Souperdouper Pictures! Finally!

My XD card reader reappeared sometime last week (or so), but that whole uploading photos thing just happened. And, while it's old news, I made the effort to take picture while cooking, so dammit, I'm going to post about it!

All of the photos I took during prep are now on Flickr, so don't be shy - check them out!

So... my basic order of operations were:


Start boiling mint, water, sugar together to create a mint simple syrup. The original soup recipe I used as a reference added yogurt to the soup, but my mini test batch resulted in yummy, but mainly fruit yogurt. So, having my large container of yogurt that I wasn't going to otherwise eat, I thought mint would be a nice counterbalance to the sweet. Mint simple syrup + yogurt = problem solved. More complex flavors, less waste! Let the stuff cool on the counter once boiled - it never thickened much for me, but I don't seem to have luck with my syrups.


Then, on to the fruit. Basically, I hulled and chopped one one pound container of berries at a time, and was able to get them pureed in two batches on my little baby Magic Bullet. Each batch was strained through my mesh strainer - a step I didn't want to do at first but I was SO glad I did. Once all six pounds were pureed, I divided the one big batch, in the giant aluminum tray, into two trays, to equally add the massive amounts of vinegar.


(That's before dividing, adding vinegar.)

From there, basically I had to figure out how many ounces of liquid I had, and how much watermelon I needed to puree. It was all an eyeballing game. I was so worried about having enough (which ended up being TOO much for the final crowd). I eyeballed the sugar, a little at a time until it was sweet enough without being too sweet. Fortunately, making a slurry of powdered sugar with soup isn't so difficult and then just add it to the big batch and mix up.

I tried to knock out the soup and yogurt so I could get them refrigerated and cleaned up before tackling the sandwiches, but I know I was sort of multitasking. I finally got the soup into, um five or six containers - three big squeeze bottles, two or three random plastic containers. The yogurt, I minted to taste and attempted to whip it. It actually became much thinner, and I was unhappy about that, but that ended up being perfect for the thin fruit soup. It went into smaller squeeze bottles.


And now, the endearingly named "Oh SNABB!" ("Oh snap!") sandwiches.
Sourdough
Nutella
Apple
Brie
Bacon

I cooked a lot of bacon. A LOT. More than I ever want to see again in a long time. Enough that I don't even want to post a picture. You can see them on Flickr. Recommendation: don't cook lots of bacon if you don't have lots of cookie sheets or plates to drain them on. I live in NEW YORK. Massive quantities of kitchen supplies does not exist here. So, yeah, the bacon was a bit greasy, but oh well.


Sandwich composition was simple. Thin layer of nutella on one slice of sourdough bread, thin layer of brie on the other slice. Cover the nutella with thin slices of green apples, and then add bacon. I calculated eight slices per sandwich, but you could easily use six slices and it would be plenty of bacon.


Pretty, right?! So, from there, they were cut into eights. Which is harder than you think with fairly hearty ingredients and a generally completely inept knife in my kitchen. And each eight was toothpicked, usually having to be recomposed before picking. I had lots of sandwiches. Lots. Four smallish aluminum trays full of bites - 150+ bites. Way more than needed. The image below is less than half of what I made.


I was able to get all of the food made in time for about a... 30 minute nap and a shower, and I called a car service. Once I got to the location, I realized a few things.

1. We were outside. FUCK. Cold soup + yogurt + hot day = fail.
2. I should have brought the ingredients and prepped sandwiches there.
3. I really didn't need to cut my sandwiches so small.
4. Who knew people would bring panini grills to the location?!

I was unaware of what kind of prep time we would have, or I guess really, what pace we would be going at. I would rather bring the brie, nutella, pre-sliced, lemon juice soaked apple slices and cooked bacon along with a cutting board to compose sandwiches there. Then, I would also be able to judge sandwich size better, once I saw and realized that the people flow wasn't quite as high as hoped for.

The soup was ok, in terms of temperature. The bar the event was held at brought me a metal container and ice to store the soup in, but as the afternoon went on, the ice melted and I didn't have time to go in and get more.

Anyway, it was a great day even if I wasn't a winner, as I blogged about before. I mainly wanted to share with you all the photographic evidence of my creations. I have a few half-assed photos from the event that are also on Flickr here.

A recap of Saturday

The lovely Cathy from Not Eating Out In NY - where I heard about Saturday's competition - did a recap of the day on her blog. For anyone that's interested in seeing what delicious eats we had, or seeing the recipe for some awesome pork buns and tomato consomme, give it a whirl. Everyone out there Saturday was damn talented.

Lovely soup creation...

A recipe for you! Pictures will come sometime in the future - my card reader is still MIA and Fuji uses stupid XD cards. My brother has a multi-card reader, but it reads everything BUT XD.

Anyway, here we go. I scaled the recipe down as best I could - the original made somewhere near the 150 oz mark, so I'm a bit unsure of how much this batch makes. I would definitely double it if you're cooking for a group, but if you want to test it out for you and your significant other, roommate, friend, give this scale a shot.

