Portuguese Fish Soup with Rice

In 2011, Nick e-mailed me and asked if I'd seen the article about fish stews on NPR.org.  He pointed out that the Fisherman's Stew of Graciosa looked really good.  I read the recipe and said I would attempt it, though I had never seen some of the ingredients.  It would be fun to use my mortar and pestle, I thought.

While I've seen various pickled peppers, I have no idea what variety the recipe is actually calling for.  The first time I made it, I tried mincing a seeded jalapeno.  Grinding a raw jalapeno in a mortar takes a long time.  But the soup was delicious...salty and tangy with umami from the fish and hint of sweetness...I tried it again with slices of canned jalapeno.  I also tried the same basic recipe replacing the fish with bone-in chicken thighs.  I would have made the soup more often if not for the time it takes to grind the damn peppers.  Then I saw Amore's Hot Pepper Paste (which appears to have been re-named Chili Pepper Paste).  Grinding the garlic still takes a little effort, but the seasoning paste now comes together in about the time it takes for my (still partially frozen) fish fillets to cook.

I still haven't seen Portuguese ground safflower anywhere, but I have paprika.  We like a bit of heat, so I usually use Hungarian Half-Sharp Paprika from Penzey's.  We usually ladle the soup over steamed brown rice, but for this batch I used some black rice, which was particularly beautiful with the white fish, red broth and green parsley.

I keep a small bottle of really good extra virgin olive oil that I mostly use for dressing salads and cold applications.  This is the only recipe where I heat the really good olive oil...

Since this soup has drifted from the original recipe over the last 2 years, Nick asked me if I had it written down... so here it is, written down.  The immersion blender is completely optional... but I do think you need to have a small mortar and pestle to grind the garlic.



2 rice cooker cups of whole grain (brown, red, or black rice)

2 ~ 3 lbs of cod, halibut or other meaty white fish (still frozen is OK)
1 quart water
1 T kosher salt
3 sprigs of Italian parsley
2 medium onions, quartered and sliced
3 bay leaves
1 T olive oil

1 1/2 T whole cumin seed
7 cloves garlic
2 t kosher salt
1 1/2 T finely chopped Italian parsley
2 T Amore chili pepper paste
3 T Amore tomato paste
1 T sugar
1/4 t freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 c. extra virgin olive oil
1/4 c. red wine vinegar

Cook the rice in your rice cooker or in separate pot, following the instructions on the package.

Peel and quarter the onions, and slice thinly.  Combine the onions, water, kosher salt, parsley, bay leaves and olive in in large soup pot over medium high heat.  Nestle the frozen fish in the water and cover the pot.  Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat to medium and cook until the fish begins to flake.

Measure the cumin seed into a mortar and pestle, and grind it.  You don't have to get it all into a fine powder, but all of the seeds should be broken into pieces 1/4 ~ 1/3 the size of the original seeds.  My mortar isn't large enough to hold all of the ingredients in the paste, so I transfer the cumin to small bowl.

Finely chop enough parsley leaves to make 1 1/2 T.  (Remove the tough stems.)

Smash the garlic cloves with the mortar and remove the skins.  Place the peeled garlic and salt int the mortar and grind with the pestle.  Scrape down the sides occasionally, and keep grinding until you have a chunky paste.  Add the chopped parsley and continue grinding until there aren't any large pieces of garlic left.  (Adding a little of the oil makes the grinding a little easier.)

If your mortar is less then 2 cups in volume, transfer the contents to the bowl with the cumin.  Add the nutmeg, pepper paste, tomato paste, sugar and the rest of the olive oil.  After all the seasonings are mixed into the oil, stir in the vinegar.

When the fish flakes, remove it to a platter and cover it to keep it hot.  Discard the parsley stems and bay leaves.  Use an immersion blender to grind up about half of the onions into the broth.  Stir the seasoning paste into the broth and bring it to a boil.  Simmer for 5 minutes.

To serve, place a serving of fish and rice in a bowl or soup plate.  Ladle the hot broth over the fish.  You need to stir the broth between ladlefuls to keep the parsley and oil distributed between the servings.

This soup freezes and reheats well...and smells more savory than fishy when you reheat it in the break room microwave.

