Deconstructing a recipe for Sorrel Soup

I made a sorrel-potato soup last week that called for several ingredients that I didn't have on hand. I made reference to one ingredient, the white wine, in yesterday's post.

Here's the breakdown of the actual recipe's ingredients, and what I wound up using.

The recipe:

1 tablespoon butter, unsalted
2 bay leaves
1 cup shallot, diced
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1/2 cup white wine
2 cups chicken stock
5 cups Yukon Gold potatoes, diced
1 tablespoon fresh lemon thyme, minced
4 cups heavy cream
3 cups fresh sorrel, chopped
1 pinch ground nutmeg
salt
white pepper


Here's what I used:

1 tablespoon butter, salted
parts of several bay leaves scrounged from a jar of pickling spice
1 cup of shallots, minced (I have shallots from the garden last summer. If I didn't have shallots I would have used minced onion, green onion, onion powder or dried onions)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 cup rosemary-thyme vinegar, cut with 1/4 cup water
2 cups of turkey stock
5 cups of russet potatoes, peeled and diced
1/2 tablespoon fresh garden thyme (no lemon thyme, and only had 1/2 tablespoon this early in spring)
2  1/2 cups 1% milk, with 1/4 cup of extra butter, and 1  1/2 cups of water (being lactose intolerant, I didn't want to overdo it on the milk part, so used some water in this substitution. Otherwise, I would have used all milk, with extra butter, in place of heavy cream.)
3 cups fresh sorrel (It's spring in the garden with plenty of sorrel. But if I didn't have any sorrel, but had spinach, then I would have made this as a spinach-potato soup.)
1 pinch ground nutmeg (I did have to run a whole nutmeg over a rasper, but in the end had ground nutmeg)
salt
black pepper

(also added a pinch of onion powder and extra garlic powder at the end of cooking, to season)

*in bold type, these are the substitutions that I made to the original recipe ingredients.


Basically, the only ingredients that I had, as stated in the recipe, were the shallots, the sorrel leaves, the nutmeg and the salt. For everything else I found the next best thing to substitute with.

Some notes on substitutions:

when needing cream, milk and extra butter can substitute. If the butter "floats" to the surface at the end of cooking, a binder of flour and water can be heated in the finished soup. But this is not always necessary, for a family meal. No one in my family objected to a little melted butter around the edge of the bowl.

when needing wine in soup, vinegar and water make a good substitution, especially if the amount of wine is less than 10-15% of the liquids called for.

different poultry stocks can be used interchangeably, when the amount of stock is small compared to other liquids and ingredients.

potatoes are potatoes, especially if the soup or sauce is to be blended at the end of cooking.

there are many members of the onion family. Shallots, chives, yellow onions can be used interchangeably, with exception to recipes like French onion soup. Somehow, French onion soup made with chives does not sound visually appealing to me. And onion powder or dried onions can stand in, in a pinch.

at the end of cooking a soup, sauce or gravy, if it tastes "flat" try adding a pinch of onion and/or garlic powder for a boost in flavor. Alternatively, try a tablespoon of soy sauce. (I add soy sauce to many gravies, for that boost of flavor.)


_____________________________________________________________

Substitutes for wine in recipes

Don't we all make substitutions in recipes when we don't have the needed ingredients?

I made a soup the other night in which the recipe called for white wine. Not a drinker, here, so I didn't have wine on hand. I used some rosemary vinegar and water in a 50/50 mix, to substitute for white wine.


Here's a list of alcohol-free substitutes for various wine flavors/types to use in cooking. Some of these suggestions were passed on to me by a medical professional, while others I have picked up along the way.

With any of the vinegars used as substitutes, you can add a pinch of sugar, for the natural sweetening you'd find in wine. Or not. Taste and see if it needs just a hint of sweetening. This will depend on the nature of the recipe.

white wine

--herb vinegar, such as tarragon, rosemary or thyme, use full strength or in a 50/50 blend with water. These can be easily and cheaply homemade with fresh herbs left to steep in white vinegar. (As a substitute, I use a half and half mixture of vinegar and water as a substitute for white wine in soups, sauces and stews)
--apple juice or apple cider
--chicken stock, won't give a wine flavor but offers nice taste for savory dishes
--clam juice, especially nice in fish or other seafood dishes

red wine

--red wine vinegar in a half and half mixture vinegar and water (pinch of sugar can be added)
--berry vinegars (sweetened or unsweetened), also in a half and half mixture water to vinegar
--red grape juice, cranberry juice or pomegranate juice can be substituted (I like thinned down versions of these juices, to cut the sweetness)
--any of the above blended 50/50 with beef broth
--25/75 blend of red wine vinegar to grape juice (no sugar added variety). This is a good alternative to burgundy wine in a dish like Boeuf Bourguignon. It won't taste exactly like a traditional Bourguignon, but it will be an acceptable version. If possible, add in a bit of mushroom stock or sodium-free beef stock. (I do sometimes have mushroom pieces, ends of stems that sort of thing, that I cook up into stock.)

Port wine

--Concord grape juice with lime zest added
--cranberry juice with lemon juice added
--weak apple or orange juice can be substituted for lighter ports

Gewurztraminer

--white grape juice with lemon juice added

sweet white wine, like a dessert wine

--white grape juice with 1 tablespoon (per cup of grape juice) Karo syrup

Champagne

--the obvious choice --Champagne vinegar
--ginger ale mixed with soda water (for desserts that call for champagne)
--or a blend of either of the above with stock, in savory dishes
--sparkling apple cider

Grappa

--grape juice

for deglazing a pan

--red wine vinegar
--balsamic vinegar

for marinading a piece of meat, poultry or fish

--any of the vinegars mentioned for particular meats/seafood, using half the amount called for of wine, in vinegar, then make up the other half with water, and add a spoonful of sugar. So, if your marinade recipe calls for 1/2 cup of wine, use 1/4 cup vinegar, 1/4 cup water, and teaspoon of sugar.

My choice for most recipes is a vinegar and water blend, sometimes with a pinch of sugar added. I choose my vinegar flavor based on the dish and the overall flavor I want to impart. Right now, I have rosemary-thyme vinegar, which I use to replace white wine in recipes, and unsweetened blackberry vinegar, which I use to replace red wine in recipes. I always have flavored vinegars on hand. So this is sort of a no-brainer choice for me.

________________________________________________________

watermelon pickles

I served these with Easter dinner.

None of our guests had even heard of watermelon pickles and were very eager to find out how I made them.

(Here's the post with how I made them, last summer.)

But I thought you might want to see what they actually look like, once made.

---------------------------------------------

Using the pickle juice

And one more watermelon-y pickle thing this week. As we've been going through the jars of these pickles, I've saved the liquid from each jar, not sure what I'd do with it all. But as it's flavored with just vinegar, sugar, cinnamon and cloves (no savory flavors), we all thought it would go well with baking.

So this week, I made a batch of whole wheat muffins, using watermelon pickle "juice" as most of the liquid. I also added some extra cinnamon to the batter. Not only could we not tell that there was pickle juice in the muffins, but they were gobbled up very quickly!

________________________________________________________