Spinach Soup, Croquettes And Cake

Deborah Madison is an award-winning vegetarian chef whose newest book, "Vegetarian Suppers," offers more than 100 ideas for satisfying meals.

With The Saturday Early Show's Chef on a Shoestring budget of $40, she prepares the following: Spinach Soup with Mushroom Toasts; Lemony Risotto Croquettes with Spring Vegetables; and Chiffon Cake.

In the introduction to "Vegetarian Suppers," Madison writes: "I love supper. It's friendly and relaxed. It's easy to invite people over for supper, for there's a quality of comfort that isn't always there with dinner, a meal that suggests more serious culinary expectations -truly a joy to meet, but not all the time. Supper, on the other hand, is for when friends happen to run into each other at the farmers' market or drop in from out of town. Supper is for Sunday night or a Thursday. Supper can be impromptu, it can be potluck, and it can break the formality of a classic menu. With supper, there's a willingness to make do with what's available and to cook and eat simply. It can also be special and beautifully crafted if that's what you want."

For the show, Madison cooks the greens in mushroom stock and serves the soup with mushroom duxelles on toast, which you can either eat with your hands or drop them into the soup, where they become big, mushroomy croutons.

While the soup can easily stand alone, she likes to add a little cream to it, drizzling a teaspoon or so into each serving so it blossoms over the surface. Crème fraiche is also good as it adds a welcome tartness, and both work to tie the flavors together. If cream isn't in your diet plan, you might stir a spoonful of yogurt into each serving instead, or simply serve it with only the mushroom toasts.

The following are her recipes:

Spinach Soup with Mushroom Toasts

The Soup Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter plus 1 teaspoon olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, peeled and sliced
2 marjoram branches stripped of their leaves, or 1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 bunch spinach, leaves only, about 12 cups packed
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
3 1/2 cups mushroom stock
1 piece of bread, torn into large pieces
Lemon juice or vinegar to taste
1/4 cup cream

The Mushroom Toasts Ingredients
4 ounces mushrooms
1 tablespoon butter
half of a large shallot, finely diced
1 small garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon sherry (optional)
3 to 4 pieces firm country bread

Method:

1. Melt the butter in a wide soup pot until foaming and just starting to brown around the edges. Add the onion, garlic and marjoram and stir frequently as you cook over medium-high heat, wilting the onion and browning it just a little so that you get that good "fried" onion smell, about 5 minutes. Add the spinach and sprinkle with a half-teaspoon salt. When it's wilted down, add the stock. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat so that the liquid just simmers, and cook, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
2. Puree the soup until smooth and return it to the pan. Taste for salt; add lemon juice to taste. Stir in half of the cream.
3. Make the mushroom toasts. Put the mushrooms in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Heat the butter in a medium sized skillet, add the shallot and garlic and cook over medium heat for a minute, then add the mushrooms and raise the heat. Season with a few pinches salt and some pepper then cook, stirring frequently, as the mushrooms release their juices and then start to dry out. Add the sherry and cook several minutes more. Taste for salt. Toast the bread, spread the mushrooms over the top and cut into small pieces. If there are extra mushrooms, add them to the soup.
4. Serve the soup and dribble the remaining cream into each bowl. Grind some pepper over the top and serve. Pass the mushroom toasts.

I love risotto, but not as a main dish, unless something has been done to it to give it form. Here, a lemony risotto is formed into ovals, then shallow-fried until golden and crisp and served over a bed of finely slivered spring vegetables. These croquettes make a lovely supper dish for company and can be made vegan if no butter and eggs are used, although the egg does help bind the rice.

The vegetables needn't be in these quantities. Work with what you have and what pleases you, just as long as everything is thinly sliced. Certainly include fresh English peas or fava beans if you can.

This rice isn't cooked with incremental additions of stock as it is for risotto, but in water and all at once. However, there's no reason not to use leftover risotto for croquettes and fritters. I can easily imagine red wine risotto croquettes with sautéed mushrooms, a summer squash risotto with a tomato concasse, and so forth.

For this dish, a crisp, unoaked Arneis from the Piedmont, such as the Giacosa Arneis, would echo the citrus notes and encompass the vegetables.

