An Elusive But Very Big Bean--And a Soup Recipe

Shortly after the earthquake that caused widespread damage in Napa, CA, last August, my husband and I revisited the city that had so captured our hearts (and appetites) the year before. Some buildings looked untouched while others--many ornate, vintage structures--showed visible damage and were surrounded by rubble from bricks and masonry that had fallen during the 6.0 temblor. Luckily for us, the more modern side of the town across the river fared well and was a beehive of activity. We wandered into The Fatted Calf, a popular charcuterie and butcher shop at the fabulous Oxbow Public Market, next door to the beloved Model Bakery, home to a world-renown English muffin (about which you can read elsewhere on this blog).

After buying a roast beef sandwich from the Fatted Calf, my gaze fell on a bag of the largest beans I'd ever encountered--white beans shaped like limas but about three times the size. Of course, being a longtime legume lover, I had to have them. I can't recall the price, (though at the website, most of the beans can be gotten for $5.95 per pound--plus shipping, which strikes me as eminently reasonable for rare, fresher-than-average beans). I bought the bag with the label sporting the picture of the pretty '40s-style woman with her tongue out, suggesting a hearty appetite--for beans, of course!

Rancho Gordo Royal Corona Beans, the label said, were "a big, fat super-creamy white runner bean that's even bigger when cooked." No kidding!

Heirloom beans are the foundation of the Napa-based company, the brainchild of Steve Sando, who writes a lively blog on the website and co-authored a 2008 book on heirloom bean varieties, cooking techniques and recipes. The website is also a great resource for cooking tips and recipes.

In addition to 37 varieties of beans offered for sale on its website (though not all are always available), the company also sells other bean-friendly goods, like chilies, spices, dried corn, rice and other grains. It has storefronts in Napa and San Francisco, and its products are carried in various specialty stores around the country.

Many of its beans are grown in Northern California, with others from Mexico, and some--like my beloved Royal Corona-- hailing from further afield. I discovered this after I used up the last of my beans in a tasty chicken, bean and kale soup and immediately went to the company's website hoping to order some more.

Alas, they were out of stock. When I put my name on the waiting list, I learned I was 98th, most likely behind some well-known chefs like Thomas Keller (Bouchon, French Laundry) and David Kinch (Manresa), all major Rancho Gordo fans apparently. In desperation, I wrote to Customer Service and heard back promptly from Pamela López:

"I'm glad to hear you've become a super fan of our Royal Corona!" she said in an email. "I must admit it's my favorite bean as well! Unfortunately for both of us, we won't be getting it  back for some time as it's harvested in Europe; it's from Poland to be precise. So imagine how long it takes for the beans to sprout and then the time it takes to get to the US... The time seems daunting but it's definitely in our near future, hopefully by the end of this year."

Ms. López chided me gently for letting my blog go to seed, so largely thanks to her (and a less subtle nudge from my hubby), I'm writing about that elusive bean, hoping perhaps my name will move up a few notches on the waiting list (please!). Meanwhile, Ms. López suggested that the company's cassoulet beans would be a good substitute, because, though not as large, they are equally creamy and delicious. Cannellini beans might be another good alternative.

One note on canned beans vs. fresh: Although I've used canned varieties on occasion, there is a definite taste and texture difference in beans that have been soaked overnight, then cooked until they've got just the right bite. There is a meaty firmness to cooked dry beans and more character than in the canned variety, which are a little too mushy for my taste. This is particularly true in heirloom beans that are harvested and sold within a short period of time. They also require less cooking time.

So, finally, here's a soup recipe in which the beans really play a starring role.  It's a variation on an Italian bean and kale soup I've made before. In addition to these meaty, creamy beans, a homemade chicken broth adds a great deal of flavor, along with some Parmesan rind added toward the end. You can use canned broth, but again, you'll sacrifice flavor. However, in a time crunch, it works just fine--especially when amped up with a little Parmesan.

Chicken, Bean & Kale Soup

(8 to 10 servings)

Ingredients:

3 quarts (12 cups) homemade* or store-bought chicken broth

2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, diced

3 to 4  carrots, peeled and diced

3 to 4 stalks celery, diced

1 medium potato, peeled and diced

2 cups kale, washed, chopped and loosely packed

1/2 cup Italian parsley, chopped

2-3 cloves minced garlic

1 to 2 cups cooked Royal Corona, cassoulet or cannellini beans**

Parmigiano-Reggiano rind or 2-3 tablespoons grated Parmesan

1 bay leaf

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon dried or 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves 

1/2 teaspoon dried basil or 2 tablespoons fresh leaves, chopped

Other spices to taste

1/2 cup white wine (optional)

1 1/2 to 2 cups cooked chicken breast meat, chopped or shredded

Notes:

*I made my chicken stock from the frozen carcasses of two leftover roast chickens, leftover gravy, two uncooked chicken backs, plus chopped onions, carrots, celery and spices that I simmered for about 1 1/2 hours, then strained. I added several cups of Trader Joe's Organic Low-Sodium Chicken Broth when the broth turned out not to be quite enough. If you make the stock ahead of time, a little fridge time will allow you to skim the fat off the top before making the soup.

