Autumn Chill

We've had a solid week of rain here in Sydney. Autumn technically starts in OZ on the 1st of March, not on the equinox, only a week past. This year, however, the 21st was marked by a discernible shift in the weather, with cooler mornings, damp days, and the emergence of yellow on the tips of a noticeable number of leaves. The timing of this phenomenon is partly coincidence, I know, but it is satisfying nonetheless that the local weather seems to keep exact pace with the movements of the Earth on it's axis. And all this cool weather has me itching to pull out the cold weather dishes. When flipping through my cookery books, I find myself pausing longingly at photos of braised veal shanks, roast pheasant, and slow cooked pork. I'm already obsessing about the rich, sticky foods I can cook once the ambient air temperature drops; thinking of bone marrow and sticky sauces and glazes and such. And then I remembered soup.

Soup, that summer-month-afterthought. It's the forgotten child of the winter months, the one who makes the surprise and often awkward appearance at a warm evening's meal served up as vichyssoise or gazpacho, like meeting a past lover whom you're now a bit embarrassed to know.

Now, however, as the rains hit day eight, soup comes storming back in, triumphantly, declaring victory with a petulant “I knew you'd be back.”



And I am back. The first hint of a crisp morning had me wondering when I might put French onion soup on my lunch menu. I've already been fretting about what kind of chowder will grace the winter specials board: Smoked mussel and corn? Vongole and house-cured bacon? Smoked haddock and peas? I wonder if the customers will go for the warm tomato consommé or if a lentil, leek, and ham hock affair is safer. Hell, when should I roll out that Australian favorite, pumpkin soup?

All this soup ruminating has me thinking about slow simmers and I'm reminded of an article I read once about the nature of ideas and inspiration. It was focused on discovering where all the good ideas come from. The crux of the article was that great ideas, don't simply pop into peoples' heads. Rather they evolve there over great amounts of time coupled with a lifetime of training in a related field. In other words, if you are an auto mechanic, your chances of suddenly, whilst changing an oil filter, answering the mathematical P vs NP Problem are not so great. Charles Darwin, for example, spent half his professional life wondering how species came into being before he developed his theory of natural selection.

This is, in a tenuous link, the very way the recipe for this week's post came about. I often recall, when thinking of soup, one of my favorite meals (and I don't say that lightly), a shrimp gumbo served to me by a street vendor on a pier somewhere in San Fransisco in dense, mid evening, late autumn fog. The spicy soup was ladled into a sourdough bread bowl, which I devoured at the end, and I've not since had quite such a confluence of flavor, atmosphere, and attitude.

Add to this memory a dash or two of chili addiction, a decade-long mental simmer surrounding the combination of pork and shellfish, and my love of bright, sharp soup flavors. Out came this soup – veggies and black beans, clams and hot chorizo. The result is a soup that finds itself somewhere between gumbo and minestrone.

Look, I'm not saying that my soup is some kind of genius invention, only that it has been slowly ticking over on my personal back burner years. A rainy day dislodged it and made it an actual meal, but it's been cooking for quite some time. No “eureka” moment here. Damn tasty nevertheless.



Clam, Chorizo, and Black Bean Soup

You can substitute any of the root veggies here. I suggest sweet ones; they complement the pork nicely.

500g clams (any variety will do)
2 hot Spanish chorizo
½ c dried black beans (or 1 tin cooked black beans, drained and rinsed)
300g tomatoes (about two large tomatoes)
1 dutch cream potato (or similar variety)
1 medium swede (that's what they call a rutabaga Down Under)
1 carrot
1 small leek
2 cloves garlic
1 stick celery
2c fish stock
2 sprigs thyme
1 Tbsp chopped coriander

First, cook the beans. Soak the dried beans overnight. Cover the beans with a generous amount of water in a pot and bring them to a simmer. Simmer gently until soft but still firm – about 2 hours. Transfer to a tray to cool, mixing in one sprig of thyme and seasoning liberally while they are still hot.

Next steam open the clams. Heat a medium sized pot on high heat until it is quite hot. Toss in the clams and then immediately add ½ cup of the fish stock and cover with a tight-fitting lid. Steam for 2-3 minutes, until the majority of the clams open. Strain over a bowl, reserving the liquid. Cool the clams and remove the meat from most of the shells, keeping a few aside in their shells for presentation. Discard any clams that do not open. Strain the reserved liquid through a cloth to remove any bits of shell or sand.

Dice the chorizo into 1cm cubes. Toss the chorizo with a bit of oil and place in a cold pan. Put the pan on low heat and gently render the chorizo, stirring frequently, until it browns and crisps and a good deal of fat comes out. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and cool. Keep the rendered fat in the pan.

Split the leek lengthwise and wash out any sand. Slice the white thinly, discarding the darkest green bits. Dice the celery stick into ½cm cubes. Finely chop the garlic. Combine the leek, celery, and garlic and gently cook it in the pan with the rendered chorizo fat until the leek is sweet and soft but does not color. The celery will still be a bit crunchy. Add the reserved clam liquid and the remainder of the fish stock and bring to a simmer. Cook until the celery is just soft.

Meanwhile, cook the remaining vegetables. Peel the swede and carrot. Dice the swede, carrot, and potato into 1cm cubes. Cook each separately in salted boiling water until they are just soft, but not at all mushy. Drain.

Add the cooked root veggies to the pot with the stock. Bring just to a simmer. Add the leaves from one sprig of thyme, taste, and adjust seasoning. Drop in the clams and the chorizo and simmer for one minute to warm through. Serve with a sprinkle of chopped coriander.