Soup/Stew

Once Kallipolis—“beautiful city” in Greek—Gallipoli is a tumult of white-chalked abodes heaped up under a feverish sun. A fishing village three thousand years ago and now—after its episodes with pirates and slavish dominions, its risings and its fallings—it is a fishing village still. Affixed to the newer town by a bridge, its oldest quarter is a quaint islet in the Ionian. And it was there that we first saw Rosaria. It was in the pescheria (fish market). It was the late-afternoon market where the day’s second catch—and what might have remained from the morning, at a smaller price—was offered. Admiring her confidence, her stroll over the slippery, sea-washed stones of the market floor, inspecting the gleanings—silently, unerringly, one thought—and transacting prices with the fishmongers only with her eyes. When she was convinced by something, she pulled coins and bills from a small pouch hung around her like a necklace, then positioned the parcels in a basket she carried atop her head, leaving her small, elegant hands free to repose on her hips, to move in agreement or discord or exclamation. We dared to ask her the names of the more exotic offerings and, so encouraged by her gently spoken responses, we opened discourse on the celebrated fish soup of Gallipoli. Through her laugh, she told us that the allure of the soup seemed perplexing to her. It was, after all, a potful of humble fish. Nearly everyone cooked it, in one form or another, every day. “We cook what the sea gives up to us. It’s our garden,” she said. She told us she had cooked the soup for as long as she could remember, and that the perfumes of it being cooked by her mother and grandmother were older yet in her sensual memory. She volunteered news of her evening’s program and said we might join her if we wished. She was to prepare a supper for three old friends, widows all, and molto simpatiche—most pleasant. She said we might meet her at 7:45 in front of Sant’ Agata. Timid, pleased, we sealed our agreement. By then, the weak February sun was readying itself to slide into the sea, rosying the clouds in its path, bedazzling them in washes of gold. We watched her climb the curling road farther up into the old town until her narrow, top-lofty form melted into sweet lilac dusk. We looked at the last of the sunset from the terrace of a little bar, adding jackets and sweaters and scarves against the winds, sipping at red wine, imagining what would be our evening with her. We found her in front of the cathedral and, following her the few meters to her door, were welcomed into her apartment in whose parlor we sat whilst she collected, arranged the soup’s elements. Only then did she invite us into the kitchen. First, though, the ceremony of gli aperitivi—cold, pink wine poured into small, rounded crystal cups. Then was Rosaria ready to dance. She set about by whacking the filleted fish—sea bass and red hogfish—into great chunks; she warmed oil in an old coccio, adding garlic, onion, and crushed salt anchovies. In the scented oil, she deftly browned the fish—removing it to await the second act—adding fat prawns, heads removed, tails intact, and rolled them about, flourishing her wooden spatula with a sort of spare drama and sending forth great sea-scented mists. She made the sauce by adding peeled, seeded, chopped tomatoes and white wine. After ten minutes or so, she reunited fish to sauce, rubbing peperoncini—I saw three for certain, but there might have been four— between her fingers into the pot and leaving the soup to gently simmer while she fried trenchers of rough bread in sizzling oil. I flashed a moment upon the contortions I’d suffered to build a bouillabaisse, one whose directions filled more pages than a play by Pirandello. I thought, too, to the flushed, moist faces of cooks—spent, brokenwinded&mdash...

In the thirteenth century, when the Angevins reanchored their royal seat from Palermo to Napoli, the latter was illuminated, transformed, by the influx of a luxe new citizenry. Royals, nobles, and government bigwigs were followed by a cadre of the epoch’s great artists. Giotto and Petrarch and Boccaccio ensconced themselves in Napoli. And as they are wont to do, the masses, too, followed, hoping to stay warm, a little warmer even, inside the echoes of the city’s great, new noise. And as much as she did flourish then, also did the misery of her increase. In great part, Napoli starved under the reign of the French kings. While obscenely cinematic festivals were being staged inside the lustrous salons, the Napoletani waited outside each evening for the cooks to wallop out over the castle walls to them the viscera of the lords’ sheep and cows and pigs and goats. And from these mean stuffs did the women and men of Napoli invent their suppers. Among the dishes that became tradition during this time was zuppa di soffritto, a high-spiced potion made from the heart, spleen, and lungs of the pig and still prized by the Napoletani. Here follows a version of the good soup that asks for less exotic parts of the pig.

An island off Napoli’s great bay is Ischia. Wild rabbits thrived there once and some still do for a while, before the clever Ischitani sack them, whipping them into old terra-cotta pots, flattering their dry, scant flesh into rosemaried silk.

