In January I crave greens. After the excesses of the winter holidays with their meat, squash, bread, potatoes and sweets, I want things sharp and bright-tasting while still needing warm dishes to chase away the chill. Thursday I cooked all day and hit upon that classic meal of soup, salad and bread.
I started with the oven on for Savoring Every Bite’s caramelized oranges and made some granola while I was at it, plus roasted a kabocha squash. Then I cleaned leeks and peeled potatoes for soup, scrubbing the potatoes first so that I could toss the peels and tough leek greens into a stock pot for vegetable stock. While that boiled, I sauteed 3 sliced leeks, 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 cup of minced ham and some crumbled dried rosemary (use fresh if you grow it) in 2 Tbsp butter. As that cooked I peeled and diced about 1 pound of yellow Finn potatoes and added them to the pan to brown a bit. I then covered them with a pint of chicken stock and four cups of water, covered the pot and let them cook. Then I got out the mandoline to shred Savoy cabbage — I shredded nearly half a head of cabbage and set the mandoline aside for another use later.
When the potatoes were tender I mashed some of them and left some chunks. The soup was a little watery, so I seasoned it with salt and pepper and let it continue to cook uncovered.
Meanwhile, I got out three small fennel bulbs, whacking off the stalks and fronds for the vegetable stock pot, along with the tough outer pieces. Then I cut each bulb in half and shredded it with the mandoline over a salad bowl. I scored the peel of 1 large navel orange into quarters, saving the peel to candy another day, and segmented the orange and sliced the segments, putting them into the bowl with the fennel. Then I took my remaining orange-sesame vinaigrette and poured it over the oranges and fennel and stuck the bowl in the refrigerator.
I turned off the soup and let it sit (I added the cabbage ten minutes before reheating and serving it).
Then I turned my attention to bread, an orange-cumin yeast bread adapted from Mark Miller’s Coyote Cafe cookbook. The warm oven from caramelized oranges, granola and roasted squash would help the bread rise. Here’s my modified recipe
Orange Cumin Bread
Juice and zest 1 large orange (about 1/2 cup juice)
Scald 1/2 cup milk and set off heat to cool.
Dissolve 2 packages active dry yeast in 1/2 cup lukewarm water (or measure 4 and 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast).
Into large bowl of stand mixer, measure
1/2 cup sugar (any kind will do)
4 Tbsp corn oil
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 Tbsp ground cumin, plus the scalded milk and the orange juice and zest.
1/2 cup warm water
Mix to combine and then add dissolved yeast. Mix again.
Now add 4 cups unbleached flour and
1 scant Tbsp kosher salt
Switch to dough hook, or knead by hand, remembering to knead for at least ten minutes to develop the gluten. This dough can be sticky so you may need to add a little extra flour a tablespoon at a time or keep flouring your kneading surface.
Put dough in large bowl (I use the same one I mixed in) greased with a little oil or vegetable shortening. Cover dough with damp smooth kitchen towel (I warm my towel in the microwave for twenty seconds) and set bowl in warm place to rise until double (about an hour). Punch down and let rise again until doubled (thirty minutes this time). Meanwhile grease two standard loaf pans.
When bread dough has risen for the second time, deflate it and shape into two loaves. Put loaves in prepared pans and let rise until dough is even with the edge of the pan. Fifteen minutes before it gets there, slash the dough with a sharp knife — I make two parallel diagonal slashes in the top of each loaf — and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake for forty minutes, until crust is brown and tapped loaf sounds hollow. Remove from pan and cool on rack.
Now you can heat up your soup, toss in the cabbage, take the salad from the fridge and feed some happy people.
Soup notes: Any kind of potatoes will do for this soup — just don’t use purple ones! If you are a vegetarian, omit the ham and chicken broth in the soup and prepare it with vegetable stock or milk and water. If you are an omnivore and don’t have ham on hand, you could substitute bacon or prosciutto. If you don’t have leeks, substitute onions. If you don’t have Savoy cabbage, use another kind — anything but red or purple which will give you an undesirable color.
Bread notes: Mark Miller’s recipe calls for dried milk and orange juice concentrate — I have adapted it to use whole foods instead. He also calls for starting with whole cumin seed, toasting it and grinding it. I have done this and it is good, but if your cumin is fresh or you can’t get cumin seed, you can just use ground cumin. If your cumin has been around for awhile, toast it in a dry skillet. This bread is light and wheaty: for a variation, try reversing the proportions of cornmeal and whole wheat flour. Like most breads with fruit in them, it makes excellent toast.
