With cold, drizzling rain and an excess of holiday cheer, by January 2 what I wanted was Garlic Soup—a meal so simple and heart-warming as to be, not trendy, but decidedly old-fashioned. Looking at my archived blog posts, I see I featured Garlic Soup in one of my earliest blogs, January 1, 2010! Here it is, with a little editing.
GARLIC SOUP FOR THE MORNING-AFTER
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| Garlic soup with egg, a restorative soup to get you ready for a New Year. |
The next day, several robust soups are touted as sure-fire cures for what ails you. One is sopa de picadillo, an enriched chicken-ham broth with chopped bits of ham, egg and croutons. But nothing works as well as sopa de ajo, garlic soup.
Garlic soup starts where French onion soup leaves off. Huge flavor, simple to prepare, rustic and real. Although every region has its rendition of garlic soup, the Castillian one is the best known.
From the Puerta del Sol in Madrid to the village plaza, the custom on New Year’s Eve is to eat twelve grapes, one at each of the twelve midnight bells, thus guaranteeing a year of good fortune.
I didn’t go to town last night to join revelers in the plaza to welcome in the new year. I enjoyed a quiet dinner at home by the fire with friends and a bottle of cava. Charlotte brought grapes picked from her vines, still sweet. A movie on cable TV. So, today, the first day of 2010, I’m feeling just fine, but still thinking about that great garlic soup. (2026--didn't even make it to midnight, but watched the fireworks on CNN. No resaca (hangover), but I still want that Garlic Soup!)
HAPPY NEW YEAR! — ¡FELIZ AÑO NUEVO!
Castillian Garlic Soup
Sopa de Ajo Castellana
At its simplest, this soup is made with bread, garlic, olive oil, and water. But better is an enriched version made with flavorful stock instead of water. You can use store-bought chicken or meat stock or, best of all, the caldo, broth, from a big cocido, a meal-in-a-pot made with chicken, beef, and ham bone. Use day-old bread, preferably rustic, country-style bread, but baguette is fine too. |
| Simple ingredients: olive oil, garlic, bread. |
½ pound bread, sliced ½-inch thick
1/3 cup olive oil
2 ounces diced ham or bacon (optional)
6 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon pimentón (paprika)
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
6 cups chicken broth
Salt to taste
4 eggs
Toast the bread and set aside.
In a large cazuela (earthenware casserole) heat the olive oil. Add the diced ham and chopped garlic and sauté until the garlic begins to take on color, about four minutes. Stir in the pimentón and cumin and immediately add the broth. Add salt to taste.
Add the toasted bread to the cazuela. Bring the broth to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for five minutes. The bread should begin to break up in the broth.
With the soup bubbling, break each egg into a saucer and slide it onto the top of the soup. Cover and let the eggs poach until the whites are set and yolks still liquid, about 4 minutes. Serve the soup in the same cazuela.
More versions of garlic soup:
Garlic Soup with Miso (vegetarian)
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The two dishes I remember most from our first trip to Spain was paella and garlic soup. We drove from Madrid to Granada (this was before the Autopista was complete, 1989), and had this the first time at a little roadside restaurant. I made a point to order it whenever I saw it on the menu for the rest of the trip and since.
ReplyDeleteDavid: I tasted garlic soup on my very first trip to Spain (1962). It was served as a first course, before the roast suckling pig, at Mesón de Cándido, in the shadow of the monumental Roman aqueduct.
DeleteWe had suckling pig at Segovia, too. (I think that was on our 3rd trip to Spain, when we did Castille-Leon before heading to the north coast.)
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