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‘Meat’ Category

  1. Recipe: White-Bean Soup with Bacon and Herbs

    November 21, 2012 by The Soup Critic

    White-Bean Soup with Bacon and Herbs for Thanksgiving and the Holidays. Very seasonal and works great with everything from Christmas dinner to a New Years feast.

    White-Bean Soup with Bacon and Herbs

    Here’s another great soup for Thanksgiving. (Or really any day during the holiday season.) And the best part? It has bacon! And we all know bacon makes EVERYTHING better!

    Ingredients:

    1. 1 1/4 pounds thick-sliced bacon, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch strips
    2. 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
    3. 1 Spanish onion, finely chopped
    4. 1 large carrot, finely diced
    5. 2 celery ribs, finely diced
    6. 4 garlic cloves, minced
    7. 1 fresh bay leaf
    8. 2 teaspoons chopped thyme
    9. 2 teaspoons chopped rosemary
    10. 1 pound Great Northern beans, soaked overnight and drained
    11. 10 cups chicken stock
    12. Salt and freshly ground pepper

    Directions:

    1. In a large soup pot, cook the bacon over moderate heat, stirring, until browned and crisp, about 7 minutes. Drain, reserving the fat and bacon separately.
    2. Heat the olive oil in the soup pot. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are softened, about 8 minutes. Stir in the garlic, bay leaf and 1 teaspoon each of the chopped thyme and rosemary and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the drained beans, stock and 3 tablespoons of the reserved bacon fat and bring to a boil. Simmer the soup over moderately low heat until the beans are tender, about 1 1/2 hours.
    3. Discard the bay leaf and stir in the remaining thyme and rosemary. Season the soup with salt and pepper and transfer to shallow bowls. Garnish the soup with the bacon and serve.

     

                 ***MAKE AHEAD The soup and bacon can be refrigerated separately for up to 3 days. Re-crisp the bacon before serving.

     

    Recipe Courtesy of FoodandWine.com

     

    - The Soup Critic

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    Category Bacon, Hot, Meat, Recipe, Soup | Tags: ,,,,,,,, | Comments

  2. Navy Bean – Patys Restaurant

    October 19, 2012 by The Soup Critic

     

    Restaurant: Patys Restaurant

    Location: Toluca Lake, CA

    Price: Free (small bowl with purchase of entrée)

     

    I’m back! Took a little time off but it’s time to jump back on the horse and get this soup train running! (…too dramatic?) This time I stopped by Patys Restaurant in Toluca Lake. It’s kinda like Denny’s, but not a chain and a bit less dingy.

    This time I tried the Navy Bean soup. Apparently it’s an American classic like Chicken Soup, but I’ve never heard of it.

    It’s basically a vegetable soup with some beans and beef chunks. Very simple yet very hearty. The beef was cut a bit small but was very tender and added a lot of flavor to the already thick and tasty broth. Overall the soup had a lot of potential. The problem is, and this happens way more times that one would expect, the soup wasn’t served nearly hot enough. I can’t tell you how many times restaurants screw that up! And in my book, that’s unacceptable. I don’t go to restaurants to eat what tastes like left-overs that haven’t been heated properly. I can’t cook, so I do that at home…

    I might have to come back to this place and give it another shot. Sad to see so much potential wasted!

     

    Rating: 3 out of 5 Spoons

    - The Soup Critic

    Category Beef, Hot, Meat, Navy Bean, Soup | Tags: ,,,,,,, | Comments

  3. Hot and Sour – Frontier Wok Too

    August 7, 2012 by The Soup Critic

    Small bowl of Hot and Sour Soup

    Restaurant: Frontier Wok Too

    Location: Burbank, CA

    Price: Free (small bowl with purchase of  entrée)

     

    I’m pretty sure I don’t have to introduce anyone to Hot and Sour soup. It’s a staple of Chinese / American cuisine, and I love it! It’s like the Asian equivalent of Chicken Noodle. It goes great with everything, it’s easy to make, it makes you feel better when you’re sick (just trust me on that one) and it’s actually pretty healthy for you! (other than a high sodium content)

    This time I went to the Frontier Wok Too on Olive Ave. (this location is an expansion from the original Frontier Wok just a few minutes away).  From the outside, it’s nothing special, but I go here a lot for a couple of reasons. Not only for the good food, but for the great service and hilarious waiters. Their favorite joke: Sorry, we’re out of Hot and Sour Soup… BUT we have Sour and Hot! Yeah I know it’s corny. But they pull it off quite well!

