Chicken Tortilla Soup

This wonderful soup was introduced to me by my friends Jeff and Christy many years ago.  Christy graciously shared her recipe, and I’ve been making the soup ever since.  Over the years, I’ve tasted many tortilla soups in many places, including all over Texas and even in Mexico, but this recipe still makes the best I’ve ever tasted.

Just for giggles, I’ve researched other tortilla soup recipes, and they are as varied as the coral on a Cozumel reef.  All sorts of things, such as black beans, bell peppers, corn, and others that I don’t use show up in some of these recipes, as well as various techniques in cooking the chicken, achieving the broth, etc.  I’ve tried some of those versions, and I will emphatically state that this exact recipe is the best that I have tasted.  While normally I’m a fan of flexibility in cooking, in this instance I feel one should stick to the recipe as exactly as possible.  I’ll try to emphasize some of the reasons for this along the way. 

As to the history of the soup, as near as I can figure, it is a pretty recent addition to the Tex-Mex oeuvre, showing up some time in the seventies or early eighties, when someone, somewhere got the bright idea to top a hearty Mexican chicken soup with crispy tortilla strips and call it ‘tortilla soup.’  Then things went viral.  Tortilla soup is now ubiquitous all over Texas and the Southwest. 

Chicken Tortilla Soup

1 Onion, chopped
2-3 small Jalapenos, seeded and chopped
3 cloves of Garlic, minced
Vegetable or Olive Oil
2 Chicken Breasts, with bones and skin
1 16 oz can Stewed Tomatoes, chopped
1 10 oz can Tomatoes and Green Chiles (Rotel)
2 14 oz cans Beef Broth
2 14 oz cans Chicken Broth
1 10 oz can Tomato Soup
2-3 cups Water
2 tsp Cumin
2 tsp Chili Powder
1 tsp Salt
1 bunch Fresh Cilantro
6 Corn Tortillas, cut into strips
Grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese

Sauté onion and jalapenos until soft, about 10-12 minutes with medium heat.  Add garlic and continue to cook for another 3 minutes or so. 

Add the cumin, chili powder and salt, stir, and continue to cook for a minute or so. 

Add chicken breasts. 

Add the broths and then top up with water, adding just enough water until the chicken is covered.  Bring to a boil. 

Make sure you use skin on, bone-in breasts.  This is one of those ‘stick-to-the-recipe” points I’ll be emphasizing.  There is a lot of flavor in the skin and bones of the chicken that will be extracted into the soup, turning those broths you used into much richer ‘stock.’  Don’t worry, you’ll discard the skin and bones later. 

Cook the chicken at a boil for 30 minutes, then remove the breasts and let them cool for a minute or two.  Slip the skin off of ‘em and discard.  Then, shred the meat from the bones and add it back into the soup.  Discard the bones. 

Try to achieve bite-sized pieces with the chicken as you shred.  The chicken meat will still be quite hot, so I usually use a knife and disposable food service gloves when I shred to make it easier and keep from burning my fingertips. 

Add the tomatoes & green chiles, tomato soup and stewed tomatoes (note, these usually come whole in the can, so I chop them before I add them), and cook another 30 minutes. 

While soup is cooking, slice the corn tortillas in strips...

...and bake them at 400 degrees F for about 10 minutes, or until crispy.  Try to get the best quality tortillas you can get, preferably from an authentic Mexican tortillaria.  And make sure to use corn tortillas, and not flour.  I know, the picture above looks like flour tortillas, but those are actually corn tortillas, made with white corn.  

Chop the cilantro...

...and add about half of it to the soup and turn off the heat.  

Don’t do it any earlier, or you’ll boil away all the delicate flavor and aroma elements of the fresh cilantro.  Also, note, using dried cilantro (or coriander, as it is sometimes called) won’t give you the full range of flavors that you get with fresh, so make sure you track down the fresh cilantro.  Reserve the rest that you chopped for garnishing individual bowls of the soup. 

Garnish the soup with the crispy tortilla strips and serve immediately.

