Weekend cooking post

[chickenfeet]

Both of us are decidedly under the weather so this has been the weekend of simple cooking. Last night I egg and breadcrumbed some haddock fillets and panfried them in olive oil. They went very nicely with a red pepper and romaine salad. I also made a giant pot of jota (using panjianlien's recipe). That made for a very satisfying lunch today. I think jota is my favourite of the whole bean and veggie soup genre though garbure can also be very satisfying. Anyway the freezer now has an adequate stock of it which will keep the lemur happy. I also have organic free range chicken legs (no feet) which I should marinade at some point.

Comments

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of jota. What is it?

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Here's what <;j user="panjanlien"> has to say om the subject:

JOTA

There are as many ways to make jota (pronounced "YO-ta") as there are people who cook it, probably. It is Friulian peasant food, a staple of the impoverished multitudes on both sides of the north Adriatic. The vegetarian version is for fast days or when you don't have enough money for meat, the meat versions are for feast days or when you do. The starch you use in it can vary depending on what you have, or if you like you can even leave it out (sacrelige!), but the starch is part of how you stretch it and make it fill a lot of bellies for very little money when you have to.

Regardless of how you put it together, it is a supremely satisfying soup.

The basic components of jota are:

white beans (navy, black-eyed peas, whatever you've got)
water or broth
sauerkraut
onions
garlic

The things that can be varied are:

Starch -- barley is traditional, as are cubes of potato. Use either or both. You could put rice into it if that's what you had, or farro.

Smoked or cured meat -- I like it with garlicky sausage, like a good garlicky kielbasa, sliced up in the pot. Other people use cured pork, like ham hock, or a ham bone. I have made it by tossing in a smoked turkey wing, and that was nice too.

Aromatics/herbs -- I usually add a bay leaf or two, and a handful of chopped fresh parsley is nice if you have it.

Other vegetables -- This being peasant food, you can add whatever you've got on hand, really, but it's usually best to stick to basic soup veg, like celery, carrot, perhaps some turnip or celery root. I would not, for example, put broccoli in it, or green beans.

How to Make It:

Carefully clean 2 cups of dried white beans. Put them in a large stockpot (or crockpot would be great for this) with about 5 quarts of water or stock, and bring to a boil. Then toss in the bay leaves (if you are using them), reduce the flame and cook over a low-medium heat until the beans become tender.

When the beans are becoming tender, chop 2 large onions into medium dice, and chop 6-10 cloves of garlic as well. Saute them in a bit of olive oil (or whatever oil you have) until the onion is transparent. If you are using other vegetables, dice them too and add them to the pan and saute them with the onion and garlic. When the onion is transparent, add all the vegetables to the soup.

For this recipe you will want about a pound to a pound and a half of sauerkraut. Get the kind that comes in a plastic bag or a glass jar, not in a tin, because the tinned kind tends to taste... like tin. If you can get fresh sauerkraut made by a local pickle vendor or a good deli so much the better. Rinse and drain the sauerkraut in a colander and then add it to your soup.

If you are using meat, this is the time to add it. Sausage need not be cooked first, just chop it into bite-sized pieces and throw it in.

This is also the time to add your starch. A half cup of pearled barley, 2-3 good sized potatoes, peeled and cubed, or a judicious amount of other starch goes into the pot.

Continue to cook the soup over a low-medium flame, stirring periodically, until the beans start to go mushy and dissolve a bit.

All in all this soup generally takes an afternoon to make, but since you ignore it for hours at a time, it is actually not very labor intensive at all.

If the soup cooks down too much at any time in this process, add more water or stock. If it seems too thin to you, just let it cook down some, don't go crazy adding more starch, because the beans and starch will thicken it more as it stands.

Serve in big bowls to hungry people. Salt and pepper to taste. A green salad is a nice accompaniment. You don't really have to serve bread along with it, as it is a pretty thoroughly starchy soup, though you can if you like.

:(

[fortunatecave.livejournal.com]

every time i read one of your cooking posts, i'm usually scrambling through google to find out what the entree entails.

my family sticks to simple indian food so to please their palate i too avoid too much exotica...but your posts make me want to try all this stuff too!