    The soup is thick and very flavorful. It’s not overly salted, which is a common problem with Hot and Sour soup. The tofu and vegetables tasted fresh and didn’t take up the whole bowl. The only real complaint I had was the lack of kick. I LOVE spicy food, and I’m probably a bit desensitized to the heat, but it just wasn’t there. And much like my last meatball-less Albondigas review, if it’s in the name and not in the soup, then it just ain’t right!

     

    Rating: 3 out of 5 Spoons

    - The Soup Critic


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    Category Chicken, Hot, Hot and Sour, Meat, Soup | Tags: ,,,, | Comments

  4. Albondigas – Don Cuco

    July 17, 2012 by The Soup Critic

    Albondigas Soup from Don Cuco's in Toluca Lake, CA

    Restaurant: Don Cuco

    Location: Toluca Lake, CA

    Price: $2.95 (small bowl)

     

    So, since I’m still pretty new at this, I decided to stay local and hit up another one of my regular lunch spots. This time JoJo Wright and I went to Don Cuco’s Mexican Restaurant in Toluca Lake, CA. (Yes, again with JoJo. And again with Toluca Lake) I’m honestly not a huge fan of Mexican food. Maybe being from Southern California has made my taste buds jaded, but I prefer the more complex textures and flavors found in other types of food such as French and Italian. But nonetheless, Don Cuco’s is one of the most popular places to eat around here so they deserve a review!

    Albondigas literally means, “meatball.” The soup is basically a tomato based broth filled with vegetables and half-dollar sized meatballs. (See where the names comes from? You’re a smart one aren’t ya?) This relatively simple soup packs a lot of great flavor. The meatballs, which were perfectly seasoned, were tender yet still held together very well in the liquid. The broth was light but still managed to pack the flavor of the meat and vegetables into every spoon full. On the down side, the vegetables were chopped a bit to large. They took up more than half of my bowl and left room for just one meatball. Yes, I know I ordered the small… But only one meatball in a soup that’s called “Meatball” is just wrong! Long story short, it was good and I would order it again. But it’s nothing to write home about. (Just blog about)

     

    Rating: 3 out of 5 Spoons

    - The Soup Critic

    Category Albondigas, Beef, Hot, Meat, Soup | Tags: ,,,, | Comments

  5. Chicken Noodle – Mo’s

    July 13, 2012 by The Soup Critic

     

    The small bowl served with a garlic bread toast

    The small bowl served with a garlic bread toast

    Restaurant:  Mo’s

    Location: Toluca Lake, CA

    Price: $5.95 (small bowl)

     

    Well, here it is! My very first soup review. I’ve been thinking about doing this site for a while but decided to pull the trigger a few days ago. So here goes nothing!

    Went to lunch at Mo’s in Toluca Lake today with my good buddy JoJo Wright. What better place to start your soup review career than a place you go to all the time, right? Wrong… It’s hard to imagine something as simple as chicken noodle soup can be screwed up. But when something is simple, the little things become much more important. Things like serving the soup at the right temperature. (ours wasn’t nearly as hot as it should have been) Like not over salting the soup. (JoJo didn’t agree but when you taste the salt over the broth, something ain’t right) It wasn’t the worst chicken noodle soup of my life. The chicken was soft and tender. The vegetables were cut to the right size, the noodles were awesome and the broth to solid proportion was dead on. But it’s food… And the most important thing when it comes to food is taste.!

    I think JoJo said it best as we were leaving, “If you can buy a better soup from Campbell’s, there’s nothing special about it”

     

    Rating: 2 out of 5 Spoons

    - The Soup Critic

    Category Chicken, Chicken Noodle, Hot, Meat, Soup | Tags: ,,,, | Comments