Tomato Basil Soup from The Country Club Bar and Grill

 

I mentioned last week that I have been going through old recipes. This is one that I had cut out of the newspaper back in 2019. I happen to be a fan of tomato soup – all kinds – so I am never one to pass up a new recipe. This was published in the food section of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 24, 2019, in the “Special Request” column wherein people ask for recipes for dishes that they’ve enjoyed at local restaurants. Some restaurants participate, others don’t. This recipe is from an establishment called The Country Club Bar and Grill. I’ve never been there, so I can’t say if the end result is as good as what they offer in the restaurant, but it was certainly tasty.

I found this recipe to be a rather interesting one in its assemblage (if that’s the right word) of the soup. I had to wonder why they warmed up the half-and-half and troubled themselves to temper it when they could have just as easily used heavy cream (that requires no tempering) and skip that step. Nonetheless, I tend to stick to the recipe as written the first time I make something.

As in most cases, I found the soup was better the second day. I also found that a tiny squeeze of lemon juice brightens the flavor a little bit, so I served mine with a little lemon wedge on the side.

Tomato Basil Soup

The Country Club Bar and Grill

 2 to 3 c. water

6 c. premium marinara sauce*

2 c. half-and-half

3 T. chopped fresh purple basil

¼ c. plus 2 T. grated Parmesan cheese

3 T. granulated garlic

Kosher salt to taste

6 T. finely chopped leaves of flat-leaf Italian parsley

6 T. shredded pecorino

 Place the water in an instant kettle or in a small pot on the stove and heat to a boil. Maintain it at a low simmer.

 While the water heats, pour the marinara sauce into a 4- or 5-quart saucepan over medium heat until it just begins to bubble. Reduce heat to medium low.

 Place the half-and-half in a small mixing bowl. Temper the half-and-half by adding ¾- to 1-cup of hot sauce, stirring slowly until it incorporates. This step prevents the soup from curdling. Slowly pour the tempered half-and-half into the hot sauce, stirring as you pour.

 Add the chopped basil and granulated garlic into the soup. Stir thoroughly, down to the bottom of the pot. Cook uncovered over medium-low heat for 15 minutes.

 Add the Parmesan cheese and stir well, scraping the bottom and the sides of the pan.

 Add hot water gradually to the hot soup, ½ cup at a time, stirring down to the bottom, until the desired consistency is reached. You will probably not use all of the water but keep it at the ready to add if needed. For the test, we added 2 cups total.

 Reduce heat to low. Simmer for an additional 12 to 15 minutes, stirring often, down to the bottom and around the edges. Taste. Add salt if needed. Remove from the burner to a warm place, cover and let rest 5 to 10 minutes.

Top with chopped parsley and grated pecorino.

 Yield: 6 servings

 *I used Rao’s Tomato Basil.

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Favazza’s Steak Mudega

One of our favorite restaurants in town is Favazza's on The Hill. It is a consistently wonderful, enormously friendly eatery in the quaint Italian part of St. Louis known to locals as “The Hill” (it's really more of an incline than a hill, if truth be told, but who am I to judge?). Their Steak Mudega is one I routinely order and have always enjoyed, so I was very pleased to see the recipe for this dish in last week's food section of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It's not a difficult dish to prepare when you do your prep work in advance as I did. I also seasoned the heck out of the Italian Bread Crumbs to give the steak a lot of delicious flavor. As often happens, my version wasn't nearly as good as the excellent one served at the restaurant, but it did make for a very special midweek meal.

Favazza’s Steak Mudega

Yield: 4 servings

For the sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, divided use

3 ounces thinly sliced Volpi* prosciutto, diced

12 ounces button mushrooms, sliced 1/3-inch thick

4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1¼ cups white table wine (not sweet, not dry)

2 cups chicken broth

Salt, black pepper and white pepper to taste

For the steaks

4 (8-ounce) center cut filet mignon

¼ cup olive oil

Italian breadcrumbs seasoned with flour, granulated garlic, salt, white pepper, parsley and “lots of love”

4 (1-ounce) slices St. Louis-style cheese such as Provel**

Freshly chopped parsley

Make the sauce. In a large, heavy skillet, heat oil and 6 tablespoons butter until shimmery on medium high heat. Add prosciutto and saute until dark and crispy, taking care to avoid burning. Stir in mushrooms and cook about halfway, just until turning tender. Sprinkle mushrooms with flour, stir in.   

Deglaze skillet with wine, bring to a boil, let reduce by about half. (Timing wise, start cooking steaks now.) Add broth, bring to a boil, let reduce by half to a syrupy consistency. Stir in remaining butter to thicken the sauce. Season with salt and peppers, remembering the prosciutto is already salty. If needed, keep warm.

Cook the steaks. Dip steaks in olive oil, dredge in bread crumbs. Cook steaks on grill to desired doneness; add a slice of Provel for last 2 minutes.

To serve Favazza’s-style, arrange steaks on a plate; surround and top with sauce. Sprinkle with parsley.

*This is a local brand. If you don’t have Volpi in your area, just buy the best quality that you can find.

**There’s no substitute for St. Louis’s own Provel cheese, but provolone might work.

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Katie's Pizza Cannellini Bean Dip

The first thing I do when I get the Wednesday paper is head for the Food Section, and open it up to the Special Request recipe for the week (a local restaurant recipe requested by a happy customer, and kindly supplied by the restaurateur). A couple of weeks ago the recipe looked rather dull. I sighed. Mr. O-P peered at me over the top of the Sports Section.