**Directions for dried beans usually include soaking them overnight, then draining them and boiling until done. There are fast-soak methods that call for boiling dried beans for a few minutes, then letting them soak for an hour or so before cooking.

Directions:

1. In a large skillet over a medium heat, add half the oil and fry chopped onions, celery, carrots and potatoes until softened and golden but not cooked through. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add to a stockpot, along with the chicken broth and bay leaf. Warm over a medium flame until simmering, then lower heat.

2. Add the remaining oil to the skillet and cook kale until lightly wilted on medium heat. Add parsley and garlic, cooking for another minute or two. Add to the stock pot along with the cooked beans and Parmesan rinds, if using.

3. Add salt, pepper, thyme, basil, additional spices and wine, if using. Cook for about 15 minutes or until the vegetables are soft and the flavors are well combined.

4. Add cooked chicken right before serving.

5. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan and serve with a green salad and some crusty bread.

Buon appetito!

Skillet Cornbread

There's something about cooking in a skillet that makes me think of miners kicking back at the end of a long day while supper sizzles in a cast-iron pot over an open fire. Living in the middle of a large metropolis, I don't do much panning for gold or any other precious metal, but I can always dream while stir-frying veggies or flipping turkey burgers in one of my well-seasoned skillets. They're solid and heavy (sometimes, when filled with hot stew, perhaps a little too heavy) and seemly indestructible, though their enemy is rust, which does happen when the pans sit in water for any length of time.

My love affair with the skillet awakened a fondness for a particular recipe for skillet cornbread from one of my go-to cookbooks, Ruth Reichl's 2004 The Gourmet Cookbook. It's simple, relatively quick--less than an hour from mixing ingredients to finished product--and the bonus for those who aiming to reduce the gluten in their diet is that, unlike most cornbread, this one doesn't contain any flour at all. I like to serve it with one of those other things I enjoy making in a skillet--stews and chili. It's also perfect with a bowl of soup (isn't everything?) or with a drizzle of honey or maple syrup for breakfast. The buttermilk keeps the bread moist and even a little bit creamy in the center. I upped the sugar from 1 tablespoon to 2 (I've even been known to increase it to 3!), but that's the only change I made from the original recipe. Here it is:

Skillet Corn Bread

Serves 8

(from The Gourmet Cookbook)

1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal, preferably stone-ground, medium-grind

2 tablespoons sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1 3/4 cups well-shaken buttermilk

1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened

Special Equipment: a well-seasoned 9- to 9 1/2-inch cast-iron skillet*

Mix until just combined before pouring into the skillet.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Heat a skillet in the oven's center rack for 10 minutes.

2. Stir together dry ingredients: cornmeal, sugar, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.

3. Whisk together eggs and buttermilk in a medium bowl until blended.

4. Remove hot skillet from the oven and add the butter, swirling it gently with a fork until melted. Don't worry if the butter sizzles and browns a bit around the edges. Try to leave a slight coating of butter on the bottom and sides of the skillet so that the cornbread won't stick.

5. Whisk the butter into the egg and buttermilk mixture, and return the skillet to the oven. 

6. Stir cornmeal into the buttermilk mixture, combining until evenly moistened but still a bit lumpy.

7. Scrape batter into hot skillet and bake until golden--20 to 25 minutes. Let cornbread cool for a few minutes in the pan before turning upside down on a rack to cool completely. **

Lodge 9-inch skillet

*Reichl says that a regular pan will produce an "anemic-looking" cornbread. If you don't own a cast-iron skillet, you can buy one that's already seasoned and ready to use through Amazon or Lodge, one of the major manufacturers. They're also available at many cooking supply stores.


**I've found that the cornbread sometimes sticks a bit to the skillet if you try to take it out immediately after removing it from the oven. If you allow it to cool slightly, it tends to hold together better when you remove it to a plate. Another thought is to just serve it straight from the skillet.

Nutritional Info (1/8 recipe)

Calories: 165

Fat: 8 grams

Carbs: 45 grams

Fiber: 4 grams

Protein: 3 grams

Weight Watchers Points: 7

On the Side

Ruth Reichl includes a recipe for buckwheat honey butter to serve with the cornbread. Combine 1 stick of softened butter (8 tablespoons) with 2 tablespoons of honey. Mix well. It works just fine with other honeys or maple syrup.