Serve plenty of shredded sharp cheddar cheese and additional cilantro for your guests to garnish.  In my opinion, this is all that is needed, but I have seen tortilla soup garnished additionally with avocado, diced red onion, sour cream, etc, but I urge you to try it simply, as prepared, with only additional cilantro and the cheese, first, so you can appreciate this delicious soup in its most perfect, unadulterated form. 

Until next time,

¡Buen apetito!

Chris

Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza

I recently made a sojourn to Chicago, where I made a point to sample several examples of the famed ‘Deep Dish’ variety of pizza that the city is known for.  Now, I’ve always been more of a New York style pizza guy, but after sampling some pies at places like Giordanos and Lou Malnati’s, I have to say the Chicagoans have something wonderful and tasty going on.  It is very different from New York style, particularly in the sauce and even more so in the crust, and at this point, I’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite between NY and Chicago.  But hey, why choose?  Enjoy both styles.    Choosing one is like choosing between apples and oranges...they just ain’t the same thing.

Anyway, back home in Texas, I couldn’t help but try to make an attempt to clone this wonderful style of pizza here in my own kitchen.   After doing some research over at the extremely informative Pizza Forum, I was ready to attempt to master this baby.

Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza

Dough:

4 Cups All Purpose Flour
3 oz Semolina Flour
4 tablespoons Butter
4 tablespoons Olive Oil
1 tablespoon Salt
1 tablespoon Active Dry Yeast
8 oz Water

Mix all the dry ingredients, then add the fats.  In a small bowl, warm a little bit of your water (about an ounce or two) to around 105F and stir in the yeast.  Let this sit for about five minutes, then add it, along with the rest of the water, to the flour mixture and knead, either by hand or with a mixer with a dough hook, until all the ingredients are incorporated, then continue to knead for just under a minute.  Place the dough in a covered bowl and place that in the refrigerator overnight, or for up to 24 hours. 

A few hours before you are going to bake your pizza, take the dough out of the fridge and let it warm to room temperature.  It should also rise a little bit during this time. 

When you are ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 500F (you’ll lower the temp before you bake) and roll out your dough.   Roll it out to about a 14 inch round, then transfer it to an extremely well-oiled (olive or vegetable oil) 12 inch diameter deep dish pizza pan.  Press the dough with your fingers to make sure it is evenly distributed in the pan, then press the dough up the sides of the pan until it forms walls about 1.5 to 2 inches deep. 

Now, you must fill your pizza.  Start by layering slices of mozzarella at the bottom.  

I suppose you could use shredded cheese as well, but the sliced is traditional.  Then layer the rest of your ingredients on top of the mozzarella.  The traditional meat for a Chicago style deep dish pizza is Italian sausage, torn out of its casing and pressed into a layer or patty on top of the mozzarella.  I may try this one day, but to be honest, I’m just not a sausage on my pizza guy, so I went with my favorite topping, pepperoni. 

Finally, spoon your sauce over the top.  

Note, in a Chicago style pizza, the ingredients are sort of reversed from NY and other American styles, which put the sauce on first and the cheese on last.  I’ve surmised that the Chicago style does this because the pies bake for a much longer time than a thinner NY style, and if you didn’t reverse the order, the cheese would burn.  Also note, Chicago style pizza sauce is not a thin puree of tomatoes like on a NY pizza, but is made with large chunks of tomatoes, which cook in your hot over on top of the pizza to form wonderfully rich flavors.  Here’s my simple sauce recipe:

Sauce: 

Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Chopped Tomatoes, drained:  3 cans (42 oz)
Dried Oregano:  1 tablespoon
Granulated Garlic:  1 tablespoon

Try to find the best quality tomatoes you can get.  The Pizza Forum guys recommend a brand called 6-in-1 tomatoes, but I couldn’t find any, so I went to Central Market and got the Muir Glen.  (I’ve since ordered some 6-in-1’s via mail order.  I will try them and report back)  Drain the tomatoes (otherwise you’ll get soggy pizza) and then stir in the oregano and garlic.   

