Italian Beef Soup

This was another inspired (and delicious) contribution to our “Chicago vs. Chicago” soup night on April 3. With this and the deep-dish pizza soup, all we needed was a Chicago dog-style soup and we would have covered every culinary cliche in town! Serve with sandwich-bun garlic croutons and giardiniera.

Ingredients 8 medium yellow onions (about 16 c sliced) 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 2 tablespoons olive oil 5 bell peppers (I used red and green) 2 jalapeno peppers 2 tablespoons sherry (or wine on hand) 6-8 cups homemade beef stock 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 2-3 tablespoons giardiniera brine or sherry vinegar, more to taste salt and pepper

Preparation Peel onions and cut into ¼ inch thick slices.

Heat olive oil and butter in a heavy-bottomed sauté pan over medium-high heat. Stir in the sliced onions to coat them in fat. Crowd the pan – the onions will cook down eventually.

Continue cooking, stirring every 10 minutes or so. The goal is to brown the onions evenly so if the onions begin to burn, adjust the heat to medium. If the onions begin to stick, add a few splashes of water to the pan and stir. Cook until the onions turn deep mahogany brown and have a rich, sweet flavor. This takes about an hour, but sometimes longer. Be patient.

Meanwhile, roast the sweet and hot peppers over a gas burner or under a broiler. Peel and slice the peppers thin, discarding the stems and seeds.

Once the onions are caramelized, add sherry to deglaze the pan. Scrape the onions, all the brown bits, and any liquid into a stock pot. Turn heat up to high and add the beef stock, sliced peppers, and thyme. Stir and bring to a boil. Turn heat down to medium low and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove from the heat and stir in the Worcestershire sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Allow the onion soup mixture to cool to room temperature and then refrigerate overnight.

Reheat soup and season with giardiniera brine to taste before serving.

Giardiniera

This giardiniera is more of a quick pickle than the traditional Chicago relish. Usually it has brined or salted vegetables with pickled serranos, oil, and seasonings added. But I think the rest of the veg benefits from the serranos’ heat when you pickle them all together. Wait until serving to mix in the oil.

Ingredients 2 parts white wine vinegar (I combined white, white wine, & rice wine… what was on hand) 1 part water

for every 3 cups liquid: 3 T kosher salt 2 T granulated sugar

celery red pepper carrot cauliflower serrano peppers dried oregano/basil celery seed garlic cloves, thinly sliced olive oil

Preparation Clean and trim the vegetables, peel the carrots. Chop them all into roughly equal pieces (I prefer about 1/2 inch). If you hate cauliflower, leave it out. I use equal parts celery, red pepper, carrot, and cauliflower.

If you are sensitive to spicy things, go easy on the serranos and remove most of their seeds. Even if you love spicy things, go easy on the serranos–a couple per quart jar is usually plenty (I’ll often pickle a few extra peppers separately in case the final mix isn’t spicy enough).

Add a few cloves of garlic to each jar, then shake in some celery seed and dried Italian seasonings. Add the mixed vegetables to the jar(s).

Bring the vinegar, water, salt, and sugar to a boil. Remove from heat and pour over your vegetables. Cool to room temperature and then cover and refrigerate. Should be ready to eat within 24 hours or so. Eat within a week or so.

Posted: Sunday Apr 14,2013 10:03 PM In Soup Recipes

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