Unstuffed Pepper Soup

When we stopped a the Sharp Edge Creekhouse near Pittsburgh in 2009, the soup of the day was Stuffed Pepper.  We loved it, and I thought "I could do that."   I now make this soup about 3X as often as I make stuffed peppers.  It freezes well, so it's a good dish to make at the end of the summer when bell peppers are cheap or friends are giving away excess from their gardens.

The local meat market had just started carrying grass fed ground beef, so I tried that for this recipe.  It didn't have the fat content listed, but I would guess it was close to 15%.  Enough fat that I didn't have to add oil to brown the onions, but not so much that draining the meat seemed necessary.

1 pound ground beef
2 small onions, chopped (1 ~ 1 1/2 cups)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 ~ 2 t of Italian herb blend
1/2 ~ 1 t of oregano
1 T Worcestershire Sauce
1 T of Penzey's Pork Soup Base
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 c. water
10 ~ 12 oz of low sodium V-8 juice
15 oz. can chopped tomatoes (plain, low-sodium, or  fire-roasted)
1 c. of brown rice
2 -3 bell peppers (green, red, or a mix).


In a Dutch Oven, brown half of the ground beef and set aside on a plate.  Add the rest of the ground beef to the pot, and when it is cooked, add the onions.  Cook until the onions are translucent, and the beef in the pot is starting to brown.  Stir in the garlic, herbs, black pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and soup base.  (You don't have to completely break up the lump of soup base...it will dissolve later.)  Add the water, V-8 juice, and tomatoes.  Bring the soup to a boil and add the brown rice.  Cook ~ 45 minutes until the brown rice is tender.

Meanwhile, halve the bell peppers and remove the seeds.  Slice the peppers thinly, and then cut the slices in half cross-wise.

Taste the broth and add salt if necessary.  (Depending on the flavor of V-8 and the brand of tomatoes you use, you may not need any.)  Stir in the peppers, and cook for ~ 10 minutes.

If you store leftovers in the refrigerator, the rice will swell to make it more of a porridge than a soup.

Smoky Green Bean Soup

About once a week, I need to make a fast dinner for two, so we've been having a lot of soup and sandwich suppers.

Since the sandwiches cover the protein and carbs, I want the soup to provide at least a serving of vegetables.  Unfortunately, most canned soups throw in half a day's worth of salt with 1 serving of vegetables, so I decided that I needed to start making some homemade vegetable soups.  Over the summer, I saw a recipe in Eating Well magazine that suggested that you create the smoky flavor of green beans and potatoes cooked with bacon by using smoked paprika.  That seemed like a great combination for a soup.

We ate 2 cups of this soup with our lunch, and had 8 cups to go in the freezer.

Green beans can be very green or they can be very tender.  In soup, you really need to accept that tender is more important.

2 ~ 3 T extra virgin olive oil

2 medium onions, chopped

2 t smoked Spanish style Paprika

1/4 ~ 1/2 t Hungarian Half-Sharp Paprika (optional)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

24 oz. frozen Italian cut green beans

1 quart unsalted vegetable broth

12 oz. V-8, original or Spicy
3 medium Yukon gold potatoes
Salt to taste (may not need any)

Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat and saute the onions until they're translucent.  Stir in the smoked paprika, half-sharp paprika, and black pepper and cook until you can smell the spices.

Stir in the green beans and vegetable broth, and increase heat to high.  Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat to low.  Cover and simmer for 25 - 30 minutes, until the green beans have turned to a dull olive.

Remove any deep eyes or blemishes from the potatoes, and cut into half inch cubes.  Add the V-8 and potatoes, return the soup to a simmer.  Taste the broth and add a little salt if it seems flat.*

Simmer until the potatoes are tender.

*A note on salt --  You will probably need to add at least a little. A 12 oz. bottle of original V-8 is 975 mg of sodium (the spicy hot is 720), but you have 10 cups of soup in the pot.  The quart of unsalted stock contains about 600 mg of sodium, so your soup is about 157 mg of sodium per serving. (The onions,green beans, and potatoes also contain traces of sodium, which add about 10 mg per cup of soup.  I looked those up in the USDA Nutrient Database.)  Even if you add a whole teaspoon of kosher** salt, you're only up to 269 mg of sodium per serving.  I find that when I make soup using low-sodium canned goods and broths, I need to add some salt to make it taste good.  On a few occasions, I've needed to add a *lot* of salt, but when I sit down and work up the total sodium in the batch, I realize that it's only about 250 - 300 mg per cup of the final product.