The Rice Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter
3 bunches of scallions, including a few inches of the greens, thinly sliced
2 cups risotto rice
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley or basil
1 ball (1/4 pound) fresh mozzarella cheese, diced
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
3 eggs
3 cups bread crumbs
Olive oil for frying

The Vegetables Ingredients
3-tablespoon butter
2 fat leeks, white parts only, halved, cut in to 2-inch lengths and finely slivered
1 pound asparagus, tough ends snapped off, peeled if thick, then slivered, including the tips
2 big handfuls snow peas, slivered
2 handfuls edible-pod peas, slivered
Sea salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons minced parsley, basil, or chervil

Method

1. Bring 1 quart water to a simmer in a 3-quart pan with a tight-fitting lid. Melt the butter in a 10-inch skillet or sauté pan over medium-high heat. When sizzling, add the scallions. Cook, stirring frequently, for about 1 minute; then add the rice, turn to coat it with butter, and cook for a minute or two. Stir in 1/2-teaspoon salt. Add the rice to the simmering water. Cover and cook over low heat for 16 minutes. Remove the lid, and if there's still water present, cook it off. Stir in the lemon zest, parsley, pepper, and cheeses, and then allow the rice to cool in the pan. Stir in one of the eggs.
2. Using a 1/3-cup measure, scoop out the rice and shape it to make oval croquettes.
3. Whisk the remaining eggs in a pie pan. Put the breadcrumbs in another pie pan or plate. Using your left hand, dip each croquette into the egg mixture; then using your right hand, roll it in the crumbs to coat. Set aside on a tray covered with waxed paper until all are made.
4. When ready to eat, preheat the oven to 300 degrees F if you're planning to hold them. Generously coat 2 wide skillets with olive oil. When hot, add the croquettes and cook over medium heat, gently turning them to brown them all over, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer them to a plate and set in the oven while you sauté the vegetables.
5. Heat half the butter until foaming in a wide sauté pan. Add all the slivered vegetables, sprinkled them with salt, and sauté over high heat for about 1 1/2 minutes. Add the lemon juice and remaining butter, shuffling the pan over the heat so that they combine into a sauce. Add the herbs.
6. To serve, divide the vegetables among warm plates, then arrange the fritters attractively on top, allowing 3 per serving.

When cooked, olive oil has a rich and mysterious flavor that's thoroughly enjoyable. This cake is high and handsome, much like a chiffon cake. In fact, call this a chiffon cake -- people often balk at the idea, but not the taste, of an olive oil cake.

Serve this delicate confection with a dessert wine or sherry and accompany with sliced nectarines, pears, berries, and whipped cream flavored with apricot preserves.

Ingredients
5 egg whites, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 egg yolks, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon orange flower water (optional)
finely grated zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/3 cups milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Oil or butter and flour a 10-inch spring-form pan or bundt pan.
2. Beat the whites until they form soft peaks; then gradually add 1/3 cup of the sugar and continue beating until firm peaks are formed. Scrape them into a large bowl and set aside.
3. In the same mixing bowl –don't bother to rinse it - beat the yolks with the remaining sugar until thick and light colored. Lower the speed, add the flavorings, salt, then gradually pour in the oil. The batter will be thick, like mayonnaise. Slowly add the milk, then whisk in the flour and baking powder. Reach thoroughly around the bottom of the bowl to make sure everything is well mixed. Fold the in the egg whites.
4. Bake in the center of the oven for 25 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 325 degrees F. Bake 40 minutes more or until a cake tester comes out clean and the cake has begun to pull away from the sides. (It's better to err on the side of overbaking than underabaking this cake.) Let cool in the pan 10 minutes. Remove the rim or invert, if using a bundt pan, onto a cooling rack. When cool, gently transfer to a cake plate and dust with powdered sugar.

Food Facts
Marjoram: This leafy herb has a mild, sweet, oregano-like flavor and is often used in Mediterranean dishes.

Mushroom Stock: Although familiar with chicken, beef and vegetable broth, many people may not realize that you can buy mushroom stock as well. Madison recommends making your stock, but the store-bought version is also rich and flavorful.

Arborio Rice: As you know, this is the Italian rice used to make risotto. However, Madison's recipe is unusual in that she doesn't make her risotto slowly by adding liquid, allowing it to be absorbed, and then adding more. She dumps all of the rice into simmering water and waits for it to cook. She then adds flavoring and forms the cooled rice into small, oval croquettes.

Fava Beans: Fava beans resemble very large lima beans that must be removed from their inedible pods before eating.