II Gran Sasso is the highest peak of the Apennines, surging up from the sea, a beast longer than twenty miles, a great-winged harpy, petrified, iced in flight and leaving only a slender shelf of coastal plain in its wake. And hitched halfway up its magnificence sits the medieval fastness of Santo Stefano di Sessanio. One meets few of its two hundred folk on a Wednesday evening’s sunset walk through its catacombs and labyrinths, peering into the unbarred doors of abandoned houses that spirit up invention and half-light musings. Inside the bar—there is always a bar—a Medici crest embellishing its door, the briscola squad is hard at play. Curious at what could bring us forty-five hundred feet up into the January cold that afternoon, we told them we were looking for lentils. Sometimes I can still hear their laughing. But they found us some lentils, the last of that year’s harvest, they told us, and they convinced us to stay the evening, the night, in a little locanda, an inn, closed for the season but of which one of them was the owner. Of course we stayed and of course we cooked and ate the beautiful black lentils that looked so like a great bowlful of glossy jet beads and of course we drank beautiful wine. And afterward we slept close by the fire. Though it is hardly traditional to adorn this humble soup with cream, when our host offered it with the willowy dollops melting into its warmth, it tasted like a dish as old as the mountains’ secrets. And I would never again eat it any other way. The ennobling of the soup with saffron is common in many dishes of the region but only for these last half a hundred years. Fields of crocus have flourished, though, for centuries in the peculiar micro-climate of the high plains of Navelli and Civitaretenga, since a curious village monk, when sojourning in Spain, folded a fistful of their dried seeds in his handkerchief and tucked them in a prayer book. The monk sowed the seeds first in the monastery gardens, and when the flowers bloomed and he harvested their pistils according to the rites he learned in Spain, he and his brothers planted whole fields of the sweet flowers, desiring to use the saffron as a pharmaceutical and as a colorant for ceremonial vestments. Still, the old monk’s is the only saffron cultivated in Italy.

Perhaps until the beginning of this century, there came always, in the severe mountains of the Abruzzo, a haunting desperation with the first days of May. Bankrupt of the thin stores conserved to abide the incompassionate winter—their handkerchief-sized patches of earth sown a few weeks before—the contadini (farmers) waited then for the land to give up its first nourishment. Often it came too late and many died. And even as time brought more mercy, these terrible days were remembered, the pain of them soothed by a simple ritual. The story says that on the first of May, sette fanciulle virtuose—seven young virgins— went from house to house in a village in the Marsica, the area that suffered most in the past, and begged whatever handful of the winter food that might remain in the larders. And, then, in the town’s square over a great fire in a cauldron, the fanciulle prepared a beautiful pottage to share with all the villagers, to bring them together, to warm them, to keep them safe. The potion was known as la virtù—the virtue. The soup is still made, ritualistically, faithfully, each first of May in many parts of the Abruzzo—most especially in the environs of Teramo, as well as in the Marsica—now more extravagantly, brightening the humble dried beans with spring’s new harvests. Employing even a handful or so of all the ingredients results in a great potful of the soup, assigning it thus as a festival dish. On some sweet day in May, invite twenty-nine or so good people and make the soup for them. The tail of a pig and one of his ears, though they are traditional to the soup, seem optional to me.

This is a substantial soup classically made from fresh fava beans and a dried sort of bean/pea hybrid called la cicerchia, whose taste and texture are very like that of the fava when it is dried. This version, asking only for the dried favas since la cicerchia is not readily found in America, yields a rich, smoky flavor that is wonderful against the comfort of the warm crunch of the bread.

Of all winter squash, Kabocha holds a special place in my heart. Rich and sweet, its dense orange flesh is one of my favorite winter flavors. For this soup, instead of sautéing the squash and fennel, I roast them in the oven to bring out their natural sweetness. If you can’t find Kabocha, use another winter squash, such as butternut or Hubbard. The pumpkin seeds, or pepitas, are coated in sugar, paprika, cumin, cinnamon, and cayenne; I think of them as adult Halloween candy. Sprinkled over the top, they give this delicious winter soup a feisty coronation.

Shellfish and beans are a classic Italian combination. In the tradition of frugal and resourceful peasant cooking, nothing goes to waste in this dish. As the beans simmer away with the thyme, rosemary, and chile, they create another invaluable ingredient: a delicious stock. Starchy and flavorful, it’s added to the steaming shellfish, thickening their juices into a complex broth. The cavolo nero adds an earthy note and a chewy texture to the seafood stew. This is a rustic family meal in which everyone should take part, serving themselves from the bountiful platter at the center of the table. And don’t forget to serve big hunks of crusty bread for sopping up all those juices.

This dish was inspired by a trip to Tunisia a few years ago. I fell in love with the Tunisian cooks’ use of spices and the bowls of harissa served with every meal. What surprised me most was the use of caraway, which I had always thought of as an Eastern European spice. For this Tunisian-flavored stew, I season the lamb shoulder overnight with caraway, coriander, chiles, cayenne, and paprika, and then braise it in an aromatic broth with cinnamon and allspice. For a traditional braise I usually deglaze with wine, but in keeping with Muslim prohibitions common in Tunisia, I refrain and substitute lemon juice, which also adds a bright, acidic note to the stew.