Chilled Strawberry Watermelon Balsamic Soup (also known as Kickass Soup!)
1 lb container of strawberries
7-8 oz watermelon juice
4 oz balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1/2 tsp orange zest

Hull and rough chop the berries. If you have a blender or food processor, the berries will probably fit in one batch. I personally was using my magic bullet, so I had to split each container into two batches. Anyway, once pureed, pour into a fine mesh strainer and push the berries through. Yes, it's another step, but I reluctantly did this and was so glad I did. The soup is fairly thin, so you want it as smooth as possible. For the melon, it's basically the same process. I'm unsure how much watermelon it takes to make one cup of juice, but I used about 1.5 small watermelons to get ~45oz.

Mix up the strawberry puree, watermelon juice, vinegar and zests. Taste first before adding any sugar - depending on the quality of the fruit, the soup could possibly be sweet enough. From there, I would add 1-2 tablespoons of sugar in at a time and taste test. You want the soup to be sweet enough, because the vinegar has its strength, but it's not sugary sweet, just fruit sweet. (Does that make sense?) The confectioners sugar will dissolve fairly easily, but you can always use a hand mixer to make sure it's all dissolved.

Side note: Another way to get the sugar well dissolved is to take a bit of the soup out, into a separate bowl. Mis the sugar into this liquid with a whisk until smooth, and then add back to the main batch. Very similar to how you add cornstarch to a dish.

I don't think you will need more than 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) sugar, if that, but again, best bet is to add in small batches and taste.

The soup is done! Put it in your refrigerator until it's cold, and serve cold. It's nice as is and great with vanilla ice cream. You can also serve mint yogurt sauce with it, as I did. Recipe follows.

Mint Yogurt Sauce
1/2 cup yogurt (whole milk or low fat could work)
mint simple syrup to taste

This is an easy sauce - throw the yogurt in a bowl and add the mint syrup to taste. My syrup never quite "syruped" for me, and I also used the hand mixer to mix it up, so this sauce is thin. This was an accidental move on my part, but with the thinness of the soup, this is actually perfect. You want the yogurt to have a nice minty flavor, and it's best to just drizzle a little bit on top of the soup. Keep this cold, obviously!

Enjoy! This soup is great for these hot, humid August days. And don't let the 'soup' label fool you - think of it as an ice cream topping or even a drink mixer. Can you imagine that with vodka and some club soda, or even lemonade? Yum! That was a common theme yesterday - one girl's spicy gazpacho would make a great Bloody Mary, my soup, etc.

...I think I'm crazy.

I'm not sure what has gotten into me today. Really. But all of a sudden, I just had to, HAD. TO., sign up for this cooking competition: the Souperdouper Soup Kitchen Sandwich Special.

Do I make sandwiches at home often? No, not really at all. Maybe a quesadilla every once in a while. Do I make soups at home? Not in the summer, and in general, it just depends. I read about this a few days ago, and it piqued my interest. But then, today, I was reading about the prizes, and all of a sudden, I had to do it. But it's not even about the prizes. Yes, they kick ass, but it was just this uncontrollable urge.

And then, the brain started churning. Ideas... ideas... Sweet and savory combinations are sort of ruling my palate lately, and the idea of a hot soup now that summer has finally smacked us in the face didn't seem right. I just recently had saba, a sweet, balsamic-y vinegar, and blueberries, and adored it. I also just bought a (ok, inexpensive) bottle of balsamic vinegar. Strawberry balsamic soup? But what to pair it with... I wanted to keep with the sweet and savory theme because I don't think an all-sweet or all-savory sandwich would work with a fairly sweet soup.

And, of course, the same person that introduced me to saba and berries once again popped into my head... The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck.... His choinkwich ice cream sandwich (chocolate cookie, chocolate ice cream, caramelized bacon 'wheel'). What about a bacon and nutella sandwich on sourdough bread?

So... decadent, yes. Yummy? I hope so. Since the competition is Saturday afternoon, I don't have much time to test it. (And don't really want to overly do so.) But, I think the sandwich needs a little something else along with the bacon and nutella to make it perfect... I'm thinking of possibly rubbing the bacon with a little chili powder to give it just a teeny bit of heat. I'll probably bake it, and hopefully get it nice and crispy/chewy. What does the culinary world out there think about just a teensy smear of a mild goat cheese on the sandwich? I think it needs something in there to pick up the flavors, and to go along with the soup. Thin slices of tart apple?

Suggestions and recipes are totally welcome!!!

Now, how to estimate how much food to buy. (Yes, this is silly, since I am unemployed, but I just. Gah. Had to do it.) Basically I need a bite of food for 150 people - 2oz of soup each and somewhere between 1/4-1/8 of a regular size sandwich. Christ. I just realized... That's still about two GALLONS of soup. About 19 sandwiches... Um.... what did I get myself into?!