This month I am participating in citruslove, a glorious collection of seasonal citrus recipes, #citruslove. Check ’em out here at the bottom of the post. Click on Linky tools there to see all the submissions.
I love the art work, very creative! I too love greens in the winter.
Thank you for visiting. I’ll get tired of greens in the spring, but right now I crave them.
Delicious! I’m craving some healthy food right now 🙂
This meal is chockfull of seasonal fruit and vegetables, Lauren, and it keeps the kitchen warm while you make it. Enjoy!
I am with you on this meal- I have been craving greens too after all the holiday fare. And the hot soup with home-bread…perfect! This bread recipe sounds absolutely wonderful. The watercolor painting communicates the warmth of this meal. Great job!
Thank you, Jane. I like this one, too. The bread is one of about six breads I make regularly.
Mmm, sounds delicious! I too fell in love with Linda’s carmalized oranges. That citrus sesame seed dressing looks good, can’t wait to try it. Stopping by from citruslove bloghop!
Thanks for stopping by, Lisa. The citruslove blog hop might be the most fun of those I have participated in. I trawl regularly for citrus recipes because, you know, it is January, high citrus season. I make the dressing every year — it’s a keeper.
Sounds delicious! Though I’m not a fan of fennel, I’d give this dish a try because it just sounds so good!
You can use other greens you like better — I happen to love fennel and it gets better from marinating in orange juice and other things.
Cumin is one of my favourite spices but I’d never think to pair it with oranges. I’m marking this down on my list of recipes to try. Re greens, I know exactly what you mean!
Cumin is one of my favorites, too. I’ve been to Coyote Cafe once: when I was there, Miller served a cumin-flavored flat bread, so I was primed to try his cumin-orange bread.
The bread sounds delicious, and I have so much Moroccan cumin around from our trip. I too crave greens in January…probably in hopes it will bring the summer around a bit faster.
I think our bodies know we can’t eat holiday food perpetually and the seasons bring us greens and citrus in January here in North America.
I love the flurry of activity resulting in a complete meal– with echoing flavor components! Go Sharyn!
Thanks, Suzanne. It was a good day. The thing about cooking is that in a few days or a few meals it is time to do it all over again.
Jeez, Sharyn, you weren’t kidding around when you described this as a “feast.” Everything sounds so wonderful! I want to try them all.
Thanks, John. I know you’ll love the fennel salad. It’s a January feast because it utilizes January ingredients and is moderate, unlike December feasts.
the orange cumin bread sounds interesting. the whole menu of potato soup, fennel orange salad with the orange cumin bread feels so comforting and good.
Thank you, Dassana. It was a lovely meal. I enjoyed sharing it.
I’m relatively new to making my own bread, and the orange/cumin sounds delicious. I love the warmth that cumin gives. When I visit my friend in Amsterdam I always mucn on aged Gouda with cumin. So moreish!
“Moreish” is a word I only see on blogs by Brits: does it mean something like “It makes me want some more”?
Ah the joys of the English language! Yes you are right, I’d want more!
Mmm…what a wonderful cooking day in your kitchen!! I love how you utilize all the parts of your fruits and veggies. The soup sounds so rustic and warming, love the combination of flavors. Fennel is a favorite of mine, so many don’t like the unique taste, but I do; it was always served after Sunday dinners when I was growing up. Cumin and orange is a mix that sounds so perfect together; I’d never thought of that; the bread must have tasted so good – I’ll have to give that one a try for sure!
Thanks, Linda. Using everything is something I practice doing — I want to get better at it. Things I don’t use get composted, of course, but I feel a little bad if something is edible and I don’t use it.
Wow, you were a busy bee in the kitchen…I’ll bet your house smelled fabulous! I love orange and fennel salad, and often add kalamata olives and almonds to it, too. The orange cumin bread sounds fantastic, too. Lots of great ideas here!
I could eat orange and fennel salad everyday for awhile and not get tired of it, Betsy. I’ll have to try it with Kalamatas and almonds soon.
I love your citrus bonanza! The bread recipe is so creative! I can’t wait to try it. My rosemary has gone completely crazy, so I’m excited about adding it to potato soup. I have never added it, but I can imagine that taste. Yum! I so look forward to your recipes. You have so many taste surprises! Debra
Thank you, Debra. I scavenge recipes with the best of them and hang onto anything that looks good. Then I test things out and blog about the good ones. Plus, I make things up and adapt recipes for things I have on hand. The bread showcases Mark Miller’s creativity.