Mercury falling

May 21, 2005
Hearty starter: warm yourself with Tuscan kale and potato soup.
Photo: Jennifer Soo

Hearty starter: warm yourself with Tuscan kale and potato soup. Photo: Jennifer Soo

Whip up delights that suit the season in Steve Manfredi's four-part series on cold-weather fare. This week: winter soups, with wine selections by Greg Duncan Powell.

Welcome to the first of our Winter Cooking Classes. It's the season when our appetites are keenest and we are eager for big, hearty flavours. We spend more time indoors, curled up and cosy as the comforting smells of simmering soups, steaming braises, slow roasts and warm puddings waft through the house. It's not quite winter yet, but we thought we'd give you a head start with some great dishes, helpful hints and lip-smacking wine suggestions to make the colder months a lot more enjoyable.

What better way to begin a winter feast than with a hearty soup? The basis of many winter soups is good stock. As our chicken and farro soup calls for pieces of diced chicken and chicken stock, it's a good idea to buy a whole chicken, trim the meat off and pop the carcass into a large pot. Add to this a chopped carrot, a chopped onion, a celery stalk and two cloves of garlic. Bring it to the boil, then turn it down to a simmer. Keep skimming the surface for any scum that develops and in two hours you have perfect, clear chicken stock. Use straight away or freeze for later.

This soup calls for farro (also called emmer), one of the ancient grains still grown in certain parts of the world. In Australia, it is grown in north-western NSW and can often be found in health or specialty stores (Pino's Meats in Kogarah has it). Farro adds great texture and heartiness as well as wonderful flavour.

Another unusual but increasingly sought-after ingredient, Tuscan kale - or cavolo nero, as it's known in Italy - combines with potato to produce a wonderfully thick soup. Unlike many greens, cavolo nero maintains its texture and increases its flavour as it cooks, resulting in a dense, meaty flavour.

For something different, the passato provides a change in texture. It's a smooth, velvety soup and can be made with almost any vegetable in season.

Finally, the fish stew uses an often-discarded part of large, white-fleshed fish - the cheek meat found in the head. This soup contains so much jelly that it usually sets when refrigerated overnight. This richness is what makes it so good.

Chicken and farro soup

Heat 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil in a heavy-bottomed soup pot.

Add 2 diced onions, 8 cloves of garlic sliced fairly thick, 1 sliced celery heart (including the tender light-green leaves) and 3 fresh bay leaves. Lightly fry the vegetables for 2-3 minutes, making sure they don't colour.

Chicken and farro soup.

Chicken and farro soup.
Photo:Jennifer Soo

Add 350g of peeled and diced waxy potatoes, 250g finely chopped ripe tomatoes and stir.

Wash 250g of pearled farro (or barley), drain well and stir into the pot. Add enough chicken stock to cover everything by 3-4 centimetres. Raise the temperature and bring to the boil.

As soon as it boils, turn down to a simmer and add a couple of good pinches of salt. Keep simmering for 20-25 minutes until the farro softens.

Add 500g of diced chicken thigh fillet and keep simmering until it is cooked. Season with salt and pepper and serve. Serves 8-10.

A wine to match

Soups are tricky when drinking wine. Hot liquids tend to blunt the finer olfactory functions and leave you with the very basic senses of bitterness, acidity and sweetness, so save your subtle wines for an appropriate dish. This is a soup with simple, bold flavours: garlic, tomato, chicken and starch. It suggests a similar wine: gentle, comforting and red - not too tannic but with some acidity to cut through the starch. De Bortoli Gulf Station Pinot Noir 2003, $17

Fish stew

You will need whole fresh fish heads - bar cod, snapper, red emperor or the like (not oily fish such as salmon or tuna) - scales off, gills out, weighing about 3kg.

Wash the fish heads well, place in a pot and just cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and turn down to a simmer for 30-40 minutes till cooked - skim off any scum floating on top. Let the heads cool in the water.

Drain (keep the stock), then remove the meat from the heads and reserve.

Peel and chop 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 celery heart and 4 cloves of garlic and mince finely in a food processor. Heat 6 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil in a large pot and lightly fry the vegetables for 6-8 minutes.

Add 2 cups of pureed tomatoes and 1/2 cup of roughly chopped parsley, then simmer for 25 minutes till all the flavours have mingled.

Add the broth and the fish head meat, bring back to a simmer, season with salt and pepper and serve. Makes enough for 6-8.

A wine to match

The problem with following the age-old rule of white wine with fish is the effect when cold white wine meets hot soup. It's the oral equivalent of the Scandinavian sauna-and-snow ritual - and the delicate flavours in wine are the first to give out. Then again, boiled fish and red wine is no happy marriage either. The answer is, of course, dry rose. Chill it ever so slightly, if at all - 18 degrees is cold enough. La Vieille Ferme Rose 2003, $16

Winter vegetable passato

Peel (where necessary) and cut into chunks 1 carrot, 1 onion, 1 celery heart, half a small butternut pumpkin, 1 leek, 2 potatoes, 6 cloves of garlic, 250g of savoy cabbage, 1 cup shelled peas and 150g broccoli.

Place all the vegetables except the peas and broccoli in a large pot and just cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 25 minutes. Add the remaining vegetables and simmer for a further 10 minutes.

Drain the cooked vegetables, setting the water aside, and pulse in a food processor until they are well blended. Add enough of the cooking water to give a rich, thick but runny consistency.

Add 1 cup of pure cream, season with salt and fine white pepper and stir until uniform. Reheat if necessary and serve in bowls with a drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil and fresh crusty bread or toasted bread with gruyere or cheddar melted on it.

A wine to match

There's something very northern European about a creamy soup with winter vegetables and toast topped with molten gruyere. It's a dish that implies Alsatian-styled wines and in particular pinot gris. The better ones have the viscosity to cope with a creamy soup and the length and breadth not to be dominated by the flavours. They also have the acidity to clean up afterwards. Beware of serving it too cold - about 14 to 16 degrees is just right. Tigress 2004 Pinot Gris, $25

Tuscan kale and potato soup

Heat 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil in a pot.

Add 6 peeled and finely diced eschallots, 4 minced cloves of garlic, 2 peeled and chopped carrots and 6 small sliced rashers of pancetta (or streaky bacon). Simmer for 2-3 minutes.

Add 250g of washed and chopped cavolo nero (Tuscan kale) and 300g of peeled and diced floury potatoes. Cover with water, stir in a couple of good pinches of salt and simmer until the potatoes start to break down - about 30-40 minutes.

Remove from the heat, season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper and let the soup sit for 10 to 15 minutes. Serve with freshly grated parmesan and toasted garlic bread.

A wine to match

The timeless pairing of potato and pork, a dusting of parmesan and a soup not served scalding hot means this is very much red wine fare - besides, it's winter. However, a classic Australian red just won't do itself or the soup justice. Something slightly fruity, slightly sour, slightly textured with very little oak is required and that suggests a red made from an Italianate grape variety. La Zona Marzemino 2002, $19


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