October 23, 2015 PPI Soups. Potato for Lunch and Pork Miso Soup for Dinner

October 23, 2015 PPI Soups. Potato for Lunch and Pork Miso Soup for Dinner

I was not feeling very adventurous after the unsettling dinner last night and I had to stay home to help Roland install the new upgrade to the security system, so at noon I went to the garden and picked four large stalks of chives and sliced them into thin ringlets and garnished the last of the Vichyssoise with the handful,of chives for a super chivey soup.  I wanted something warm and creamy, so I sliced and toasted a piece of the Bosque bakery French Sourdough bread I had bought last week and piled sliced Coastal cheddar cheese onto it and melted the cheesy bread in the microwave for one minute at a power of 9 and it turned into a gooey fondue open faced sandwich that was delicious, especially with sips of Chianti.  

For Dinner I decided to use ingredients in the fridge to freshen up the fish soup and turn it into a miso soup.  I went to the basement and found a sheet of roasted nori seaweed and crumbled that into the soup.  Then I added a couple of Tbsps. of brown miso and the thinly sliced three green onions and added four more heads-on shrimp and a diced pork cutlet.  The soup took on a newly revived flavor.  Although still bland, it had all the vegetable and fish stock clearly in the background.  This is a secret I learned from my mother, who made chicken soup with two chickens; one to make the broth and one for the flavor and chicken at the end.  The fresh shrimp and pork added at the end provided the fresh meat flavor to the vegetable and fish broth.  

Another example of this principle of making meat soups is the one given two days ago of the seafood soup restaurants at the fish market in Ensenada.  There are lots of small restaurants that are simply covered tables and a stove with large pots of simmering fish caldo (broth) and a refrigerator for salsas and beverages.  There are usually large glass containers filled with the catch of the day, diced or shucked , such as clams, fish, shrimp, etc.  you simply point to the items you want and tell the lady cooking how much soup you want and she puts your selected amount of caldo and ingredients in a smaller pot and cooks it for a few minutes until the ingredients are boiled and serves you a wonderfully fresh seafood soup that combines the lovely  caldo and fresh seafood.  Of course if you want really fresh ingredients, like Suzette did, you can walk into the fish market and buy your own ingredients and bring them to La Señora and she will add them to her caldo for an even fresher seafood soup.  We had one of the best breakfasts we ever had during a rainy morning in a restaurant on the pier beside the fish market in Ensenada eating seafood soup in February during an El Niño year.

Tonight I watched Super Typhoon Patricia pound the coast just south of Puerto Vallarta as I ate my caldo and thought about the horror those wonderful folks who make their lives on the Pacific coast of Mexico must be going through.  But they are incredibly resilient and will rebuild and probably be cooking soup as soon as the government re-establishes power to the cities.

Bon Appetit