rue and its properties. Was: Re: SC - Re: sca-flavor substitutes

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

Bogdan din Brasov's mongolian food query reminds me to follow up on one of the
first messages I posted to this list: a request for assistance with food to
sell for lunch at an event called “Cossacks,Mongols and Huns”.  When I
volunteered to cook, my mind had fixated on the word Cossacks and I related it
to Russia. My request here for food appropriate to the event title didn’t
really result in anything that quite fit my needs. Stefan probably directed me
to his files, but I was reading from work then and evidently didn't have time
to follow up on the mongolian files he directs Bogdan to. Or my cossack
fixation made me ignore them.  At any rate, my research took me as far as the
Durham county library.  I found there a number of books on Russian cooking.
Most were quite obviously recalling the food of the Czar’s in the 1800’s,
interesting, but not what I wanted. The only recipe noted as being Cossack at
some point in history involved far too much meat to fit my budget!   

With time running short, I finally settled for “Black Bread Soup” from
“Classic Russian Cuisine”, by Alla Sacharow. It fit several of my
requirements: cheap, vegetarian, and being a warming stew that would be a good
seller at a fighting event outdoors in March. This stew falls into murky
non-documentation category of "the peasants had stewpots, so they _could_ have
cooked this".  Even at the time I'd learned better, but it was too late to
start over. The actual recipe follows, my variations  because of availability
and a big OOPS! are listed below.  I mutiplied out to serve 40, and only took
enough home for my family of 4 to have one bowlful each Sunday night.

Black Bread Soup
Sup iz chornovo khleba 

For 4  

2 carrots diced
6 stalks celery, cut in 1 inch pieces
1 parsley root, peeled and diced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 Tablespoon butter
1 quart water
salt, pepper
1/2 pound black bread, sliced, and dried or toasted
1/2 cup dried peas (green or yellow) soaked overnight
1 small black radish
1 carrot
2 stalks celery
6-8 stalks asparagus
1/4 spinach, chopped
1 bunch dill,chopped
1 leek, chopped (white part only)
1 bunch parsley, chopped

Boil  the peas 1 and 1/2 hour, mean while
saute 2 carrots, celery,parsley root and onion in  butter.  Add one quart
water, salt,pepper, and cook 1/2 hour
Add bread to soup pot and simmer an additional hour
Puree the vegetables and bread and return to pot , heat soup again
coarsely grate the radish, carrot and celery, cut asparagus into pieces
add all vegetables to soup with cooked peas.  Cook 10 more minutes
serve garnished with leeks and parsley

Variations, 

I was told parsley root = parsnips and so used them.

I couldn’t find what black radish was, and so also added parsnip to the final
mix of vegetables, as well as the pureed broth.

Asparagus being too expensive for me to keep the serving price I needed, I
left it out. It's usually not to bad in March and I wanted to add a small
amount, but El Nino ruined the early crop according to the grocer.

Rather than garnishing with the leeks, I included them in the chopped veg. 
Garnishing isn't really suitable to serving soup in cups by the listfield.

At the event soup pot simmered all day, being re-filled and brought to a hard
boil now and again, I prepped the soup the night before to the point of adding
the chopped vegetables, then chilled it in containers the same size as my
double boiler.  This kept the vegetables from cooking into a total mush before
serving.  

OOPS!
I managed to leave the peas out of the soup served at the event. I discovered
this only upon returning home on Sunday to find them still soaking! I’d
thought the soup I was serving seemed  to be sticking less and had a little
less body than in my trial run, but the customers liked it fine. It was kind
of sweet, the peas might have balanced this.

thanks for the help at the time and since.

Bonne
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