Souper Bowl celebrates good food

Dozens of chefs will offer their best soups at Souper Bowls in Albuquerque and Santa Fe this Saturday to raise money to feed hungry New Mexicans. (Courtesy Jane Phillips/The Food Depot)

Soup’s on.
Food banks in Albuquerque and Santa Fe will host separate annual Souper Bowl fundraisers this Saturday.
“We continue to remain in awe of community turnout every year. Last year we welcomed more than 1,000 people to the event. The support from the community demonstrates how passionate people are to help us solve hunger,” says Melody Wattenbarger, president and CEO of Albuquerque’s Roadrunner Food Bank.
Last year the Rancher’s Club of New Mexico won the Albuquerque championship for its red chile pork chowder. Nothing Bundt Cakes won in the dessert category. This year more than 40 area restaurants plan to enter the tasty competition.

Executive Chef Andrew Cooper, Terra Restaurant at the Four Seasons Rancho Encantado in Santa Fe, won the cream category last year in The Food Depot event with the Roasted Root Vegetable Soup with Cranberry Compote. (Courtesy Jane Phillips/The Food Depot)

Executive chef Pat Keene, an owner of the Artichoke Cafe, says this year she’s bringing butternut squash and coffee soup. “Butternut squash is creamy and sweet and coffee is a little bitter and spicy. Together the flavors complement each other.”
Chef Robin Valdez of Mon Amis Personal Chefs in Albuquerque says the competition is friendly and fun: “It’s for a good cause.”
After winning a few years ago with his caramelized carrot and coconut soup, he’s planning a shiitake mushroom cream soup this year.
His secret flavor is the blend of brandy and his fermented oyster sauce that clients like with everything from steak to soup. “The reason I use shiitakes is because they hold up to cooking.”
He says he reduces his brandy to about half and adds it to the soup after carmelizing shallots and garlic. The mushrooms are added to the brandy mixture and the oyster sauce is added last before the final simmer.
In Santa Fe, Chef Xavier Grenet of Restaurant L’Olivier says beyond skill, his secret ingredient is love. He’s making a classic soup, lobster bisque, because it requires a number of distinct steps for its best flavor.
Rather than focusing too much on recipes, Grenet recommends that home cooks stir in love first. “Cooking has to come from your heart. If you like cooking, the result of your soup should be good.”
The Food Depot spokeswoman Jennifer West says about 30 Santa Fe restaurants plan to compete in four categories, best cream soup, best seafood soup, best vegetarian soup and best overall soup.
Last year Executive Chef Andrew Cooper, Terra Restaurant at the Four Seasons Rancho Encantado, won the cream category with roasted root vegetable soup with cranberry compote. The recipe is below and in The Food Depot Cookbook, which sells at the event for $20, with $8 for inserts, she says.

StreetFood Market’s award winning Bangkok Christmas Curry Lobster Bisque from a previous Roadrunner Food Bank Souper Bowl. (Courtesy Roadrunner Food Bank)

This year Cooper says his restaurant is making sweet potato and red lentil soup with candied lemon crema.
“Every year I enter this competition I always want to do something that is in season. This year I challenged one of my cooks, Tony Smith, to come up with a soup that is not only in season but also healthy and most importantly extremely flavorful. Tony did his homework, practiced making the soup over and over, improving it every time and now he has it down perfectly,” he says.
“What I love about this soup is that it has all these incredible flavors. It just makes you want to keep coming back for more, there are hints of ginger inside, apple and then the sweetness of the candied lemon crema is just incredible.”
He says home cooks will make better soup, if they keep it simple.
“When I teach my soup class here at the restaurant, the one thing I keep stressing is to keep soups simple, do not try to over complicate it,” he says. “Simple food tastes better, by adding all of these different ingredients really takes away from what a fantastic soup is all about.”
Jill L. Gentry, development director at The Food Depot, says the Souper Bowl’s success depends on the generous support of places like the Terra Restaurant at The Four Seasons Rancho Encantado, all the other restaurants, sponsors and attendees. “It is amazing to see the community come together in celebration of good food, while simultaneously providing food to those who need it most,” she says.
Too many New Mexicans are still hungry. The state is ranked as one of the highest in the nation for hunger and poverty.
The Food Depot is the food bank for nine northern New Mexico counties and provides food for more than 145 nonprofit agencies including emergency food pantries, hot meal programs, homeless shelters, youth programs, senior centers, homes for the mentally disabled and shelters for battered individuals and families. It distributes about 400,000 pounds of food.
With locations in Albuquerque and Las Cruces, Roadrunner Food Bank distributed more than 30 million pounds of food through its programs, helped about 70,000 children, seniors and adults, and has kept 22 million pounds of food out of landfills with its Food Rescue Program.

