Cauliflower Fennel Pecan Soup with Olive Oil Honey and Thyme Biscuits

There have been a lot of biscuits around the house lately. I have had an acute, late winter baked goods craving which I have been satisfying quite effectively with a succession of biscuit test sessions thank you very much. It's a good thing that the luscious, silky, and strangely creamy soup that accompanies the biscuits is a low-carb dream come true. And, it's insanely easy to make.

Do you get into fennel? I dig fennel a lot, but this soup doesn't hit you over the head with fennel flavor. The fennel, shallot, pecan, and cauliflower form a perfectly harmonized quartet which, combined with the biscuits, is reminiscent of biscuits and gravy. The tender, hearty, and somewhat addictive biscuits also play the roll of a dumplings when plopped down in the center of the puree. It's a good combo. Really good.

I've been making a cauliflower, pecan, and fresh thyme soup for clients for years, but I decided to shake it up, marry fennel to the cauliflower, and move the thyme to a biscuit. There is no need to purchase the more pricey whole pecans since the soup will be blended. Pecan pieces will do just fine. Take the time to slowly soften the fennel, shallot, and garlic, avoiding any browning that might introduce bitter flavors. This soup is all about soft and buttery. Don't forget to save some or all of those feathery fennel leaves to garnish or add to the soup.

The pecans mingle with the olive oil and veggies for a few minutes and toast slightly in the oil. The liquid, sliced cauliflower, and sea salt go into the pot next to simmer. Using water is perfect in this recipe and produces lovely, clean flavors. If you choose to use stock, use a mild home-made stock that won't overpower or muddy the vegetables in the soup.

After the soup has simmered, the pecans and all vegetables should be quiet soft. Just puree the soup until it is as perfectly smooth as possible, check the salt level, and season with sherry vinegar. If you don't have sherry vinegar on hand, I would suggest white balsamic or rice vinegar as substitutes. Chopping all of the beautiful fennel greens and adding them to the soup is also a great option, as well as finishing the soup with just a touch fresh ground white or black pepper.

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And now for the biscuits....

These little babies, or a multitude of variations, are going to be a new go-to recipe in my kitchen. Inspired by a number of olive oil biscuit recipes I found, and an effective and easy folding technique gleaned from the heartofabaker.com blog, I crafted these little bites to satisfy in both taste and texture. The dough is soft and supple, barely pulled together, gently rolled and gently folded several times to produce a flaky, layered texture.

Greedily, I wanted more pecans even after including them in the soup, so I added finely pulsed pecans to the dough along with the fresh thyme and honey. I also prefer the texture and nuttier taste of whole wheat pastry flour, so I used half whole wheat pastry flour and half all purpose flour. This produced the perfect texture for me, not too cloyingly doughy and not too dense. Keep a light touch with the dough and you will get great results.

Get your oven hot ahead of time because these come together fast. Don't sweat the perfection of the folding. Roll minimally, keep the work surface and the dough floured, gently fold in thirds lengthwise, flip, turn and repeat two more times, then bake! Make them just before serving if possible because they are killer plopped right into the soup straight out of the oven. Enjoy!

Easy Peasy!

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Cauliflower Fennel Pecan Soup with Olive Oil Honey and Thyme Biscuits

For the Soup:

• 1 C Shallot, red or yellow, thinly sliced
• 1 C Fennel, thinly sliced
• 2 Lg Cloves garlic
• 1/3 C Extra virgin olive oil
• 1 C Pecan pieces
• 1/4 C Mirin
• 1 Lb Cauliflower, sliced in 1/2 inch thick chunks
• 6 C Water or stock
• 2 Tsp Sea salt
• 1 Tsp Sherry vinegar
• *Optional: fresh ground pepper

Peel and slice the shallots about 1/8th inch thick. Halve the fennel and slice it 1/8th inch thick as well. Reserve the fine, tender fennel leaves for garnishing whole or chopped like dill. You may also chop the fine leaves and incorporate them with the soup after blending.

Choose a heavy bottomed soup pot (at least 4 qt.), and saute the shallot, fennel, and garlic with the olive oil over low-medium heat until the vegetables are soft and becoming translucent. Do not allow the fennel and onion to brown. This will take about 10 minutes. Add the pecans and saute for an additional 4 minutes. Add the mirin and allow the liquid to reduce for 2 minutes. Now add the water or stock and salt and bring to a boil. Cover the pot, reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes.