Lower your oven to 450F, then pop the pizza in.  If you have a pizza stone, feel free to use it.  Let the pizza cook for 20 minutes, then open the oven and turn it a half turn.  At this point you can throw on some last minute toppings, such as the black olives I’ve used here.   Let it cook for 15 more minutes.

At this point, the crust on the sides should be crisp, golden-brown, and slightly pulled away from the sides.  Let the pizza rest five minutes or so, then slice and serve. 

 Right out of the oven.

Ready to slice!

First slice.

The crust is golden brown and crispy on the bottom, tender and flaky in the middle.  Mmmm, delish!

Until next time, 

When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that's Amore!

Chris

Smoked Corn and Sausage Soup

I love to smoke, and not just my cigars.  I’m talking about the barbecue variety, which here in Texas means cooking low and slow over a wood and charcoal fire to both tenderly cook your food and flavor it with the wonderful taste and essence of smoke. 

When one thinks of smoking foods, hearty, meaty dishes like brisket, ribs or pulled pork come to mind.  But here is a dish that captures the subtle side of the smoke flavor, using the vehicle of a tangy, creamy and tasty soup.

So, how do you smoke soup?  Don’t worry, you won’t need any elaborate smoke distillation system or a water pump.  In this dish, we impart our smoke flavor by smoking some of the ingredients, in this case, corn and Italian sausage, and then add them to the mix.  Both the corn and the sausage pick up different aspects of the smoke flavor and bring it with them to the soup, creating a mélange of flavor that is out of this world. 

Smoked Corn and Sausage Soup

4 medium to large ears of corn, husks and silk removed
4 uncooked Italian sausages, or a spicy sausage of your choice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium red bell pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
6 cups chicken stock
1.5 cups half and half or heavy cream
¼ cup minced fresh basil
Salt to taste

Try to get the best quality and freshest corn you can get.  If you have access to a farmers market or similar, make the extra effort to get good corn.  Also, fresh-made sausages from places like Whole Foods or Central Market will really give a boost to the recipe versus using prepackaged supermarket variety sausage. 

Fire up your smoker to cook low and slow with a nice, light wood, for instance maple or any of the fruit woods.  

I use maple for this recipe, as it has a nice, light, slightly sugary flavor and aroma that pairs well with the soup.  Avoid mesquite with this recipe, as it is too harsh for the delicate flavors of the soup, and if you use hickory, use about half as much wood as normal. 

Here I’ve set up the dampers on my Weber kettle so it will function as a smoker, with the temperature topping out around 225 degrees F.  Try to keep your smoker in the 200-250F range. 

Place the corn and sausage in the smoker...

...and smoke for thirty minutes, then rotate the corn a half turn.  Smoke another thirty minutes, and it should look like this.

Turn the sausage over, remove the corn and reserve.  Smoke the sausage another hour (two hours total) until they are well-smoked and done.

When the corn is cool enough to handle, use a sharp knife and cut the kernels from the ears.  

Reserve the kernels and cobs separately. 

While the sausages are finishing their second hour of smoke, you can start on the soup.  In a large, heavy stock pot, warm the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the bell pepper and sauté for a few minutes until it begins to soften.  

Add the garlic and cook a minute more.   Pour in the stock, add three of the reserved corn cobs, and simmer for twenty minutes.  

There’s a lot of good, corn flavor in those cobs.  This will extract it.  Then, using tongs or similar, remove the corn cobs and discard. 

Try to time the above procedure so that the cobs finish simmering when your sausage is ready to come out of the smoker. 

Halve the sausage lengthwise, then slice into quarter-inch half-rounds.  

Drain the sausages on paper towels if they are greasy.

After you have removed the corn cobs from the stock, stir in the sausage along with the corn kernels, half-and-half, basil and salt to taste.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer for an additional ten minutes. 

Serve immediately.

Until next time, 

Smoke 'em if you got 'em, 

Chris

Tangy Shish Kabab Bread

A while back I came across an intriguing recipe for vegetarian kebabs that included feta cheese, bell peppers, tomatoes, and...bread.  Yes, bread, marinated along with the cheese and veggies and grilled over charcoal.  I was intrigued, so I made the kebabs.