Warehouse worker Carlos Sanchez sorts baked goods at the Roadrunner Food Bank. (Dean Hanson/Albuquerque Journal)

ROASTED ROOT VEGETABLE SOUP WITH CRANBERRY COMPOTE
Serves 6
3 to 4 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
1 quart roasted winter vegetables
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup heavy cream
1 pound carrots, peeled
1 pound parsnips, peeled
1 large sweet potato, peeled 1 small butternut squash (about 2 pounds), peeled and seeded 3 tablespoons good olive oil 1½ teaspoons kosher salt ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut the carrots, parsnips, sweet potato, and butternut squash in 1- to 1¼-inch cubes.
All the vegetables will shrink while baking, so don’t cut them too small.
Place all the cut vegetables in a single layer on 2 sheet pans. Drizzle them with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Toss well.
Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until all the vegetables are tender, turning once with a metal spatula. Sprinkle with parsley and season to taste.
In a large saucepan, heat 3 cups of chicken stock. Purèe roasted winter vegetables and the chicken stock in a blender or use a handheld blender.
Pour the soup back into the pot and season to taste.
Thin with more chicken stock and heavy cream, then reheat.
The soup should be thick, but not like a vegetable puree, so add more chicken stock and/or heavy cream and/or water until it’s the desired consistency.
CRANBERRY COMPOTE
½ pound fresh cranberries
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
¼ cup fresh orange juice
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
½ cup granulated sugar
2 cups water
1 packet of Knox gelatin
Put the cranberries, orange and lemon zest, orange and lemon juice, sugar, and 1½ cups of water in a medium-size nonreactive saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil and cook for 8 minutes.
Blend the gelatin in the remaining ½ cup of water and add to the pan.
Reduce the heat to medium, then stir constantly for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, then place in the refrigerator to thicken.
– Terra Restaurant at The Four Seasons Rancho Encantado, The Food Depot Cookbook
SWEET POTATO AND RED LENTIL SOUP WITH CANDIED LEMON CREMA
2 large sweet potatoes
3 carrots, medium to large, peeled and chopped
5 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1 large white onion, chopped
5 celery stalks, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1½ tablespoons ginger, peeled and minced
2 teaspoons chile powder
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup red lentils
2 cups apple cider
3 cups vegetable stock
Vegetable oil for sautéing
Salt and pepper to taste
1½ cups butternut squash, small dice
1 cup mascarpone
2 tablespoons candied lemons, minced (recipe below)
½ cup candied lemon juice
Sage and parsley chopped finely for garnish
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roast sweet potatoes in the oven until cooked through and inside is tender.
In a large pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the carrots, onions and celery. Sweat the vegetables until the onions are translucent.
Add the sweet potatoes, apples, ginger, garlic, butter and chile powder. Simmer 3-5 minutes, until you can smell the aroma of the garlic and ginger.
Add the apple cider, deglazing the pot by scraping the bottom. Add the vegetable stock and lentils. Bring the soup back to a boil, and reduce to a simmer. Simmer the soup for 30-40 minutes, until the lentils are soft and the flavors are well combined.
Blend the soup in batches with a blender. Add heavy cream, milk or water to adjust thickness according to preference. Blend until the soup is smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Blanch the diced butternut squash in boiling water until soft but still has some crunch, roughly 3-5 minutes. Once done, immediately shock in ice water to stop the cooking process.
Just prior to serving the soup, sauté the squash in oil and some butter. Season with salt, and pepper; sauté until caramelized.
When ready to serve, place the candied lemon crema (recipe below) in a squeeze bottle, for easy garnishing. Ladle the hot soup into a bowl. Draw designs on the top of the soup with the crema in a squeeze bottle. Finish garnishing by sprinkling the curried squash and the fresh herbs over the top of the soup.
CANDIED LEMONS
Use 5 lemons, cut off both ends on all of them. Slice the lemons lengthwise from top to bottom, down the middle. Slice again thinly, no bigger than ¼-inch.
Place in a pot with enough cold water to cover the lemons by 2-3 inches. Bring the water to a boil and immediately strain the lemons into china cap, a perforated metal conical strainer, reserving the lemons. Repeat the process two more times.
After bringing the lemons to a boil a total of 3 times, repeat the process one more time but replacing the water with 3 cups of simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water).
After bringing the sugar/lemon mixture to a boil, pour into a container and place uncovered in the refrigerator until completely cooled.
Once cooled add the candied lemon juice and minced candied lemons to the mascarpone.
Place the candied lemon crema into a squeeze bottle for easy garnishing.
– by Tony Smith, Four Seasons Rancho Encantado
SHIITAKE MUSHROOM CREAM SOUP
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
1 tablespoons olive oil
1 pint brandy
1 cup shiitake mushrooms
1 quart heavy cream
1 quart milk
¼ cup oyster sauce
½ cup cornstarch
½ cup water
Salt and pepper to taste
In a 4-quart pot caramelize the minced shallot and garlic in olive oil.
Add brandy, cook, reducing the brandy by half. Add shiitake mushrooms. Cook until mushrooms are soft and then add cream, milk and oyster sauce.
Bring to a boil. In another bowl mix together cornstarch and water and drizzle into soup and cook for desired thickness, season with salt and pepper to taste.

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