#not really bread

So it came to pass that it was a food preservation day and I also needed to make dinner, and I was also tired of going out (which I’ve been doing an awful lot lately, which annoys me to basically no end.

Earlier in the week I had gotten out some chicken leg quarters to deal with, and had, in fact, not dealt with them, so it was time to make a fridge-clearing preservation-day soup.

I got the quarters out and covered them with water, and to the water added a squeeze of tomato paste*, some peppercorns, a bay leaf, a carrot, two ribs of celery and an onion that I cut into big chunks. I let it simmer while I did the rest of the stuff.

(The rest of the stuff, since I missed a bunch of entries, including a preservation notes one: a three quarts of applesauce, a quart of pickled asparagus, and a quart of pickled whole small radishes. I didn’t do anything in particular with them other than brine them, and I’ll deal with flavoring them more when I actually use them, which will happen sometime during the long, boring Ohio winter).

While the leg quarters were poaching (and, in the process, putting together the stock), I started some bread. This was going to be a kind of breadstick material that I’ve made before, and comes from blooming some yeast in warm water in the bottom of the mixer. I combined a pile of bread flour with about twice as much AP, then mixed in some salt and some sugar, then mixed that with the yeast/water for a good long mix, until it was combined and kneaded all at once. I set it in a bowl and laid it aside to rise. After about ninety or so minutes, I pulled it out of the bowl (this is the point at which I did all the pickling/applesauce-making) and stretched it out on a sheet pan, then covered it with a towel to rise some more.

At that point the chicken-poaching liquid was stock, so I pulled the chicken out of it, discarded the discardables, and laid the chicken aside to cool. Into the bottom of a dutch oven I got some oil, then a couple of small onions, diced, a couple of carrots, also diced, and a couple more ribs of celery, also (you guessed it) diced. I let them soften, then I added the stalks of some asparagus (I reserved the tips for the end), a bunch (I think six) of garlic scapes, and a whole bag of adult spinach from the farmer’s market. I seasoned the whole thing down and let it all cook until it was soft. I deglazed it with a little bourbon (I was, at the time, also deglazing my tummy with a little bourbon), and then poured the stock over the top of it. When it had fully softened, I pureed the vegetables in the stock, then added whole shelled peas and the asparagus tips.

I shredded the chicken off the bones and add them to the pot, then let it simmer and reduce for awhile.

The bread was done with its second rise eventually, so I brushed it with egg and slid it into the hot oven to bake off. Not much to it there.

I fixed the soup with limes, fish sauce, and worcestershire sauce, then sliced the bread into little breadsticks and had at it.

The problem with fridge-clearing soups is that they rather taste like fridge-clearing soups, and this one wasn’t any different. It was fine - the scapes gave it a nice green quality, and the asparagus ends bittered it up just a little bit, but it still sort of tasted like something I made up out of pieces rather than something that was a finished, composed idea from the get-go. The bread, similarly, wasn’t quite like bread, but rather more like some kind of not-quite bread, a “compromise” bread between an actual loaf and a quick bread**. The individual components were pretty good, but the whole thing wasn’t much to write home about. It got dinner inside me, though, and that’s what’s important.

* I’ve finally made the switch to the tomato paste in the tube. This is long overdue. I feel very special to be up here in the future. Very special.