French Leek Soup

A few years back, I read the book French Women Don't Get Fat (even though they eat bread with butter, cheese, chocolate and wine) by Mireille Guiliano. I like the philosophy of Mireille/French women to eat normal portions, good food that is filling (versus over-processed junk like chips--I love chips) without being obsessed with working out. Guiliano tells a story in the book of how people thought she was crazy to walk up 12 flights of stairs to her NYC apartment. But one day the elevator broke down, and all the people who spent an hour a day or more working out were winded walking up the stairs.

I followed Guiliano's recipes for some not-light-at-all croissants and tried (unsuccessfully) to make a baguette. But I hadn't tried her leek soup until last night. I read the book as if it were a novel, but it actually does have a guide to losing weight, and the leek soup is the jump start to weight loss French-style. Guiliano directs readers to make the soup and eat leeks and the broth and only leeks and the broth for three days. Apparently, it's some sort of cleansing method. I don't need to lose weight, so we'll just throw that three days of broth out the window, but I could use a bit of cleansing. Mostly I just wanted a light, simple meal. I was in St. Louis over the weekend for a friend's wedding and I'll be in Boston this weekend, which means once October is over I'll have eaten out far too much. And no matter where you dine, I always feel the heaviness of restaurant food (unless it's sushi).

I don't even think I knew what leeks were before this recipe. But aren't they beautiful, the stalks all braided together like that? In kind with Guiliano's joie de vivre, I took a walk yesterday. Actually, it was a run that became a walk that extended redundantly around blocks I had already passed. But yesterday was so gloriously gloomy. The trees, there was one small one on 52nd Street that looked like it was on fire with red. Soup was invented for days like yesterday.

This recipe was tweaked from a Naked Chef recipe for braised leeks. My mom gave me the biscuits, and I'll post the recipe as soon as she forwards it to me--holy crap they're good. And if they were to be listed on any diet, it would be Guiliano's. I think she would endorse eating this light soup with a cream cheese and butter laden biscuit.

Leek Soup:
2 leeks
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/4 cup white wine
1 pint chicken/vegetable stock
1 teaspoon dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Leeks reside comfortably in the onion family; they're much milder than white onions, more akin to spring onions. Coming from the ground, leeks can be pretty dirty, with dirt hiding between the leaves, so be careful as you wash them. Slice the ends off the leeks and continue slicing up the stalk until you get to the leafy part. Finely chop the garlic.

On medium-low heat, melt the butter in a medium pot. Saute the leeks for a minute or two and then toss in the garlic. Throw in the wine and let simmer until it has nearly evaporated. Add the stock. Season with salt, pepper and thyme. Bring soup to a boil and reduce to simmer. Simmer until leeks are soft, about 10 minutes. Serve. I plopped a dollop of ricotta cheese onto my soup--pretty good.

Salmon with Aioli and Leeks

You could say it is a New Year's resolution of mine to cook more French food and less Italian. And now that I think of it, why? Italian food is quite delicious, and I pretty much know what I'm doing. I'm familiar with the ingredients and techniques, yet there is still so much I haven't cooked, so many territories yet to be discovered, enjoyed and documented. And I'm so much less likely to biff things up. But that would be so boring--delicious, but boring. I got a couple French cookbooks for Christmas, and I wasted no time jumping into a braised lentils recipe one dark and lonely night a couple weeks ago. But then friends called and I was out eating Creole rice with them mid-preparation. As a result (or maybe because of some other fluke), the lentil were heinous and inedible. Well, I did eat them, but I didn't enjoy it. And then I tried to bring the leftovers to work and the smell solicited dry heaves.

But instead of giving up, I went straight for the gold, the quintessential French accoutrement: aioli. Made of garlic and olive oil, what's not to like about the sauce? Well, there's a thickening process for one thing, and that always makes me nervous (unnecessarily in this case, and now I'm fascinated with emulsifying). And raw egg yolks, hmm, fishy. I'm no chef, but I'm pretty sure the lemon juice and vinegar cook the eggs. Truly, this recipe was surprisingly easy, not very messy and pretty quick.

I even got to use my garlic mincer last night. The mincer may have been the kitchen accessory that spawned my interest in cooking. Before then I thought the only garlic available was in a powder or salt. What's not fun about squeezing the guts out of a pungent clove?

But when I got to the part of the recipe that said "1 1/2 cups olive oil," I balked. "WTF? We're in an economic crisis here, I am not pouring five dollars worth of oil into aioli." It turned out I didn't even have that much oil.

So I halved the recipe (the remainder of the oil is back in that bottle), and voila, still more aioli than I was able to use on the salmon. What I love about this as well is that there is so much room for improvisation on this recipe. I've seen aioli with all manner of herbs and spices. One of my favorite restaurants serves it with their sweet potato fries--a-maz-ing. The salmon recipe is a tweak from The French Market by Joanne Harris and Fran Ward--do yourself a favor and skip the braised puy lentil recipe--with aioli and leeks instead of straigh dijon mustard (leeks are a mild member of the onion family, no worries, that's a vegetable I've looked up before on Wikipedia).

Aioli: 4 cloves garlic, minced sea salt (or kosher) 2 egg yolks 3/4 teaspoon dijon mustard 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar (yeah, I used balsamic) 1 1/2 cup olive oil pepper Mince garlic cloves (or bash up with a pestel and mortar) and whisk with salt. Add egg yolks (if you save the whites you can make macaroons--I am kicking myself for letting them go down the drain), vinegar and dijon and whisk together until smooth. Slowly whisk in the oil. Add pepper and more salt to taste. Salmon with Aioli and Leeks: 2 salmon fillets 1 leek aioli olive oil salt and pepper Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place fillets on baking tray and sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Brush aioli generously onto the fillets. Dice leeks to make little disks (as seen in the photo above) and place on the fillets. Bake for 12 minutes or until the salmon is flaky.