Soup/Stew

This is the quintessential simple supper for many Italian families.

This chunky soup is a satisfying supper in one bowl.

Wish you were in Tuscany? Have this soup for supper as a small consolation.

This ginger- and licorice-flavored soup chock-full of greens is a gratifying supper any time of year.

A hearty soup inspired by Indonesian gado gado sauce, fragrant and spicy with ginger and cayenne, rich with peanut butter and sweet potatoes.

This soup was inspired by the cauliflower curry we regularly make at Moosewood Restaurant. The chutney makes it perfect. (See photo)

This thick, flavorful Southwestern soup comes together easily using pantry items.

This creamy vegan soup is spicy and a little sweet.

With tortellini in the freezer and dried mushrooms and a carton of broth in your pantry, you can throw together this savory, filling soup in only half an hour.

Beans and mushrooms are a great combo and quintessentially Italian. Experiment with different varieties and colors of beans.

There must be as many recipes for chili as there are cooks. This one has the surprising addition of lentils and the smoky spiciness of chipotles.

Inspired by a Southwestern Native American dish, this is a sunny, colorful stew of roasted vegetables in a hot and smoky mole-type sauce.

A hearty stew with a robust taste, just right with the nutty flavor of bulghur wheat.

This is one of the first desserts I learned from François Payard. It’s complex in flavor yet simple in ingredients and technique. Put it in the freezer for a while until it’s so cold that it’s slushy, and serve it with assorted tropical fruits.

I’ve been exploring new ways to make chocolate soups. In particular, I wanted to find a way to remove the fat and keep a full, deep chocolate flavor, and I thought it would be interesting to contrast cold white chocolate with warm dark chocolate. I’ve succeeded in this recipe, which is a play on temperatures, textures, and techniques. A scale is essential for this recipe. You will also need a hotel pan and a perforated hotel pan, both half size. You can get these online from BigTray. The technique of clarifying the soup base by freezing and slow defrosting comes from Wylie Dufresne of wd-50 in Manhattan and Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck in England.

Working in a restaurant affords me the opportunity to learn the food cultures of many of my colleagues, who often bring home cooking to share for lunch. When that home cooking is Mexican, the dishes are sometimes flavored with chipotles or another chile, and I’ve come to crave that little kiss of heat, even in dessert. The gentle kick in the chocolate soup is tamed by the soothing chocolate-coconut foam.

I go apple picking every year, and I’m always amazed by how easily you can taste the difference between varieties right off the tree. So when I work with apples, I try to capture those flavors. This soup reminds me of mulled cider but lighter and fresher.

These ingredients all strike floral notes and to my mind are a natural combination. Raspberries contribute sweetness; champagne, acidity; rose water, depth of flavor; and the apricots, texture.

I’ve adapted this dessert from one of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s recipes. It starts with his base soup, and I’ve added the tanginess of yogurt and the toasted nuttiness of sesame for depth of flavor and contrasting textures.

Maybe I like rhubarb so much because I started eating it when I was a child; my mother’s strawberry-rhubarb pie is one of my earliest memories. And I love summer fruit soups; that’s something I learned from François Payard. So this combination is a natural for me. You need just the pod from the vanilla bean for this dessert, so if you have saved some used pods, now is the time to recycle. And you will need a whipped cream charger (see page 279) for the foam. You will have leftover consommé (which you can freeze) and foam; you simply can’t successfully foam less liquid than is in the recipe.