Hungry T's Eating Journal

Tuesday Nov 15 - Garlic/Chorizo Soup

CG (who will henceforth be know as Cece) and I finally agreed to make that Garlic/Chorizo soup tonight. This is the soup that we failed to make last week. I headed down to Sellwood after work to Cece and Porkchop's house. I had to meet a co-worker to return a wallet. They were luckily close to Sellwood, and we agreed to meet at the QFC parking lot. I had to pick up some fresh thyme for the soup (and some cat food, not for the soup) anyway, so it worked out pretty well. On to their house to begin the prep work. Cece was kind enough to hold the prepping for me and the camera.

Step One-Prepare the garlic. We break up 5 heads of garlic (yes, entire heads. It is garlic soup after all!) into cloves, and toss them into a pot with some olive oil, stirring occasionally. 8 to 10 min or so, just until the skin is golden and the cloves are soft. Remove with a slotted spoon, peel, and toss into the food processor. We were hungry, and may have peeled the garlic cloves too soon, as we were constantly screaming 'Ouch!' No pain no gain, right?

Forgot to mention one thing, the wine. Actually 2 things, the wines. First up was a Viognier from the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. Not the best expression of Viognier I'd tasted. Amazing nose, but the palate seemed a little oxidized (2004 Iniskillin). We suspect perhaps it cooked in Cece's car, although maybe not. Wine 2 was a Selbach-Oster Riesling out of Germany (2003 Zeltinger Schlossberg Auslese). Much, MUCH better. Man, I love good Riesling.

But, back to the food. One we removed the cloves and picked the rest of the skins out of the pot, we threw in the chorizo, which cooked in the garlic oil. Meanwhile, we pureed the peeled garlic cloves in a food processor. Added the fresh thyme to the chorizo, let it cook for 30 seconds of so, and added some chicken stock along with the pureed garlic, and stirred. And that was it.

We ladle the soup into bowls. Serve it with a pomegranate and avocado salad and some cheese toast (Cece, I'm forgetting the type of cheese right now, maybe you can remind me?) Everything looks great. We sit and begin to taste our soup. Unfortunately, it is terribly bland. We add more salt, still bland and kind of watery. We pour the bowls back into the pot and crank the heat, hoping to boil some of the offending water out. It works, a little. With the addition of more salt, it becomes edible.

Porkchop grills up some hamburgers, and I supplement my hunger with beef and bun.

Overall, good company, but the soup left a lot to be desired. We have agreed to try it again, with some adjustments (I think I am going to try to make garlic stock from scratch, and we are going to seek out better chorizo). I'll let you know how it goes!

posted by Hungry T @ 10:18 PM