Autumn Soup: Yellow Split Pea, Pumpkin & Sweet Potato

Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,

Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

-- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I made soup this week, though it wasn't green but orangey-gold from the yellow split peas, pumpkin, sweet potato and saffron I added. I was inspired by a recipe I found in one of my favorite cookbooks, Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food. The book, subtitled "An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York," is as much a history of Jewish cooking--and the peripatetic journey of the Jewish people themselves--as it is a compendium of diverse recipes from Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. My own family comes from an Ashkenazi (German-Russian) background, making me more familiar with typical eastern European Jewish dishes such as borscht, blintzes and gefilte fish, so I'm particularly fascinated with Roden's section on Sephardi cooking. These include, broadly, dishes developed by Jews who lived in lands along the Mediterranean (Spain, Turkey, Morocco), as well as in the Middle East and India. The food combinations, flavors and spices are quite different than those I recall from childhood. My mother often made soups too, with lentil, split pea and barley on regular rotation for Sunday brunch (along with sides of cold roast beef, tuna salad and boiled tongue). But adding cinnamon, ginger and pumpkin to a soup? That would have struck her as very strange.

No soaking is required for dry yellow lentils. 

After making some more pumpkin puree using the steamer method (I used it previously when I made pumpkin pecan bread), I searched through Roden's book for pumpkin recipes and found a surprising number of them, with several in the savory category. A Moroccan selection caught my eye: Potakhe de Potiron, which Roden translates as "Yellow Split Pea and Pumpkin Soup." I pretty much followed her recipe, but, as usual, changed a few things. Instead of cubed pumpkin, I used puree, replaced ground ginger with fresh and added a diced sweet potato. I reduced the amount of oil (from 4 tablespoons to one), replacing sunflower with coconut and adding some lemon and orange juices. But these are small changes--and you can make your own.

Pumpkin & spice

Yellow Split Pea and Pumpkin Soup 

(Adapted from The Book of Jewish Food)

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups yellow split peas
1 large onion, chopped
2 3/4 quarts chicken stock
1 tablespoon coconut, sunflower or other vegetable oil
2 cups pumpkin puree (fresh, canned* or cubed pumpkin)
1 small sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 to 2 teaspoons fresh-grated ginger root (or 1/4 teaspoon ground)
1/4 teaspoon saffron
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
1 to 2 teaspoons honey**

*Use one 15-ounce can
**Optional

Diced sweet potato 

Directions

Chop the onion and saute in oil until softened but not brown. Put the yellow split peas in a soup pot with the stock, and add the sauteed onion. Bring to a boil and simmer until the split peas are tender. This can take 30 minutes to an hour, so be sure and  taste-test a few. They should be soft but not mushy. 

Add pumpkin puree (or cubes), sweet potato and spices. Simmer until the sweet potato (and pumpkin if it's cubed) is falling apart. Add orange and lemon juices, and salt and pepper to taste. If you sample and decide the soup could use a bit more sweetness, add a teaspoon or two of honey. 

Soup is on!

Tinkering:

1. Roden suggests sprinkling some finely chopped flat-leaf parsley on top. I chose to garnish the soup with a tablespoon of Greek yogurt and some toasted pumpkin seeds. It's great either way--or try both!

2. Dried chickpeas can be used in place of the yellow split peas. In that case, soak them for several hours, preferably overnight, before boiling until soft. Somehow I think canned wouldn't work as well.

3. For a smoother texture, puree the soup using a blender or food processor.

4. Some variations of this soup use meat and marrow bones. I think it might be interesting to go meatless and try a vegetarian broth for the base and vegan sour cream on top.

5. If you want more chicken flavor, try this idea to amp up the stock: Combine a leftover roast chicken carcass, including pan juices, a cup of water and two quarts of low-sodium chicken stock (I use Trader Joe's  organic variety). Add a half cup each of rough-chopped carrot, celery and onion. Boil the mixture for about an hour, then strain and continue with the soup recipe.

Imported red saffron, a gift from a friend

1

Making a Vegetable Soup from Late Summer Bounty

Even if you don't eat Campbell's soups, it's hard to disagree with the company's longtime slogan, "Soup is good food."  I prefer making my own to opening a can. It's really so easy, economical and delicious that I don't understand why everyone doesn't do it. Even the extra time that goes into making it is a one-time effort, as the soup can last for days--even a week if you make enough. You can easily freeze portions of it for reheating later if you decide you're tired of having the same soup for lunch daily. You can also change the flavor profile after a few days, adding leftover roast chicken, pasta or roasted vegetables.

You can make the soup as simple as you want, with three or four ingredients, or throw in almost anything and everything that happens to be in your fridge (my favorite method!). When I make soup, I often recall "Stone Soup," the childhood tale about a dish that begins when travelers throw a large stone in a pot of water over a fire and solicit a little of this and a little of that from passers-by. In no time, the concoction turns into a delicious soup that feeds an entire village.

