangover ,which is the point 
of this one, well then count me in.  And since I always have the ingredients on
 hand, it has a fighting chance to actually be made :)
 My hubby tasted it (without me exposing the ingredients) and while he guessed the
 garlic, he kept saying it tasted buttery and very creamy. We had fun with this one.


Happy French Friday ~

13 comments:

  1. It is a lot of garlic. I made sure my garlic was young, so it won't be bitter, even with the germ removed it can be bitter. I'm pretty sensitive to garlic too Nana, I can see how this might be too much. Of course, I didn't make the exact recipe... too much cheese and sage for me. This is truly an extreme soup. Glad you enjoyed it Trisha.

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  2. I was too lazy to remove the germ from the garlic. I'm very impressed by everyone who did. We enjoyed this one, but we really like garlic. Nana, what did you serve with the soup? (They almost look like mini-cream puffs.) Tricia, that bread looks delicious.

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  3. I really went back and forth trying to decide if I wanted to leave the garlic in, puree it, or take it out completely. I think it's because I was actually sick when I made it that the last option won out and I'm glad it did. The broth was still very flavorful, but not too garlicy.

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  4. Nana: what a cute mug you served this soup in - actually a very nice idea and those little puffs that you served alongside look like cheese puffs...very nice indeed.
    Tricia: gorgeous multi-grain bread that you served with your lovely, creamy soup - a fun experience indeed and although it is quite common around here to add egg yolks to a chicken soup, I had never added so much thinly sliced garlic to a soup - I fried up a few slices for extra crunch.
    Have a wonderful weekend, ladies,
    Andrea

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  5. This was a really different soup for me, too, and I was surprised at how much I liked it. I love your mug, too, Nana - so cute! And Tricia, I love that the soup inspired so many guesses. :)

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  6. This was a recipe I kind of dreaded, and was so pleasantly surprised…a winner in my house for sure! I would definetly make it again! Even Bill liked it! Both your versions look lovely…glad you both enjoyed this one! Nana…I served oyster crackers with mine, and then I brought out the bread! Great job ladies!!
    I am so looking forward to our NYC adventure!

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  7. Like Nana, I was amazed that this mix of ingredients turned out so lovely! Bill liked it, too, but he did think it was a little heavy on the garlic. Tricia, I'm wondering if it would be better if I roasted the garlic to mellow the flavor?

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  8. Sounds like maybe I need to tone down the garlic with this one. Tricia glad you liked it. I am going to break it out the next time a cold hits. I did a make up and Nana says you made that one on Martha's Vineyard. Sounds delightful, I have never been. Have a great week.

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  9. Nana, I love your Martha's Vineyard mug - so cute! Tricia, this was new territory for me too, so I was surprised that I liked it.

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  10. Ro, I actually think this is a "mug" soup and I am glad you showed it as such. You can never go wrong with oyster crackers either. I just couldn't get this made right now. It's 80 degrees in California, sunny and gorgeous (at the expense of a horrible drought) and I was not sick. So no reason for the soup. I do return to Colorado next week and will be heading into two more months of Winter - or, at the very least, slush and dirty snow. So, there will be time for the soup then. Tricia, I think I would have gone for the soup just to get a little of that bread. Glad you liked this one. You and your family have been very positive lately about these end-of-the-road recipes. Thank you. XOX

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  11. I was pleasantly surprised by this soup too! I'm on the same page as Tricia, I won't make this if I am looking to put soup in the menu, but I would certainly make it if one of us were feeling under the weather.

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  12. I was surprised to enjoy this too. And I enjoyed sipping it. I forget to do that though my mom used to give us soups to sick when I was little. I caught a cold AFTER I made this and though simple, slicing all the garlic is too much effort when under the weather. Dorie must have had someone make this for her when she needed to be cured.

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  13. Yup, this is a cold weather thing (I won't tell anyone in my house it is a hangover soup though - don't want to open that door...)

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