While I’m delighted that the seasons are changing, I also anticipate the need for sustained rituals to support good mental health throughout the colder days. One of these is lighting my favorite candle, listening to music, and making soup.
The soup I will be talking about today is the last recipe I’ll review from Susan Semenac’s The Market Chronicles. I chose to make the “Mushroom and Chestnut soup”.
Admittedly, I couldn’t find roasted chestnuts anywhere. So, I chose the next best thing– cashews. They’re often used in vegan recipes to create silky textures in salad dressings and sauces due to their high volume of fat. So I thought, why not give this a whirl. YOLO, as the ancient wisemen say.
Here are the ingredients I used:
The first step is chopping up all your veggies and setting aside.
At this point, you will sauté the celery, leek and mushrooms until tender and add a pinch of salt and pepper. I also added some sherry towards the end for flavor depth and let that evaporate.
Once your veggies are tender, add them to whatever stock you prefer (I chose homemade chicken stock) along with the cashews. I know adding nuts to soup sounds unconventional, but trust the process!
Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 minutes.
Once the 20 minutes are up, go ahead and blend this in small batches. Be mindful that the consistency of the soup will depend on how much stock is added to the blender. If you want a thicker soup, like a velouté, use less stock.
In the end, plate and add toppings. I used leftover sautéed mushrooms, parsley, chives, and added a bit of cream. I think some parmesan cheese would go with this as well. The result is a silky soup that is very rich, filling, and tasty. I recommend blending well, as the nuts require more time to break down and become smooth.
This is the final result:
The one mistake I made was not blending enough. It ended up being a bit … chunky, for lack of better words. Hence, my recommendation earlier to blend, blend, and blend some more. Otherwise, this was delightful. I can see it being the perfect meal for a cold evening. It’s adequate especially if you are lactose intolerant or vegetarian/vegan.
Well, my friends, I hope you enjoyed this post. I wish you a happy and joyful weekend & week ahead.
I hope you’ve been doing well. This past year has been so fun and busy for us as Alex and I got married! It’s been an absolute whirlwind of happiness, change, emotions running high, travel for the first time in 2+ years and much more.
But I’m back! I chose to re-open the blog with a classic: the cherry cobbler. This might surprise some of you, but this is my first time making it… and eating it, now that I think about it. And as a true completionist, I picked up where I left off last year by reviewing Susan Semenac’s Market Chronicles. The recipe seemed very simple and fast, which was perfect for the amount of effort I was willing to spend.
These are the ingredients:
The quality of cherries you use is completely up to you. The recipe called for fresh sour cherries, which apparently are hard to find. I chose to go with frozen sweet cherries instead. I wasn’t kidding about low amounts of effort :D. But if I’m being entirely truthful, part of me wanted to see what would happen if I opted for convenience over freshness. I’m sure there’s a difference, but *spoiler*, convenience doesn’t taste bad at all.
The first step is always TURNING ON YOUR OVEN before you start. You want your oven at temp by the time everything is ready to be baked. I learned that the hard way time and time again. Next, toss the cherries in cornstarch and sugar. If you use sweet cherries, remember to minimize sugar!
Let those sit for a little bit.
Then, create your batter by mixing butter and sugar, adding an egg, buttermilk, flour, and baking powder and set aside. Toss the cherries into a greased 10″ cast iron pan (or 13″x 9″ baking dish) and add batter on top in sloppy spoonfuls. You want some fruit peeping out.
I later learned there are different ways to top a cherry cobbler. The method I used created a more “doughy”, less sweet experience. Others might prefer a sweeter, crunchier topping like a crumble pie. I let it bake for approximately 45 minutes, until the top turned golden and the fruit was bubbling. For additional garnish and flavor, ice cream is recommended.
Overall, I thought it was pretty good. The reviews from others were positive and there were some who went in for seconds. I was very flattered- I brought this for a family cookout, so the stakes were high! From what I can tell, the recipe itself is accurate: the ingredients and measurements work well, as do the instructions. I give this a 5 out of 5!
Anyways friends, I hope you enjoy the rest of your week. Till next time!
The holidays are upon us, and what better way to start a dinner party with some colorful, delicious snacks.
Blue (or maybe purple?) potatoes are a colorful twist on fried potato chips, and can be seasoned with pretty much anything you prefer. I followed recommendations of the recipe itself, which is one of the Fall recipes of Susan Semenak’s “Market Chronicles”.
(Link for the book is below)
This is what blue potatoes look like:
Pretty neat, huh?
I sliced them with a mandolin and let soak for about half an hour to eliminate extra starch. Once the frying oil reached 375 degrees, I slowly added the slices in small batches and waited until they turned a light, crispy brown.
Once placed on a napkin to drain excess oil, and while hot, I added a pinch of salt, black pepper and rosemary.
There you go! Blue chips. It’s an easy way to make a snack that many can enjoy.
Speaking of easy, delicious snacks: have you ever tried fried tortilla chips?
Or even better… fried habanero infused tortilla chips?!
Because you should.
These are the ingredients.
In all seriousness, regular flour tortilla chips are equally delicious. It’s our go-to for a quick dinner starter, especially if we have leftover tortillas that we don’t know what to do with.
