Around My French Table (20 page)

T
HERE'S NOTHING AUTHENTICALLY FRENCH OR INDIAN
about this soup, but it's one that I started making in Paris after I'd bought a few little sachets of mixed spices in the city's small Indian neighborhood. Without the fresh ginger, turmeric, and garam masala (a mix of cardamom, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, and other somewhat sweet spices), it would be a delicious but fairly conventional root vegetable and barley soup. With the spices, it's a surprising, satisfying, and very warming soup, one that's welcome on a cold winter's night.

Warm the oil in a Dutch oven or soup pot. Add the onions, carrots, parsnip, garlic, and ginger and turn them around in the pot until they glisten with oil. Season with salt and pepper, cover, and cook for about 5 minutes over low heat. Stir in the turmeric, garam masala, and red pepper, if you're using it, cover, and continue to cook very gently, stirring often, until the vegetables are soft but not colored, about 15 minutes.

Add the broth or water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then stir in the barley. Reduce the heat—you want the broth to just simmer—cover, and cook until the barley is tender and considerably puffed (the kernels will blossom and open a little). Depending on the type of barley you have, this can take from 15 to 40 minutes. Taste and add more salt, pepper, and/or spices, as needed.

Ladle the soup into bowls and finish with a drizzle of olive oil, if you like.

MAKES 6 SERVINGS

SERVING
If you'd like, you can drizzle a little olive oil over each serving.

STORING
You can keep the soup covered in the refrigerator overnight, though the barley will drink up liquid as it sits and you'll have a very thick soup the next day. Just thin it with broth or water before you reheat it, and pay attention to the seasonings—adding more liquid may mean you'll need a little more spice.

L
ENTIL SOUP SEEMS TO HAVE A LOCK
on French hearts, particularly the hearts of Gallic men, who, when asked about their favorite foods, usually immediately flash on their mothers' soups. And even though the best lentils in France come from Puy, in the center of the country, the love of lentil soup knows no regional boundaries. Lentil soup was the first recipe Jean-Georges Vongerichten, a native of Alsace, told me about when we talked about childhood favorites, just as it was top pick for a friend of mine from Gascony, clear across the country. Not that everyone's soup was the same—some had bacon, some had goose fat; some had a hunk of ham tossed in, some were completely vegetarian; and some were chunky, while others were smooth. Knowing that there were so many variations and that each had a happy following, I set to work making my own house lentil soup. (And, yes, I did secretly hope that, when asked, our son would one day name the soup among the favorites his
maman
cooked for him.)

Lentil soup chez Greenspan does or does not have bacon and it's best pureed. It's made with lentils du Puy, which I hope you'll search out (see Sources
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), and it's got a couple of surprises: a touch of ginger and, more prominently, the fragrance and taste of orange.

The orange is a more recent addition to my recipe, and like so many good things, it came about by chance. I had all the ingredients for the soup bubbling away in the pot when I walked into the kitchen to snack on a clementine. Just as I was about to toss the peel in the trash, I backed up and dropped it into the soup pot. I've been flavoring the soup with orange, tangerine, clementine, or mandarin peel ever since. It brightens and enlivens the mix and adds a bit of freshness to a winter soup you rely on when freshness is hard to come by. Serve the soup with a spoonful of yogurt, and you'll get an extra bit of tang, a nice go-along with the orange.

Warm the oil or melt the butter in a large Dutch oven or soup pot over low heat. Toss in the onions, celery (including leaves), and carrot and stir the vegetables around until they glisten, then cover the pot and cook, stirring often, until they soften but don't color, about 10 minutes.

Add the broth, lentils, citrus peel, peppercorns, coriander, clove, and ginger, raise the heat, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat so that the broth just simmers, put the cover on the pot, and gently simmer until the lentils are so soft you can mash them with the back of a spoon, 60 to 90 minutes (the time will depend on the age of your lentils). After the soup has simmered for about 45 minutes, season it with salt (be generous—I usually add at least 1 teaspoon) and pepper.

Working in batches, puree the soup—spices, celery leaves, orange peel, and all—in a blender or food processor until smooth; or use an immersion blender. If you use an immersion blender, the soup may be a little chunky; if you'd like a smoother soup, just push it through a strainer. Wipe out the pot, pour the soup back into it, and reheat.

Ladle the soup into plates or bowls, garnish each with a dollop of yogurt, and sprinkle with lardons or bacon, if you like.

MAKES ABOUT 6 SERVINGS

SERVING
Ladle the very hot soup into wide soup plates, add a spoonful of yogurt to each, and sprinkle over the lardons or bacon bits, if you're using them.

STORING
The soup can be kept covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, but it will get thicker, probably thicker than you'd like it to be. If that's the case, add more broth or water to the soup as it heats—and make sure to adjust the seasoning when you do this.

T
HE FIRST TIME MICHAEL AND I
went to Cannes, the playground of the stars, it was out of season, our hotel was out of fashion, and we were almost out of money. The conditions sound a lot less than ideal, but the reality was great. With the summer crowds gone, we had the beaches to ourselves; our hotel was adorable, and the hotelier even cuter (he must have liked us too, since he sent us home with a bottle of wine from his cellar); and our frugality turned up a find: an affordable restaurant (that we returned to three nights in a row) with a view of the beach and a fish soup that I dreamed about for years.

I'm guessing that it was made from the tiny little creatures that I'd see in the market every morning. Tucked into the corner of the fishmonger's display would be an assortment of very small fish and a large metal scoop. The fish were labeled something like "fish for soup," and you bought whatever came up in the scoop, no picking out the pink ones from the gray ones or the skinny ones from the chubs. Of course, these little rockfish were part of what made the soup a regional treasure, but there was more. There was the texture: thin but with enough fish bits that you felt you were eating the soup as much as sipping it; the mysterious base flavors: saffron and pastis (a licorice-flavored liquor); and the ritual that went with enjoying it: floating a raft of grilled bread, rubbed with garlic and doused with olive oil, in the soup; topping it with rouille, a peppery rust-colored mayonnaise (
rouille
means rust; you can use aïoli; if you prefer); and figuring out how to get all three elements into every spoonful.

To make the soup in the United States, I had to give up on the idea of small fish by the scoop, but I discovered that I could get a lot of flavor from fish that were local to my fishmonger. Red snapper, a fish with Mediterranean relatives, is great for this soup, as are other lean white-fleshed fish like flounder and sole. More important are the saffron and pastis and a food mill (see below).

Here's the recipe that will get you the texture, the flavor, and the ritual—I leave it to you to add the beach view.

If your fishmonger is your friend (or if he's not busy), perhaps he'll chop up the snapper for you. If not, grab a heavy chef's knife or a Chinese cleaver and go to work, removing the head (save it) and then cutting the body of the fish into small pieces. The smaller the better here—2 inches on a side is ideal but difficult, so just do the best you can.

Place a large Dutch oven or stockpot over medium-low heat and pour in 3 tablespoons oil. When the oil is warm, toss in the onions, carrots, garlic, and fennel and stir everything around so that it's glistening with oil, then cover the pot and cook slowly, stirring once or twice, for 10 minutes, to soften but not color the vegetables.

Add the fish chunks and head to the pot and stir well; if the mix looks a little dry, add another tablespoon of oil. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.

While the fish is cooking, drain the liquid from the tomatoes into a large measuring cup. Keep the tomatoes in the can and, using a pair of scissors (easier) or a long knife, cut the tomatoes into chunks (don't worry about getting everything even).