After simmering, the vegetables should be very tender. Puree the soup until it is completely smooth and silky. Check the salt level and add the sherry vinegar. Add fresh ground pepper to taste.

Yield: 7 1/2 C, about 6 servings

For the Biscuits:

• 1/2 C plus 2 Tbsp Whole wheat pastry flour (also extra for dusting)
• 1/2 C All purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp Finely chopped or processed pecans
• 2 Tbsp Corn starch
• 2 Tsp Roughly chopped fresh thyme
• 3/4 Tsp Baking powder
• Scant 1/2 Tsp Sea salt
• 1/2 C Almond milk (or milk of choice)
• 1/4 C Extra virgin olive oil
• 1 Tbsp Honey, liquid
• 1/2 Tsp Apple cider vinegar

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flours, pecans, corn starch, thyme, baking powder, and sea salt. Mix these together well with a whisk. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. In a small bowl mix together the almond milk, olive oil, honey, and apple cider vinegar. Pour the wet ingredients into the well in the dry, and use a spatula to just barely bring together a wet dough. Turn the dough out onto a smooth, well floured surface. Gently shape the dough to form a very soft ball.

Gently roll the dough into a rectangular shape about 3/4 inch thick. Fold the dough in thirds lengthwise to create three layers. Turn the dough 90 degrees and flip the folded side down. Now repeat the process two more times, being careful to work the dough as little as possible.

When you have made the third fold and rolled the dough to 3/4 inch for the last time. Cut the dough in six,  once cut lengthwise and two cuts across. Transfer the biscuits to a sheet pan with parchment paper, leaving at least two inches between biscuits. Bake for 18 minutes. The biscuits should turn golden brown and will have puffed up a little when they are done. Check them at 16 minutes in case your oven runs hot.

Remove the biscuits and serve immediately in the center of the soup. Garnish with the fennel leaves.

The soup and biscuits recipe serves six.

Heirloom Tomato Lentil Soup with Fennel and Fresh Basil

I would like to introduce you to a delicious and versatile little lentil. The Puy lentil! Firm, fast cooking, and fit for soups, stews, and salads alike, Puy lentils are a must in the pantry. Oh, some of you have already met? Then hopefully this will inspire you to put this recipe, or your own version, into your rotation during this end of summer/beginning of autumn season.

About the produce: I got my hands on some beautiful orange heirloom tomatoes at the Dallas Farmers Market. Meaty and sweet with tender skins, perfect for big chunks in soup. My basil seems to reach its peak in August and September...reaching into October last year as well. So, it's got to be used! Now, speaking of fennel, it is the "secret ingredient" in this soup and many of my recipes because it adds a wonderful, often mysterious undertone to soups, sauces and stews. For folks not accustomed to eating or cooking with this sturdy, crisp, and slightly anise flavored vegetable, don't let that last part throw you. The anise flavored part. You will be familiar with it from sausages containing fennel seeds and shaved salads, you just may not know it! So, let's get crackin'.

Puy, or French lentils as they are also called, are a beautiful green-brown sometimes with a slightly pinkish blush. They have a mottled pattern and are quite small. The beauty of these lentils is their integrity. They hold together like no other. That makes them a perfect choice for lentil salads in which you can mix them with grains, pasta, or vegetables and they wont disintegrate to mush. If you would like a softer lentil in this soup, feel free to switch to a green or brown lentil instead. You can also cook the Puy lentils longer if you like. You are in command of your pot!

I can't encourage you enough to make your own stock on a regular basis. Here is how I make it painless. I keep a couple of zip lock bags in the door of my freezer. Anytime I have worthy scraps, I toss them into the bag after prepping veggies. I have two bags so that I can make stock with different flavor profiles. One would be include grated shreds of ginger, ends of lemon grass, maybe shiitake among the usual veggie bits. The other may have the additional rind of hard cheeses like parmigiano reggiano, pecorino, grana padano etc. along with the usual veggie scraps.