“Is it disappointing this week?” he asked.

“Cannellini Bean Dip,” I replied.

“What's in it?” he asked, grumbling over last night's losing score.

“Essentially beans, garlic, and lemon juice. How can that possibly be any good? The requester said it was 'addicting’.”

He pulled a face. “Sounds rather insipid,” he offered, and then added, “How many cans should I get?”

Am I that transparent? I directed him to get only one can because I had decided to cut both the recipe and my losses in half. This just had to be bland, and I didn't want to waste anything more than was necessary, and I was going to use crackers that I had on hand rather than spring for pita chips, or try to make my own from pizza dough. This recipe, I reasoned, could not possibly be worth the effort to do more.

Boy, was I wrong.  It is delicious, and addicting? Oh, yeah! Frankly, I couldn't believe it. Neither of us could. It was just too quick, too easy, and too inexpensive to be anything exceptional, and yet, it was. Step aside hummus (Unless, of course, it is Basil Hummus!) and make way for Cannellini Bean Dip. Yummy!

Katie's Pizza Cannellini Bean Dip

As seen in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

1 large clove garlic

2 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

2½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon salt

½ tablespoon pepper

Kalamata olives and fresh basil, for serving

Freshly baked pizza points or pitas, for serving (I just used crackers and it was still delish)

In a food processor, mince garlic until fine.  Add beans, oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and process until smooth and creamy but still retaining some texture.

Cover and refrigerate to allow flavors to meld for a minimum of 4 hours.

To serve Katie’s Pizza-style, fill 2 small ramekins with bean dip, top each ramekin with 3 kalamata olives and a basil leaf. Place ramekins on each end of a rectangular platter, mounding pizza points between.

Yield: Makes 2 generous cups

Sugarfire Pie's Signature Pie

Mr. O-P knows Latin and, like most men, he loves to regale me with his wisdom. So much so that if I hear the phrase “De gustibus non est disputandum” one more time, I'm going to whap him a good one. Directly translated it means “about tastes, it must not be disputed/discussed,” the implication being that everyone's personal preferences are merely subjective opinions that can be neither right nor wrong.  No better example do I have of this than with the making of this pie.

As mentioned yesterday, I am a bit leery when it comes to “special request” recipes.  You know the ones. They are for dishes at local restaurants that people enjoy, and so write in to magazines or newspapers to request the recipe in the hopes of having them published so that they can make this much-enjoyed item in their own homes.

A couple of weeks ago someone requested the recipe for Sugarfire Smokehouse's Pie Shop's Signature Pie (are you still with me?), and it was published in all its sweet glory. I am not a pie person per se, but I know a lot of people who are, one in particular who was coming to join us for dinner and baseball last week, so as treat I made this pie. A seasoned cook and baker, I was a bit leery of the 2-1/2 cups of sugar called for, but against my better judgment, made it exactly as written. If you have ever eaten brown sugar out of the box (and I actually have done, so I know whereof I speak), it wouldn't have been as sweet at this pie. Cloying seems too kind a word. People managed to get it down, followed by gallons of hot coffee, but I heard the words “tooth achingly sweet,” “like eating pralines in pie form,” and “was like eating pure sugar.” 

I bid my guests goodbye along with my profuse apologies and a coupon for 50 cents off a tube of Crest, and then set immediately to work writing a letter to the food editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to tell her that, clearly, a mistake had been made. Within 24 hours I received a reply and was told that, no, the recipe was 100% correct. So I took to social media to warn people against making this pie. Much to my surprise I was met by a lot of comments from Sugarfire defenders telling me that this delicious, Momofuko-type clone was their favorite pie and that they were addicted to it. Okay!

Now, I am a fan of Sugarfire. Their brisket sandwich is the stuff of which dreams are made; their coffee barbecue sauce so heavenly delicious that I was the one who wrote in to request that recipe, got it, and shared it with you here. So for those of you who have a sweet tooth that will not quit, I offer you this recipe for a pie that some deem so good as to become habit forming. This is the first time in my near five years of blogging that I have ever published a recipe for an item that I myself will not eat, but what can I say? De gustibus non est disputandem. Make it at your own risk, and don't say I didn't warn you.Sugarfire Pie's Signature Pie 

For the crust 

Vanilla wafers, enough to make 1 ½ cups crumbs

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

For the filling

1 cup granulated sugar

1½ cups dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal

½ teaspoon salt

4 large egg yolks

¼ cup heavy cream

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Make the crust. Grind vanilla wafers in a food processor to yield 1 ½ cups crumbs. In a bowl, stir together crumbs and 6 tablespoons butter until crumbly. With your hands, press into a 9-inch metal disposable pie pan. Do not bake.

Make the filling. With an electric mixer on low speed to avoid adding air, combine sugars, cornmeal and salt, then egg yolks, cream and vanilla. Add ½ cup butter and mix until fully incorporated.

Pour filling into crust. Bake for about 30 minutes until the top is round and puffy. To test for doneness, gently shake the pie: It should be a little jiggly in the center, not at the edges.

Let cool, then refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

To serve Sugarfire Pie-style, sprinkle pie with powdered sugar and cut in 6 to-be-shared slices.

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