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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Gioia's Chicken Salad

In the middle of last summer, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a recipe for an area deli’s chicken salad. I like chicken salad, and I try a lot of recipes, but I didn’t pay too much attention to this one, figuring, fruits and nuts notwithstanding, one is pretty much like the other. After a friend told me that this was her most favorite chicken salad, I had to give it a try.

It’s good, very good. It’s not all that much different from a lot of the recipes that I’ve tried, with the exception of two things: celery seed and lemon pepper seasoning. These two seemingly insignificant additions, made a significant difference in flavor, making this my new favorite as well.  Try this recipe and see for yourself.

Gioia's Chicken Salad

Gioia’s Deli, St. Louis, MO

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

1 ½ pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts

¼ to ½ cup chicken stock or water

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 cup finely diced celery

¾ cup finely diced red onion

2¼ teaspoons celery salt (or more to taste)

1 teaspoon Melissa’s Lemon Pepper Grinder

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¾ cup mayonnaise (Gioia’s uses Duke’s mayonnaise), more if needed

Notes: Although Gioia’s bakes the chicken breasts for this salad, you can use approximately 4 cups of chopped white meat chicken poached or from a rotisserie chicken.

The unique texture of Gioia’s chicken salad comes from baking the breasts in liquid, adding lemon juice and from hand mixing the pieces together. The methods allow the chicken pieces to soften and the mayonnaise absorbs better over all the pieces.

Although you can use any mayonnaise, Gioia’s uses Dukes, which contains no sugar, has a tangy flavor and a rich consistency. Once a southern cooking staple, it is now widely available in local grocery stores.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Lightly coat the bottom of a baking dish with nonstick allow the air to circulate.

Pour enough broth or liquid into the pan to cover the bottom of the pan to a depth of ¼-inch. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until the internal temperature 160ºF. Remove from the oven to a cooling rack and let rest for 10 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 165ºF.

When the meat is cool enough to handle, remove the chicken to a cutting board, discard pan juices, and cut into a ½-inch dice. Place diced chicken in a large mixing bowl. Add the lemon juice. Using gloves, toss the chicken with your hands to incorporate the juices throughout. Add the celery and onion. Whisk celery salt, lemon pepper and fresh ground pepper together and add to the bowl. Toss the salad with your hands to evenly incorporate all. Add the mayonnaise to the chicken mixture, and work it in with your gloved hands. The chicken salad shouldn’t be heavy and should just hold together. If needed, add mayonnaise in small increments to reach desired consistency.

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Not Quite Cleveland Heath’s Brussels Sprouts

On the east side of St. Louis in the state of Illinois lies a town called Edwardsville. It is home to many things including a restaurant called Cleveland Heath. Cleveland Heath is good quality indeed, and is known for their Brussels sprouts. I find this significant. How many restaurants do you know that even serve Brussels sprouts, let alone are known for them?

Recently, their recipe appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and I cut it out. When I read the recipe I saw that their beautiful, fresh Brussels sprouts were fried in cooking oil. Blasphemy! I’m not a fan of anything fried in oil. They also wanted you to clean them (of course), halve them, fry them, flip them…this is way too much trouble for the everyday cook.

Because I find Brussels sprouts to be tremendously good simply roasted, and Melissa’s to be uniformly small and tender, I combined my roasted version and favorite brand of sprout, with their sauce, and came up with the perfect combination of the two.

Not Quite Cleveland Heath’s Brussels Sprouts
Adapted from Cleveland Heath, Edwardsville, IL 

8 oz. fresh Melissa’s Brussels Sprouts
1 T. good olive oil
Salt and freshly ground cracked pepper

Sauce*
2 T. good olive oil
1 T. fresh lemon juice
1 Melissa’s medium shallot, finely chopped
1 T. capers
2 T. freshly grated Parmesan

Preheat oven to 400° F. Toss Brussels sprouts in oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 minutes.

While sprouts are roasting, make sauce; set aside.

In a small bowl, combine olive oil, lemon juice, shallots, and capers. Toss with roasted Brussels sprouts, salt, and pepper to taste. Place into a serving dish, top with Parmesan cheese, and serve hot.

*This sauce was so tremendously good, by the way, that I made some up separately to use to dip Italian bread. Yummy!

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For a more elaborate use of Brussels Sprouts, try Angel Hair Pasta with Brussels Sprouts and Bacon.

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River City Casino Beer Cheese Soup

I am not a fan of beer. I don't like beer, or ale, or stout, or porter. In fact, anything that tastes even remotely yeast-y or hoppy, is just not for me. I do, however, like the warm ale cheese dip that has become quite popular in local pubs, and is served with warmed, freshly baked pretzels.

When I saw this recipe in the Post-Dispatch for Beer Cheese Soup (a product of executive chef John Johnson and served in the Beerhouse, one of St. Louis's River City Casino's five eateries), I was intrigued. I had all of the ingredients on hand, and it looked easy. It was! Not only that, but I really liked it. The beer flavor is strong, but not off putting, even for a confirmed beer hater like me. The Casino serves theirs with hot house-made pretzel sticks. I just grabbed for the box of frozen Super Pretzels, baked one up, and served it with the soup. It was wonderful and strongly reminiscent of what I enjoy in area pubs.

The recipe is very forgiving. I decided to make half the amount, so started off that way by melting half of the called for butter, but then lost track of what I was doing and used the full amount of carrot, onion, and celery, before halving everything else. It was still wonderful, so, when I make it again, will do the same thing.

River City Casino Beer Cheese Soup

Yield: 7 cups

8 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup diced carrot

1 tablespoon diced onion

1 tablespoon diced celery

Granulated garlic, to taste

Kosher salt, to taste

Black pepper, to taste

White pepper, to taste

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2-1/4 cups 1904 Beer (I used Guinness)

3 cups half-and-half

1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire

Tabasco, to taste

8 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese

Milk, if needed, to thin

In a large, heavy pot, melt butter on medium heat until sizzling. Stir in carrot, onion and celery and sauté, stirring occasionally, until vegetables turn soft without turning color. As they cook, season with garlic, salt and both peppers.

Stir in flour and let cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 to 2 minutes to cook off floury taste.

A quarter cup at a time at first, stir in beer, incorporating each addition before adding another. Bring mixture to a boil.

Stir in half-and-half, Worcestershire and Tabasco. Bring just to a boil but do not allow to boil. Stir in cheese, let melt. Taste and adjust seasoning. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Reheat, adding milk to thin if needed.

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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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