When you have a lazy Sunday, pop a pot on in the morning, simmer those veggies an hour or so with the possible addition of bay leaf, peppercorns, extra garlic, fresh herbs like thyme, rosemary or parsley or firm sea vegetables like kombu. Don't forget corn cobs during corn season! You just want to avoid members cruciferous vegetables because they can impart a bitter flavor to stock. Freeze the stock in freezer bags or pint and quart containers, label them and have flavor on hand for all recipes that call for liquid additions. Easy.

Now, on building a soup, because that's what you do, you BUILD a soup from the ground up. Cooked soups whether served hot or cold, almost always need to be built in a certain way. Raw soups are a different animal altogether. You start with the flavor base which consists of vegetables of many sorts. This has many names, mirepoix, soffrito, saute or a sear of veggies to get a caramelized flavor. Vegetables, flavorful roots and bulbs, spices and dried herbs and often pastes are cooked in a specific order to create a flavor base that is well infused into the fat used in the recipe. This makes all the difference. If you are putting together a stew, a long braise, or a soup, you will want to pay attention to layered construction of flavors. Dried herbs and spices belong in the foundation stage, fresh herbs and fresh seasonings like basil or lemon zest and juice, are best added at the end of cooking. You will find exceptions, but theses are good rules to follow.

Perfection isn't the name of the game when prepping soups and stews. Just consistency and consideration of the qualities of the foods you are using. Fennel, onion and garlic go into the initial saute so I made sure the fennel, which is hard more like a carrot, is diced a little smaller to speed up its softening. If you want big chunks of fennel be my guest! Just give it extra time. Hefty, firm, tender-skinned tomatoes chopped in big chunks won't break up in the soup as quickly and the tender skins wont come off in leathery little bits. If it's the heart of winter and you *forgot* to put up all those tomatoes from your garden, substitute your favorite grocery canned tomato instead and add them when you add the lentils.

I am pretty sure I was watching Lydia Bastianich whip up something delicious on television years ago and when I learned the technique of frying the tomato paste. If it works for Lydia, it works for me.

I almost didn't want to mix this together it was so pretty. That final punch of basil and balsamic vinegar for acid make the soup complete.

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Heirloom Tomato Lentil Soup with Fennel and Fresh Basil

Ingredients:

• I C dry Puy (French) lentils
• 3 C heirloom tomato, large dice
• 1 C fennel, small dice
• 1 C onion, small dice
• 5 medium garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 C extra virgin olive oil
• 3 Tbsp tomato paste
• 2 Tsp dried thyme
• 2 Tsp dried basil
• 1 Tsp dried oregano
• 2 C vegetable stock or water
• 2 1/2 Tsp sea salt
• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 20 large leaves fresh basil, roughly chopped

Begin by sorting through the lentils to remove any wayward stones or debris. In a small pot, rinse the lentils several times and cover them in 3 to 4 inches of water. Bring the lentils to a low boil and cook for 30-35 minutes or until just tender but not falling apart. You may want to cook them with the lid on but slightly uncovered to reduce evaporation and the chance that you might have to add a little more water to the pot. Monitor the water level in case you need to add more during cooking.

When the lentils are done, drain them, reserving the cooking liquid if you are not using stock or if you would like to substitute cooking liquid for part of the stock. Set the lentils aside.

Chop the tomatoes to a large dice and set aside.  Chop one cup of the fennel and onion to small dice as well. I made my fennel even smaller than the onion as it is a little harder and will take slightly longer to soften. Mince 5 medium sized garlic cloves. Use a heavy bottomed pot no smaller than 3 quarts to begin sauteeing the fennel, onion and garlic with the olive oil over medium to medium high heat. Stir regularly until the onions are just translucent and the fennel has softened. There should be no browning.

Push the saute to the side of the pan and add the tomato paste to the other side, frying it in the oil for about two minutes. You can turn the heat up slightly to get the paste to fry. It may stick slightly to the bottom of the pan and that's good. It's caramelizing slightly and infusing the oil. Next add the dried herbs and mix this soup base completely together for about two minutes.

Now add the stock or combination of stock/water/cooking liquid, the cooked lentils, and the salt. Bring the soup up to a simmer for 5 minutes. Finish the soup by removing the pot from the heat, adding the chopped tomato, fresh basil and balsamic vinegar. The tomato will just soften in the hot soup. Enjoy!

Yield: 6 cups/ 6 servings

Keep the soup in the fridge up to 7 days.