My soups are often vegetable-rich but low in fat and sodium, because at our house we're always trying to shed a few pounds and watching our salt intake. Sometimes I use a recipe for inspiration, but often I try to reconstruct a soup I remember from childhood, with embellishments.

The recipe below is a takeoff on a perennial Weight Watchers favorite of many  members--the famous Garden Vegetable Soup (here's a link to a close rendition of the original recipe from Dr. Oz). On the organization's current Points Plus plan, the soup has zero points, because it is almost entirely composed of vegetables. My version includes many of those vegetables, then adds a few optional ingredients that up the point count** just a little, but, I believe, improve the flavor a lot. Amounts are really variable. The more vegetables you have in proportion to broth, the thicker the soup will be. The beauty of the dish is you can add or subtract vegetables, vary the spices, the broth and the additions, and create an entirely different soup. (See my note on tinkering at the end.) Partly pureeing the soup leads to a thicker texture, which I like, but it may not be to everyone's taste. The resulting soup reminded me of a bowl of minestrone that I once enjoyed at Capp's Corner in San Francisco's North Beach.

Chopped veggies

Cooked veggies

Blended veggies

Summer Vegetable Soup

(Makes about 10 to 12 cups)

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, diced

1 small leek or half a large one, chopped (mix of green and white)

1/2 large bell pepper (red, orange or yellow preferred)

2-3 carrots, peeled and diced

2 large stalks celery, diced

1 small zucchini, diced,

2 fresh tomatoes, chopped (or 1 cup canned, or a combination)

2-3 large leaves Swiss chard, with stems, chopped

1/2 cup chopped fresh or frozen green beans

1 ear of corn, sliced from cob or 1/2 - 3/4 cup frozen corn*

1-2 cloves garlic, finely minced

8 cups low-salt chicken, vegetable or beef broth  

1 small potato, cooked and mashed*

1 bay leaf

1-2 Tbsp. cilantro, chopped 

1-2 Tbsp. Italian parsley, chopped

1 Tbsp. chopped fresh basil (or 1 tsp. dried)

1/2 Tbsp. fresh oregano (or 1/2 tsp. dried)

Salt and pepper to taste

1 cup canned garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed*

1 to 2 Tbsp. champagne, balsamic or other vinegar (or dill pickle juice)*

1/2 tsp. sugar or honey*

Parmesan cheese*

*Optional ingredients

Sauteing vegetables in my favorite cast-iron pan

Directions:

Chop onion, leeks, pepper, carrots, celery and zucchini. Saute over low heat in pan coated with cooking spray, stirring frequently for 5 to 10 minutes until vegetables are just starting to soften. Heat broth on another burner with bay leaf. Add braised vegetables. Return pan to fire and add chopped chard, cilantro and parsley. Stir until chard is just slightly wilted. Add to soup pot, along with the corn and mashed potato (if using). Add basil, oregano, salt and pepper.

Cover and cook another 15 to 20 minutes until vegetables are almost done. Remove lid and let cool for about 10 minutes. Puree with immersion blender, making sure to leave some chunks, or, alternately, remove half of the soup and puree in blender or food processor, pulsing so as not to completely liquefy the soup. Return to the soup pot and reheat mixture on medium heat, adding green beans and garbanzos, if using. Stir in vinegar and sugar, if using (I find that these add a depth of taste that I like, but you could leave either or both out). Taste to see if additional salt or spices are needed. Heat until green beans are just tender. Add more broth if soup is too thick. Serve with a sprinkle of Parmesan and chopped cilantro.



Tinkering:

• Add 1 cup chopped cooked chicken or turkey.
• Substitute 1 cup of chopped cabbage and 1 cup chopped spinach or kale for the chard.
• Add a half cup of cooked brown rice or pasta to the soup at the end (in place of garbanzos or in addition).
• Use black or pinto beans in place of garbanzos.
• Increase the flavor of the soup by adding a Parmesan rind to the broth when you add the vegetables (but don't forget to remove if you're pureeing it).
• Use tomato sauce, tomato paste or leftover meat sauce in place of chopped tomatoes.
• Saute vegetables in a tablespoon or two of olive oil to add some healthy fat and flavor.
• Add jalapenos, cayenne, a few tablespoons of mild or hot salsa, smoky paprika, cumin or other spicy additions to amp up the heat.

**Note: I can't vouch for the accuracy of my Weight Watchers point counts for this soup, as there is so much possible variation in the recipe. I would probably count 2 to 3 points per cup for the soup, with the addition of corn, garbanzos, potato and a sprinkle of Parmesan.

Buon appetito!