The problem I found is the same one that I find with all kebab recipes—different foods cook at different rates.  When you skewer up alternating cuts of meat, veggies, and whatever, sure it makes a nice presentation, but you usually end up with either some of the food overcooked or some of the food undercooked. 

The solution, of course, is to put each food item on its own skewer, so that they can be turned and removed from the grill individually, as each becomes ready.  I now do this with all kebab recipes, then just slide everything off the skewers and platter it up to serve. 

So, back to the bread.  I do like the combo of the bread with the feta, tomato and pepper, but as I made this kebab again and again, I found myself making lots more of the bread than I did of the cheese and veggies.  The reason...the bread is just dynamite!  It absorbs lots of the flavorful marinade and then gets a nice browning from the hot charcoal fire.  It makes a great side dish or bread course for lots of grilled foods.  And the light, tangy marinade is so tasty you'd swear the bread had been brushed with high-fat butter.   I now often make this bread solo, to go with steaks or a Mediterranean or Middle Eastern dish. 

Mediterranean Grilled Bread

Ingredients

1 baguette

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 Teasoon lemon zest
2 Tablespoons lemon juice

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons basil, chopped

1 tablespoon chives, chopped

1/4 teaspoon Salt

Slice the baguette into ¾ to 1 inch thick slices.  Mix all the other ingredients together.  Dip the bread slices in the marinade, then arrange on skewers.  It’s best to skewer them parallel to the slice, so that the skewer goes through the crust, as in the picture below. 

Grill the bread over a charcoal fire for a minute or two a side.  Watch it closely, the bread will char quickly.  You just want to get it nice and golden brown. 

Serve and enjoy.  You’ll be surprised how great this bread it—and with no butter to boot!   It’s a very light way to enjoy bread that is tangy, savory and delicious. 

Give it a try.

Chris

Chicken Satay

Satay is a common ‘street meat’ in Thailand, Indonesia, and several other Asian countries.  It’s simple, easy and fun to make and has a nice, exotic taste that will delight time after time.  I fell in love with it at a local Thai restaurant, but now I generally make it at home on my grill.  Here’s how.

Chicken Satay

2 Large Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts, cut into strips. 

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 Teaspoon Sugar

2 Tablespoons Curry Powder

½ Cup Coconut Milk

Bamboo or other type of Wooden Skewers, soaked for several hours in water

First, cut your chicken into strips. 

I usually get five strips out of a breast, but if you want to make sure your Satay is nice, thick and juicy, you might just go with four strips per breast.

Next, make your marinade.  Mix the salt, sugar, curry powder and coconut milk in a small bowl.  

Make sure to use a good curry powder.  I’m fond of Ship Brand Madras Curry Powder.

If you don’t regularly keep curry powder on hand, I’d recommend seeking out a can of Ship Brand at your local Indian grocery.  It’s really flavorful, and will inspire you to flights of all sorts of culinary experimentation. 

Once you’ve mixed up the marinade, dredge the chicken strips in it, then lay them out on a tray.  

Cover them with any leftover marinade, then refrigerate for a few hours to let the marinade work in. 

When you’re ready to cook, light a medium-hot fire on your charcoal grill.  This will best replicate the way the street vendors cook Satay in Asia.  While your charcoal is getting going, skewer the chicken on the wooden skewers, one or two strips to a stick.  When the charcoal is ready, lay them out on the grill.  I usually grill them with the lid off of the grill, as this better replicates the technique used by the Asian street vendors.  To protect the ends of the skewers, I’ll lay a little foil under them on the grill. 

After a few minutes, flip the Satay.  It should have a nice char on the cooked side.  

Let the second side cook for a few more minutes, then it should be ready to go.  If you want, test a piece by pulling it apart to make sure the chicken is cooked all the way through. 

Serve with some white rice and a side of Thai Peanut Sauce.  Definitely don’t skip the Peanut Sauce (recipe here on last month’s An Eatin’ Man).  It makes the dish.  

