'tis the season...for soup

I am not a religious person. However, the parmiggiano broth I recently had for lunch at Marlow and Sons could very well be the nectar of the gods. I felt compelled to re-create it and finally put those saved parmiggiano rinds in my fridge to good use. I ended up with parmiggiano broth with pasta shells and roasted cherry tomatoes.

Making a good broth takes time but it's truly laissez-faire if you are like me and cheat. I started with store-bought low-sodium stock, which saves a lot of time and effort (who wants to have a shitload of animal bones boiling away for hours in their home kitchen? I'll let you handle that one, restaurants) and allows you to have control over how much sodium ends up in your broth. Kitchen Basics makes a good stock.

Anyway, I put one large carton of chicken stock into a big pot and added almost as much water, 4 parmiggiano rinds, a few smashed garlic cloves, and a few sage leaves. After bringing it to a boil I simmered it for about an hour, occasionally tasting it and adding salt and finely ground pepper as I felt necessary. In the meanwhile, I walked my dog and did a bunch of dishes that had been piling up and cramping my style. The broth reduced by a little over 1/3, and after a final seasoning adjustment, I strained it to remove the solids.

The parmiggiano rinds give this incredibly rich nutty cheese flavor to the broth, without heaviness. As for the garlic, my mom always told me "you can never have enough" (debatable, but delicious in this instance, where "enough" was 3 small cloves), and I'm just really into sage right now.

The great thing about making big batches of stock is that you can save it and make soup in minutes whenever you feel like it with whatever you have lying around the house. I happened to have cherry tomatoes and pasta shells, and figured the tartness of the tomatoes would be a nice contrast to the richness of the broth (I was right). I garnished it with a sprig of rosemary to add aroma and color. Let me tell you, this was tasty.

For vegans out there, use low-sodium vegetable stock, add water and crushed garlic, and make a bouquet garni with fresh herbs to simmer in your broth and add depth. Add whatever you want to finish it off. There are no rules!

More soup recipes will follow...