{"id":1485,"date":"2018-10-27T17:53:15","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T17:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/premesso.com\/?p=1485"},"modified":"2018-10-27T18:02:15","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T18:02:15","slug":"mm-enterprise-cooking-vol-xiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/?p=1485","title":{"rendered":"M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. XIV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Someone leaving post left out some canned organic pumpkin, and having just come from the belpaese<\/em>, where mighty round and gnarled zucce<\/i> are at every produce stand, I knew I had to do something with it. Now, my wife\u2019s true cooking talent, I\u2019m convinced, is in her minestrine, zuppe<\/em> and passate<\/em>. Her version of pumpkin soup is a lot more minimal, but then again, she has access to a level of fresh ingredients that I don\u2019t. But that\u2019s what makes war zone cooking fun.<\/p>\n

I did some research, reading American recipes (heavily spiced<\/a>, creamy<\/a>) and my standby Giallo Zafferano<\/a>, and combined them using what I had to hand. Now, usually, I am usually all for the minimal Italian way, but again, we play by war zone rules here.<\/p>\n

Spiced Pumpkin Soup<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
cooking down the bouillon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I made a soffritto<\/em> with a finely chopped onion, a garlic clove and some fresh grated ginger (I had bummed fresh ginger off the cafeteria \u2014 doctor\u2019s orders for a cold) and the Spanish EVOO. I also added a pat of butter. Once the onions were sweated, I tossed in the brown spices \u2014 a dash of curry, bit of cinnamon \u2014 stirred, and let that come together. I also put in a tiny bit of salt, probably not necessary with the bouillon. Then the can of pumpkin.<\/p>\n

I had boiled up a couple of cups of Better than Bouillon (which makes everything better, I’m convinced) while the soffritto<\/em> came together, and I added about one cup at this point.<\/p>\n

After it had come together a bit, a dash of paprika (went very easy on this one), some herbs de Provence (I\u2019d prefer just straight rosemary, but I\u2019m hoarding it), a tiny dash of white sugar, and \u2014 inspired by one of the American recipes \u2014 a tiny drop of maple syrup. (This also compensated for my lack of nutmeg, which I\u2019ve just remedied with an Amazon order.) I added the other half of the bouillon, some water to thin it, and jacked up the heat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
pasta soaking up the extra moisture<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was still a little watery after fifteen minutes, so I added \u2014 sparingly \u2014 some short pasta, penne and elbows. Again, I\u2019d prefer pastina<\/em>, tiny little ones, but they\u2019re either too pricey or sold in bulk on Amazon, so I\u2019m making do. As I\u2019d learned watching my wife, they do an admirable job as a thickener, soaking up the excess moisture. Don\u2019t add too much or you just end up with pumpkin pasta. I let it go for about fifteen more minutes then let it cool for about five, adding a dash of black pepper, a liberal amount of parmigiano reggiano<\/em> and some excellent BioItalia EVOO<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was very tempting to toss in a bit of milk (and due to good luck at the dining hall, we somehow have whole organic milk from Italy), but that’s extremely un-Italian, and it’s easy to see why with the pasta — that’s your thickener, and the\u00a0grana<\/em> (grated cheese) is your dairy. There was no need.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
final product, grana mixed in<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was worried I\u2019d over-spiced. This level of tinkering goes beyond my usual impulses, but I think going light on everything helped a lot. So did the cooling. It was excellent, velvety and smooth, agrodolce<\/em>, filling on a cool fall night,\u00a0and all it lacked, I think, was some sort of herbed or sage-y pork product on the side \u2014 sausage, a cut of loin, an involtino<\/em>, or perhaps some speck or pancetta. I wished also that I’d had some crusty bread (like pane casareccio<\/em><\/span><\/a>) to either fare la scarpetta\u00a0<\/em>or make into\u00a0crostini<\/em>, but I had to settle for crackers.\u00a0It wasn’t the minimal version of the stuff we ate in Italy, but a fine addition to the war zone repertoire.<\/p>\n

Now. If only someone would leave out another can of pumpkin.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone leaving post left out some canned organic pumpkin, and having just come from the belpaese, where mighty round and gnarled zucce are at every produce stand, I knew I had to do something with it. Now, my wife\u2019s true cooking talent, I\u2019m convinced, is in her minestrine, zuppe and passate. Her version of pumpkin … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. XIV”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[164],"tags":[483,471,396,484],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1485"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1496,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485\/revisions\/1496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/premesso.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}