Whatever the type of tortilla you choose, cut them into slices and fry them in a deep pan, at 375 degrees.
I flavored them with a pinch of salt, Old Bay, and some sage. They were served with buffalo chicken dip, and boy, were they excellent! Crispy and a touch of spicy.
Well, friends, I hope you have a great week ahead! I hope you can try this at one point and enjoy as much as we did.
Much love,
Evy
Link to Susan Semenak’s Market Chronicles: Stories and Recipes from Montreal’s Marché Jean-Talon
I recently decided to start working through, and reviewing, the many cookbooks I have. The first book I’m going with is Market Chronicles: Stories and Recipes from Montréal’s Marché Jean Talon, by Susan Semenak. I bought it in the market’s bookstore– yep, they have a bookstore– when I visited Montréal, Canada, in 2018.
To give you an idea of how remarkable this open-air marketplace is, here is how Semenak describes it:
“Ever since the market’s beginnings in the early 1930’s, waves of immigrants to Montréal from Italy, Ireland, Poland and Ukraine, then Portugal and Greece, Morocco and Tunisia, El Salvador, Vietnam, Mexico, Lebanon, and Haiti — and countless points in between– have come here to find inexpensive fruits and vegetables. This is where the city’s Italians come for their carloads of of plum tomatoes when it’s time to ‘make the sauce’ and where Muslims from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco gravitate on Ramadan evening in search of sweet, sticky chebakia to break the fast. Mexicans hankering for authentic barbacoa follow their noses to Javier Muñoz taqueria on Saturday mornings, when the smell of spiced lamb barbecued in clay-lined pits fills the air. Around the market’s perimeter, Italian bakers and grocers, Latino butchers, and hole-in-the-wall tonkinoise soup and shish taouk joints lend their world beat to the vibe.”
The cookbook is organized by seasons, and for each season there are highlighted produce and recipes. Oh, how I love it!
I dived straight in, not realizing that it starts with Spring (so not aligned with the current season). But that’s okay! I will skip to Summer next post and get back on track. In the meantime, let’s roll with what we have. The first ingredient of Spring is *drumroll* — Maple Syrup.
One of the uses suggested for this ingredient was Maple Soy Duck Breast (on a bed of sautéed ginger and scallions). Very fancy. Now, the reason why I got so excited is my fiancé, Alex, loves duck and usually only gets it when we eat out. I wanted to surprise him.
Duck breast tends to be hard to find and quite expensive honestly. Luckily, I found some at Wegman’s for about sixteen dollars for a pound-and-a-half. Needless to say, I opted for only one breast.
These are the major ingredients I used for this dish:
The maple syrup is used alongside soy sauce and ginger to create a marinade for the duck breast, which is scored (fat side only) and coated with a peppercorn rub beforehand. Once placed in the marinade, it is refrigerated for at least 4 hours. Easy day.
After 4 hours or so, you want to remove the duck breast from the marinade and pan-fry it. The outside becomes brown and crispy.
Once this was achieved, I removed the duck breast from the stovetop and placed into the oven for about half an hour, or until the internal temperature hit 170 degrees.
Luckily, I didn’t throw out the frying oil! Some of it is set aside and used to make a finishing glaze. I did this by adding it to the remaining marinade liquid, along with a touch of vinegar, and white wine. No need for additional salt as there is a lot of soy sauce.
The glaze then needs to be reduced for approximately 15 minutes, or until it becomes thick and syrupy.
While the duck was in the oven, I sautéed the ginger and scallions and built our side salad.
And voilà, after about half an hour, the duck was looking pretty great.
I sliced the duck and laid it atop a bed of scallions and ginger. Then, I added the glaze. The sides were rice and salad. Here is the final result!
The salad is not represented as it didn’t fit on the plate. We were also too hungry to patiently and thoughtfully build a montage of dishes.
Now for the review.
Turns out, I don’t like duck. Womp, womp. That’s not the recipe’s fault, though! I just don’t like the taste of duck meat. That being said, the meal was a solid win– Alex loved it! The slightly crispy scallions and ginger paired beautifully with the glaze, and emphasized the main flavor notes of the dish. The soy sauce and maple syrup danced together in making a sweet, delicious umami, which slowly ran through the rice. It was very tasty.
Now, here is what I have to say about the recipe itself. I think the flavors highlighted are pretty amazing, and objectively pair well with duck. The quantities listed are accurate and go well together. One could also say, they “pan” out — badum tss.
It’s okay. I’ll let myself out.
Jokes aside, the recipe works well flavor-wise and quantity-wise. The only criticism I have is in regards to times and temperatures. The recommended time and temperature for the duck to stay in the oven was 8-10 minutes at 325 degrees. Wrong.
I would replace that with at least 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees. The ducks internal temperature needs to be at 170 degrees, and breast meat tends to be pretty thick and isolated with a layer of fat.
That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed making this. I enjoyed the process of going grocery shopping and preparing the meat, and learning that duck meat wasn’t for me. This really surprised me, by the way!
Well, dear readers, I hope you enjoyed reading this. I’ll see you next time with an appropriately themed summer dish! Much love, Evelyne.
Evelyne's Cozy Corner 