** If you care enough about sodium to read the first note, you really should be using kosher salt, which is less dense than table salt because it has a different crystal shape.  The Serious Eats Food Lab has a good article explaining it here.  http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/ask-the-food-lab-do-i-need-to-use-kosher-salt.html

Turkey Green Posole

Since we were about to move, the Thanksgiving turkey's carcass went into the chest freezer instead of into a stock pot.    I'm off work this week, so I thought it was about time to make some stock.  When I mentioned making turkey stock, my boyfriend asked if I could make turkey posole.

Why yes, I can....


Disclaimer : I make no claim that this is "authentic Mexican posole".  I'm of European descent and none of my ancestors have lived any closer to Mexico than Ohio.  I had never eaten any version of posole before I found a recipe on the web -- and I still haven't tried posole made by anyone else.  (Obviously Columbus, OH needs more ambitious Mexican restaurants.)

I made the turkey broth the way I normally do : turkey carcass, water, onions, carrot, celery, peppercorns and dried parsley flakes (in a little paper tea bag).  Simmer until it looks like stock and the meat is almost ready to fall off the bones.    Salt to taste (it takes a lot). Strain and save the liquid.  Discard the veggies.  Pick the meat off the bones and set aside.   I leave a good bit of meat on my turkey because I usually make at least 2 batches of soup from it.  Today I got almost 5 cups of shredded meat and 14 cups of stock.



4 cups turkey carcass broth
2 - 3 cups leftover turkey shreds

2 poblano peppers

2 Tbsp oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3-5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 ~ 2 fresh jalapeno or 1 Tbsp canned diced jalapeno
1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
1/2 t ground cumin
1/2 t ground cloves
7 oz. canned diced green chiles
28 oz. canned hominy (yellow or white)

Preheat the broiler.  Cut the poblano peppers in half and remove the seeds.  Flatten the peppers and place them on a foil line cookie sheet.  Place the peppers under the broiler until the skin is bubbled and blackened.  Remove the cookie sheet from the oven, and place it on a trivet or hot pad.  Carefully grab the corners of the foil and fold it up around the peppers, crimping it into a packet, to trap the steam around the peppers.

Chop the onion and slice the garlic.

I prefer to use a fresh jalapeno, because I can control the heat level a little more easily.  Today I had 1 very large pepper - over 3 inches long - so I decided to remove the seeds from 3/4 of the pepper before mincing it.

Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium heat.  Add the onions and cook until translucent.  Add the garlic and jalapenos, and cook until fragrant.   Open your diced chiles, so they're ready to go in the pot, and then add the dried spices.  Stir until you can smell the spices, and then dump in the chiles (to cool the pot so the spices don't burn).    Add the turkey broth and meat.

Drain and rinse the hominy, and add it to the pot.  Bring the soup to a boil and reduce the heat.  Simmer for 1 hour to blend flavors.

This makes a soup without a lot of broth.  If you like a lot of broth, you might want to increase the amounts of dried spices and broth.

Rotiserie Chicken Chowder

There are only two of us, so we get several meals out of a jumbo rotisserie chicken.

When I removed the meat from carcass, I tossed the bones into a 2.5 quart sauce pan with an onion, two stalks of celery, 2 carrots, and some peppercorns and rosemary in a tea ball.  I simmered it until bedtime (about 2 hours), salted it to taste, and strained out the solids.  (I saved the bones in the refrigerator since there was still some meat to be picked off.)  I used the resulting stock for this chowder.

