{"id":1449,"date":"2015-03-08T00:23:44","date_gmt":"2015-03-08T06:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=1449"},"modified":"2015-11-06T11:36:11","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T17:36:11","slug":"zucchini-arugula-soup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=1449","title":{"rendered":"Cutting Edge Soup: Zucchini Arugula"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none\"><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fthesoupblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D1449&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=true&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;width=450&amp;height=30\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width: 450px; height: 30px;\"><\/iframe><\/div><div id=\"attachment_1456\" style=\"width: 388px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-1456\" href=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?attachment_id=1456\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1456\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1456 \" title=\"Mandoline3\" src=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Mandoline3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"378\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Mandoline3.jpg 473w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Mandoline3-94x100.jpg 94w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Mandoline3-283x300.jpg 283w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 378px) 100vw, 378px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1456\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cut up these veggies, chop-chop!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Anyone who\u2019s read this blog more than twice (Thanks, Mom.),\u00a0 knows that my all-time favorite soup making appliance is the immersion blender. It\u2019s great for pureeing soups, making salad dressings, tapenade, even smoothies. What the immersion blender doesn\u2019t do is\u2014slice, dice and julienne.<\/p>\n<p>For that I use my less favorite kitchen tool: the mandoline.<\/p>\n<p><em>Correction: Okay, the mandolin doesn\u2019t dice, but slicing and julienning? You bet.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re not familiar with the mandoline, imagine a high-brow French version of the Veg-o-matic. Then throw in some stainless steel, a lot more precision and, dare I say, a little elegance, and you\u2019re there.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s great for slicing potato chips, even waffle cut chips, and it\u2019s ideal for slicing zucchini, but to tell you the truth, that\u2019s about it. My trouble with the mandoline is that if you try slicing anything firmer, i.e. carrots, parsnips, beets, you have to push too hard and before long you wind up with the kitchen equivalent of severe tire damage on your thumb or the heel of your hand. This is especially true if you\u2019ve got one of the julienne blades in place.<\/p>\n<p><em>Any wonder why this utensil hasn\u2019t found its way into one of these blog postings?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But again, when you want matchstick cuts of zucchini, you couldn\u2019t ask for anything better.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s precisely what I needed this week.<\/p>\n<p>Years earlier, I had tried to make a pasta sauce with zucchini, arugula and parmesan but it hadn\u2019t worked out very well.\u00a0 The dish was something of a whim that I threw together for two friends in Seattle who are both really good cooks, especially when it comes to Italian cooking.\u00a0 One\u2019s a native and the other lived in Italy for several years where he starred in an Italian soap opera.<\/p>\n<p>For that sauce, I\u2019d done all the slicing by hand, but no matter how I sliced it, the sauce came out way too dry and I hadn\u2019t reserved any of the pasta water to revive it. Our friends were very polite about it, but I was both embarrassed and disappointed and wound up putting away any thought of this dish for about ten years.<\/p>\n<p>Then last week as I was thinking what to do with arugula in terms of soup, I found this recipe in some long-forgotten pocket of my brain. Since dryness isn\u2019t usually an issue in soup-making, I figured it might work this time.<\/p>\n<p>It was something of a rush job which is why I went with the mandoline. I didn\u2019t have time for the fine cutting I needed. Two julienned zucchini and two yellow squash later and my soup was ready to go in the pot and if the prep work was easy, the cooking was even easier. I saut\u00e9ed some onion and garlic, added the squash, stock and seasoning then I did a little simmering.\u00a0 After a while, I folded in the arugula and I finished it all off by stirring in the parmesan.<\/p>\n<p>It was pretty well received at the family dinner table too.\u00a0 My wife would have liked it better if I\u2019d chopped the arugula instead of wilting it into the broth. But both girls ate it up without much complaint and I couldn\u2019t really expect more than that. Arugula isn\u2019t very kid-friendly after all.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s more, the soup\u2019s already all gone. My wife took all the leftovers into the city to feed her writer\/performer friends and they helped us finish it off, big leaves and all.<\/p>\n<p>So what\u2019s all the fuss about chopping?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Zucchini Arugula Soup<br \/>\n<\/strong>(serves 6-8)<br \/>\n1 t canola oil<br \/>\n1 medium onion, slivered<br \/>\n2 cloves garlic, minced<br \/>\n1 lb zucchini, julienned<br \/>\n1 lb yellow squash, julienned<br \/>\n6 cups chicken stock<br \/>\nsalt &amp; pepper to taste<br \/>\n5 oz. arugula<br \/>\n\u00bd cup parmesan cheese, grated<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Heat the oil and saut\u00e9 the      onion and garlic over medium.<\/li>\n<li>Add the zucchini, squash, stock      and seasoning.<\/li>\n<li>Bring the soup to a boil then      reduce it to a simmer for 10-15 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Add the arugula (chopping is      optional) and let it wilt for a few minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Fold in the parmesan and serve      warm. We had it with grilled salmon, but the soup is really fresh tasting      and will go with just about any light spring meal.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>Image Credit: <\/em>\u201cMandoline with Veggies,\u201d from Matfer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We never had a Veg-o-matic at our house, nor have we got the \u201cclassier\u201d slap-chop. Typically a knife or two will do the trick for us. I still like the mandoline but it\u2019s not quite an immersion blender now, is it?\u00a0 What\u2019s your favorite cutting tool?\u00a0 Let me know in a comment.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anyone who\u2019s read this blog more than twice (Thanks, Mom.),\u00a0 knows that my all-time favorite soup making appliance is the immersion blender. It\u2019s great for pureeing soups, making salad dressings, tapenade, even smoothies. What the immersion blender doesn\u2019t do is\u2014slice, dice and julienne. For that I use my less favorite kitchen tool: the mandoline. Correction: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,15,9,117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arugula","category-cheese","category-vegetarian","category-zucchini"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1449"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1458,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449\/revisions\/1458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}