Soupruary 17th: Italian Chicken and Rosemary White Bean

It's a Soupruary Twosday! (Get it? Because I made TWO soups! Oh, man, what a knee-slapper!)


Also of note, you could see all 5 visible planets in the night sky. Not sure what that has to do with soup, but it's interesting!


Location:
Steve & Ris's house, The Westside, Cincinnati, Ohio


Attendees:
Aaron, Kendall, Marisa, Nick, Steve, me

Menu:
Italian Chicken Soup with Toasted Parmesan Gnocchi
Rosemary White Bean Soup
My famous nanner puddin', Girl Scout Cookie edition (just for Aaron)


Entertainment:
Kendall enthusiastically inventing "breakfast soups" and charging me to prepare them
An in-depth discussion of strange but enjoyable smells (live crawdads, anyone?)

The Soup(s):
Let's start with the non-vegetarian option. This chicken soup made me use a whole chicken, which reminded me why I've never attempted a Thanksgiving dinner. I'm not good with things that look like real things. I'm glad I was alone while the chicken negotiations were afoot (foot? yeesh)—I was all screams, squeals and painfully outstretched arms. Basically, whole chickens :: me as rats, spiders and snakes :: everyone but Steve. Note the lack of pictures of the whole chicken in the pot. I was busy freaking out.

But the finished product is so pretty, no? This soup (after the whole chicken fiasco) was really fun for two reasons: 1) egg painting, a brief but joyous affair; and 2) gnocchi! The gnocchi are easy to make and so cute and happy when they bob up to the surface to announce "Hey, y'all! I'm cooked!" They're not just a doorbell though; they tasted quite good and had a delightful dexture. I was pretty nervous about trying this, but seriously—parlay that gnocchi!

Soup commentary included the modifiers "crazy-delicious" and "killer," so I don't think we need to go further in the endorsement realm. One thing I liked about it was it simultaneously had that homey, healing feeling of chicken soup and a dash of "special" with the gnocchi. How many times can I say gnocchi in this post? Gnocchi gnocchi gnocchi. Gnocchi.

Adapted from Alexandra Guarnaschelli for Food Network Magazine

2 medium baking potatoes (about 1 1/4 pounds)
4 strips bacon, thinly sliced
2 carrots, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
2 stalks celery, sliced into 1/2-inch pieces
24 pearl onions, peeled
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 4-pound chicken
1 small bunch fresh thyme, tied with string
8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
2 large eggs
1/4 cup roughly chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup roughly chopped fresh basil
3 cups loosely packed spinach leaves

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake the potatoes until soft, about 1 hour.

Meanwhile, in a large soup pot, brown the bacon over medium heat. Add the carrots, celery and onions. Season with salt and pepper and cook until the vegetables are translucent, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the chicken, thyme and broth; bring to a simmer and skim any foam that rises to the top. Reduce the heat and barely simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about 40 minutes. Discard the thyme. Remove the chicken and let cool. (I did all this the night before to save time in the final preparation. This had the added bonus of letting a lot of the fat in the broth rise to the top so I could easily skim it today and make the soup a little healthier than it would otherwise have been.)

Pull off the meat and shred into bite-sized pieces; cover and set aside. Season the broth with salt and pepper.

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the breadcrumbs and cook, stirring, until toasted, about 3 minutes; set aside. Halve the baked potatoes and scoop the flesh into a bowl; mash with a fork and season with salt and pepper. Sift the flour over the potatoes and add the toasted crumbs, parmesan and nutmeg; lightly knead to make a firm dough. Roll into 1/2-inch oval-shaped gnocchi. Bring the soup to a boil and drop in the gnocchi. Cook until they float to the top, 1 to 2 minutes (so cute!); transfer the gnocchi to bowls with a slotted spoon.

Beat the eggs with a fork; use the fork to "paint" ribbons of egg across the soup. Let set, about 30 seconds. Stir in the chicken meat, parsley, basil and spinach; season with salt and pepper. Ladle the soup over the gnocchi. Serve with more Parmesan.

***

Now for the vegetarian soup: Rosemary White Bean. The flavor: awesome. Seriously. The texture? Eh, left a bit to be desired. When I make this again, I'll change a few things. 1) I'll use canned beans. There's no reason for this soaking nonsense:

2) I'll reduce the amount of stock. I put in the full prescribed 8 c of stock for this soup, and I'd've preferred it a little thicker. That change is reflected below. I'll definitely make this again; the flavor is deep and decadent and I'm actually sort of craving it as I type. I'm finding that the simplest soups have been my favorite thus far—Soup seems to have a unique ability to allow concentration on one or two flavors and give you an intense vegetable experience. I'm for it.

Adapted from Ina Garten's The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

1 lb dried white beans

4 c sliced yellow onions

1/4 c olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 large branch fresh rosemary

6 c vegetable stock

1 bay leaf

2 t kosher salt

1/2 t freshly ground black pepper

Pour the dried beans into a bowl and cover them by at least an inch with water, then soak overnight.

Heat olive oil in your soup pot over medium-low heat, and cook the onions until they're translucent. Add the garlic and cook another 3 minutes. Add the drained white beans, rosemary, stock and bay leaf. Cover and bring to a boil, then simmer until the beans are soft (30 to 40 minutes). Puree the soup coarsely with an immersion blender, food processor or blender, then season with salt and pepper and serve.