2 T butter (or fat from the top of the chicken stock)

1 small onion, chopped

3 small carrots, chopped

3 stalks of celery, sliced

1 ~ 2 cloves of garlic, grated on a microplane

1 large baking potato (~ 8 oz), peeled and diced

2 t Penzey's Fox Point Seasoning

4-6 c. stock, from a carton if you didn't get a chance to boil the carcass

1 1/2 ~ 2 c. of chopped chicken

Freshly ground black pepper

11 oz. can of corn, drained

1/2 ~ 1 c. instant mashed potato flakes

5 oz. can evaporated milk

Heat the butter or chicken fat in a large pot over medium heat.  Add onion and cook until translucent.  Add carrots, colery and garlic.  Cook stirring occasionally while you peel and dice the potato.  Add the potato to the pot, sprinkle the Fox Point over, and season generously with black pepper.  Stir in the seasonings, and add the stock and chicken.  Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes are tender.  Stir in the drained corn and 1/2 c. of mashed potato flakes and the evaporated milk.   Add more potato flakes if you would like a thicker chowder.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

The instant potatoes will make the leftovers thicken up in the refrigerator.  Add a little water, stock or milk before reheating.

Mushroom, Quinoa and Chicken Soup

This soup was inspired by coupons for mushrooms and baby carrots.  I had hoped that the quinoa would cook up so soft and light it would float like noodles, but the black and red quinoa I used settled to the bottom of the soup.  I guess I'll try white quinoa next time.

1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
4 c. water
1 1/2 tsp Penzey's Chicken Soup Base

3 T olive oil
1 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. diced celery
5-6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 rosemary stem (4" long)
3-4 thyme stems (4" long)

16 oz. button mushrooms, chopped
5-6 white pepper corns
32 oz. unsalted chicken stock

16 oz baby carrots, chopped into small pieces

1 c. quinoa (I used half red and half black)

~ 1 c. tomato puree  (I had some leftover from another recipe)

Place the water, soup base and chicken thighs in a large soup pot (at least 5 qts) over medium heat.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and cover until meat is cooked through, and shreds apart.

Remove the stems from the mushrooms and rinse if necessary.  Cut medium-sized caps in half, and large caps into thirds before slicing.  Set mushrooms aside in a bowl while you chop the onion, celery and garlic.

 Remove the meat to a cutting board or plate and let it cool.  Pour the cooking water through a strainer into the bowl.  If there is any chicken fat sticking to the bottom of the pot, wipe it out with a paper towel.  Return the pot to medium heat, and add the olive oil, onion, and celery.  Cook, stirring occasionally until onion is translucent and just starting to brown in spots.

Remove the rosemary and thyme leaves from the stems.  Discard the stems, and chop the leaves.  You should end up with about 2 tsp of chopped herbs.  Add the garlic and chopped herbs to the onions and cook, stirring frequently, for 1-2 minutes.  Pour the stock and reserved cooking liquid into the pot.  Add the mushrooms and peppercorns.  Chop and add the baby carrots.

Taste the broth and add salt if needed.

If your quinoa isn't pre-washed, rinse it thoroughly in a fine mesh strainer, and add it to the simmering soup.  Stir, cover, and allow to cook until the quinoa is tender.  Stir in the tomato puree.

Sticky Chicken and Cabbage Soup

1 quart unsalted chicken stock
1 15 oz. can chick peas, drained and rinsed well
2 T olive oil *or* 2 T chicken fat saved from Sticky Chicken
1 c. chopped yellow onion
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 a medium cabbage, core removed, cut into 4 wedges and thinly sliced crosswise
10-14 oz cooked chicken, skin and bones removed and chopped (2 leg quarters)
Drippings saved from the bottom of the sticky chicken crock pot
11.5 oz. can of low-sodium V-8
Tabasco sauce, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste

Place the chick peas and chicken stock in a blender.  Blend until the chick peas are liquefied.
Place a Dutch oven over medium heat.  When the pot is hot add the oil or chicken fat.
When the fat is heated, add the onions and cook until translucent and tender.
Add the garlic and cook until fragrant.
Add the cabbage and cook until it's tender and starting to brown.
Remove any extra fat from the drippings and add the rest to the pot.Don't worry about any spices that settled to the bottom -- they'll add great flavor to the soup.
Stir in the chopped chicken, blended broth mixture and V-8.  Bring to a simmer, and reduce heat.  Cook for 30 minutes to blend the flavors.
Taste the broth, and season with salt, pepper and Tabasco.