this post is a continuation of my meal which included my last post – Pork Belly Confit
In an effort to have every phase of my meal come from the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook, I chose a soup course and decided on a salad with a garlic confit vinaigrette as one of the sides for the main course. Neither was difficult, but the decision to cook five recipes from the cookbook in one meal was pure naivety. I was a blur in the kitchen, constantly checking my notes, reading the cookbook, adjusting temperatures on the stove, and prepping like a madman. Next time I will choose two to three at the most.
The night before, when I was doing the brines for the pork and chicken, I also started the garlic confit. All this really means is that I cooked garlic in oil, on the lowest temperature possible, for about 50 minutes. Keller recommends using a diffuser plate to maintain the low, even heat. If you just Googled “diffuser plate”, welcome to the club.
I couldn’t get my electric burner low enough, but my stove does feature a “warming zone” and I ended up using that to maintain the low heat and avoid singing the garlic. I saved the garlic in a container, covered with the oil, then saved the excess oil for cooking use (more on that later).
The salad dressing was simple – I pureed the garlic in my food processor, which actually took a long time because I had to keep scraping down the sides over and over again to achieve the consistency I wanted.
Then I made the salad dressing with champagne vinegar, some fresh herbs, and olive oil.
The greens for the salad were arugula and mustard greens from Peachtree Road Farmer’s Market. I ended up cooking the mustard greens in the garlic confit olive oil, for maybe one minute, then tossed those greens with the arugula and garlic confit dressing. The dressing was fine, but the bitter, hot, awesome arugula stole the show.
I cooked the soup a few hours before dinner. I tried the parchment lid creation method Keller provides, but I must be an idiot (possible), because it never came out right. I gave up on his method and ended up eyeballing it and cutting parchment in a circle, trimming as necessary to make it fit in the pot.
The soup was very easy. The vegetables were cooked for a while, then cream and milk were added, then I finally pureed it in batches in a blender. It took a fair amount of salt to season it properly.
When it was close to time to serve, we started the croutons, which was just torn pieces of an Italian loaf, slow cooked in the garlic confit oil and butter. That garlic oil rocks. I recommend making the confit so you have the oil around for everything. Oh, and the super tender, spreadable garlic is great for lots of uses.
The other garnish for the soup is thin sliced, fried beet chips.
The resulting soup is presented wonderfully.
another few photos from Savory Exposure
The soup was very creamy, with prominent cauliflower flavor (I realize that sounds stupid, but I just mean the cream didn’t overpower the vegetable), and the hint of leek was noticeable. The beet chips and croutons were a nice touch, and I plan on using my extra beets to make chips for other dishes. They are packed full of flavor and make a great garnish.