At Lucques, we search out the heirloom varieties of corn, available all summer long from our local farmers’ markets. This soup is spiced with jalapeño and cilantro and topped with avocado cream and lime. The key to its silky texture is blending it long enough at high speed and adding enough liquid to achieve the consistency of heavy cream. Although customers swear this rich soup must have cream in it, the only cream you’ll find is in the topping that garnishes the soup: a delicious purée of avocado, crème fraîche, and lime juice.

This refreshing chilled purée wakes up your palate with a jolt of sweet pepper essence, cooling yogurt, and the ubiquitous Middle Eastern spice sumac. Sumac is made from the dried berries of a sumac tree, and in the Middle East it’s sprinkled over everything from kabobs to yogurt to rice. The dark-crimson powder lends an acidic, lemony flavor to this soup.

This recipe was developed by Julie Robles, longtime Lucques cook, then souschef, then chef de cuisine. It’s one of those magical recipes in which you combine a few simple ingredients and end up with an unexpectedly dramatic result. It’s a foolproof recipe, but, tasting it, you’d never know how easy it is to make. As long as you have a blender (it doesn’t work as well in a food processor) and really great tomatoes, this refreshing gazpacho is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

This soup was inspired by Roger Vergé, who, unbeknownst to him, was one of my first cooking teachers. I was lucky enough to dine at his restaurant Moulin de Mougins with my parents when I was in sixth grade. Set in a restored mill in the hills of Provence, the restaurant was paradise. I remember the thoughtful waiter who spent 15 minutes discussing the cheeses on that beautiful wicker trolley. That summer afternoon, when we finished lunch, my father surprised me with Monsieur Vergé’s cookbook. This soup was one of the first recipes I made from the book when we returned home from our trip. My mother loved it, and now, every Mother’s Day, I make this pea soup for her, to remind us of that amazing lunch in Mougins.

This robust stew is best in late winter or early spring, when there’s still a lingering chill in the air. Tomatoes, olives, and red wine, hallmark flavors of the stew’s southern-French provenance, make up its flavorful saucy base. Traditionally, it’s made with a chuck roast, but I find that boneless short ribs yield a more succulent result. The tomatoes help thicken the sauce and add a deep sweetness. This time of year, rather than using mealy, out-of-season tomatoes, I opt for canned San Marzanos. If you can’t find San Marzanos, look for another brand of Italian canned tomatoes.

Super-green watercress makes the perfect starter to a St. Patrick’s Day dinner. One St. Patrick’s Day at Lucques, in order not to lose the bright, vivid green color and fresh lively taste of the watercress, I decided to make the soup to order. Rather than cooking the watercress, I planned to wilt it with hot vegetable stock and then purée it with tarragon, parsley, chives, and a touch of cream. As that night approached, the restaurant was booked solid, and I began to worry about my made-to-order soup scheme, but Daniel Mattern, my equally obsessive sous-chef, insisted we go for it in spite of the anticipated 180 reservations. He recruited the waitstaff to bring their blenders from home, and organized his new found equipment into a lean, mean soup station as if it were business as usual. That night, all 180 bowls of soup were made to order and managed to arrive at the tables pipinghot. Dan must have had the luck of the Irish because he pulled it off without a hitch. Served with an anchovy toast, this “à la minute” soup is great any day of the year.

Every night around 4 a.m. at Employees Only, we offer up a hot cup of chunky chicken soup to the survivors of the long, cruel night. It is a tradition came by way of Greek night clubs. It is how we say “thank you” and “good night” to all the people who might expect one more drink.

Whenever I serve something really rich, like Soy-Braised Lamb Shanks (page 168), I like to have something tart and bracing to go with it. The tangy-hot blend of apples and chiles goes well with just about any red meat, and the combination of creamy and crunchy is unbeatable.

Cold soup and hot shrimp—this is a fantastic combination on a warm night. Blending the honeyed sweetness of this summer melon with intensely savory vegetables makes this dish incredibly refreshing. And I give the hot, spicy shrimp a hit of freshness by grilling finely sliced mint right onto them.

It’s the surprising combination of sweet, tart, creamy, and crunchy additions that makes me crave this summery soup. This gazpacho is all about the garnishes.

For years, I’ve made smooth pureed pea soups; they’re always a hit at my restaurants. Recently, I was inspired by my mom to try something new. While visiting New York with my dad, she made a chunky pea and carrot stew with slab bacon and cabbage. I decided to go vegetarian here—doing away with even the chicken stock and creating a tea-like herb infusion instead—and to puree only part of the ingredients, making a light pureed soup with whole peas and sliced carrots scattered throughout. The result is a bowl of spring.