Thai Peanut Sauce

I can’t tell you how much I love, love, love Peanut Sauce.   It’s a Thai staple that goes great with everything from Chicken or Beef Satay to just plain white rice.  It’s also quite simple to make at home, though you might have to hit a specialty Indian or Asian market to get all your ingredients.   It’s worth the trip, though, as this homemade version is the best I have ever tasted, and will blow away any pre-made, store-bought Peanut sauce you might find. 

Peanut Sauce

1 Tablespoon Tamarind Concentrate

3 Tablespoons Sugar

3 Tablespoons Peanut Butter

2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce

1 Tablespoon Mild Red Curry Paste

¾ Cup Coconut Milk

Place all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until a thin, creamy consistency is achieved.  Taste the sauce; resist the urge to eat it with a spoon! 

Serve with spicy Asian dishes like Chicken or Beef Satay, Grilled Fish, or just spoon over white rice.  

Sun Dried Tomato Cream Cheese Dip/Spread

On my first trip to New York City a little over twenty years ago, I was introduced to the delicacy that is the bagel.  I could go on and on about how much I love this dense, bready treat, particularly toasted with a ‘schmeer’ as I heard one old man put it, by way of asking for cream cheese to be spread on the bagel. 

Enjoying a bagel on the streets of Manhattan, April, 1992.

Every time I went back to New York, I made a point to breakfast on a bagel to two, and always with that ‘schmeer.’  Well, lo and behold on one trip I came across a deli that offered various flavored cream cheeses instead of just plain.  One of those flavors was sun dried tomato.  I tried it.  I was in heaven!  This spread was so savory, tangy and delicious I almost had to sit down to eat the bagel.  I almost needed a cigarette after a I was done.  Yes, it was that good. 

When I got back to Texas, I knew I had to replicate this spread. 

I’d been using sun dried tomatoes in pastas and such for some time, and I love the way the drying concentrates the tomato flavor.  I pureed some up and blended them with cream cheese and gave it a try.  It was good, but not anywhere close to the flavor from the NY deli.  So I made a few more batches, adding a couple of herbs and spices and such, and eventually I came up with a winner.

Sun Dried Tomato Cream Cheese Dip/Spread

1 8oz package of Philadelphia cream cheese
2 oz (by weight) sun dried tomatoes
2 oz pitted Kalamata olives, drained
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon dried basil (or one tablespoon fresh)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Pinch of salt

You can buy sun dried tomatoes a lot of ways, including the variety in a jar of olive oil.  I skip these and just buy the dry kind in a package, which I then rehydrate in some boiling water.  For this recipe, you can use either, but the dry kind are cheaper and lower in calories.  If you use the dry sort, add them to boiling water for five minutes or so, 

then drain and slice into thin strips. 

Add these to a small pan or saucier with the olive oil and sauté.  Immediately add the Kalamata olives (and note, they must be KALAMATA olives, don’t go cheap here and substitute plain old black or green olives, for the flavor won’t be the same.  You might get away with some Nicoise olives, but trust me, the only olives that give you that real NY deli flavor will be good old, purple Kalamata). 

Next, add the basil, salt and crushed garlic and sauté all, stirring constantly to keep the tomatoes from burning, until you smell the roasted garlic aroma wafting up from the pan.  Remove from heat and set aside. 

Add the sun dried tomato mixture to your food processor and process until a smooth paste forms, with few lumps of tomato or olive remaining.  

This will probably take about a minute.  Next cube up your cream cheese 

and add this to the food processor.  Blend until smooth.

Depending on your tomatoes, sometimes the mixture comes out a beige color, sort of the color of Thousand Island dressing, which I don’t think is quite all that appetizing, so I add a few drops of red food coloring to brighten. 

You can serve the mixture at room temperature as a dip, and it will yield nicely to crackers such as Wheat Thins.  Or, you can chill the mixture and use it as a spread on crackers, sandwiches, or of course, the ubiquitous bagel.

Until next time,

Forgetaboutit!

Chris