tom kha kai

,

Soups galore: We've got one for every winter mood

,

By Leslie Brenner

You can say what you want about Gen Z, but here’s what I love: They know a good thing when they see it. And then they immortalize it with memes.

Take soup, for instance. My favorite four-letter meal has conquered the internet!

I couldn’t be happier about this development. In college, I majored in Soup. Soup is my middle name. Soup soup soup soup soup.

Here at Cooks Without Borders, we’ve got a soup for every winter mood. Gen Z, I’m talking to you.

Mood: Stop (all day) and smell the roses

Persian Chicken Soup with Chicken-and-Lamb Meatballs

When you’re in the mood for a major project — one that will fill your living space with the dreamiest fragrances you can imagine — this transporting soup adapted from Najmieh Batmanglij’s Food of Life delivers. Called abgusht-e morgh ba kufteh-ye nokhodchi in Farsi, it’s garnished with grated garlic, fresh herbs and dried rose petals.

Mood: Get me back to a clearer space

Miso Soup

In a perfect world, you can have miso soup anytime you want it. But hey — you can even have it in a highly imperfect world! Take ten minutes to make a batch of dashi, keep miso and tofu in the fridge (both keep for a long time) and the foundational soup is yours practically on demand. Stir in miso, garnish and enjoy.

Mood: Navel-gazing

Maria Elena Machado's Sopa de Ombligo

Sometimes you just need to stare at your belly button. Or you could stare at the belly-button-like dumplings in a sumptuous pinto-bean soup — and then eat them.

Mood: Get me outta here!

Tom Kha Kai (Coconut-Galangal Chicken Soup)

If you’d rather be somewhere warm, sunny and far away — Bangkok, for instance — this irresistible Thai soup will take you there. Ours is adapted from Leela Punyaratabandhu’s seminal Simple Thai Food.

Mood: Virtuous vegan fridge-clearing brawl

Sunday Super Soup

This bad boy clears your crisper drawer, empties fridge shelves of veggie leftovers and helps you achieve zero waste — all while filling your kitchen with warm and spicy smells. Our master recipe is fully customizable according to what you’ve got. It’s also devastatingly delicious.

Mood: Snowed in, feeling nice and lazy

Classic Split Pea Soup

Make this once, and you could probably do it blindfolded next time. I keep split peas in the pantry and a ham hock in the freezer all winter just in case the mood strikes.

Mood: Fed up with fundamentalism

Ab Ghooshte Fasl (Iranian Bean and Vegetable Soup)

There are many ways we can support the brave women of Iran — starting by continuing to be engaged in the struggle for their freedom from tyranny. Make this soup in their honor.

Mood: I want to join Club Nixtamal

Heirloom Corn Pozole Rojo

If you’re nixtamal curious but don’t happen to own a molino to grind corn, I invite you to make heirloom corn pozole from scratch. If you’re serious about Mexican cooking, consider doing this once in your life — it’ll be the best pozole you’ve ever had. Recipe links to a shortcut version, too.

Mood: Wish spring would hurry up!

Ridiculously Easy Minted Pea Soup

This beautiful bowl is made from lettuce, butter, salt, pepper, mint and a bag of frozen peas. My take on a classic French soup called potage Saint-Germain, it’s simple enough for a weeknight yet elegant enough for a big-deal dinner. You’d swear those peas were fresh.

Mood: Spa retreat

Vegan Spring Beauty Soup

Here’s another one to help you channel spring. There’s already asparagus from California in the markets, and this is another that offers a frozen pea-cheat.

Mood: Pass the penicillin

Joan’s Chicken Soup

Of course winter is chicken soup season, and my mom made the best — of theJewish penicillin-variety, anyway. I’m so happy to share the recipe with you. Feel better.

Mood: Winter greens wonderland

Chloé’s Vegan Gumbo Z’herbes

Gumbo Z’herbes is a Louisiana tradition more associated with the season of Lent than the dead of winter, but our friend Chloé Landrieu-Murphy’s delicious version is packed with a ton of winter greens, so please be our guest!

Our 25 favorite recipes of 2020, from Veracruz to Morocco to Vietnam (Part 2)

Rice Noodle Salad Bowl with scallop sashimi and crab

Rice Noodle Salad Bowl with scallop sashimi and crab

Yep, cooking really saved us in 2020, the worst year ever. We lost ourselves — and found our sanity and our joy — in the kitchen.

So many delicious dishes came out of it that we know we’ll be cooking for years to come. Here’s the story we we ran down the first 12. And now, onto the festivities!

13. Mely Martínez’s Pollo a la Veracruzana

Pollo a la Veracruzana from Mely Martínez’s ‘The Mexican Home Kitchen’

Because cookbook author and blogger Mely Martínez spent good chunks of her childhood learning to cook with her grandmother in Veracruz, Mexico, her Pollo a la Veracruzana was the first dish we cooked from her new cookbook, The Mexican Home Kitchen. We reviewed the book in September.

Why we love to cook it: With olives, capers, raisins and marjoram, this dish may sound a bit odd — but its flavors dance together beautifully. It’s quick and easy enough for a weeknight dinner, yet impressive enough for a special dinner for friends (if we can ever do that again!)

Fun factor: 3

14. Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Olives and Preserved Lemons

Anissa Helou’s Chicken Tagine with Olives and Preserved Lemons

This delicious tagine came from Anissa Helou’s marvelous and monumental book Feast: Food of the Islamic World. Partly because Cornish hens were nowhere to be found when I reviewed the book in early pandemic, I adapted it for chicken.

Why we love cooking it: It teaches us so much about tagine technique, in which you only brown the meat at the end, after the meat has cooked and most of the braising liquid has evaporated. Thanks to a lot of finely grated onion and spices that melt over the course of the cooking time, it becomes a savory, silky blanket of a sauce. The dish’s high fun factor is because of the delightfulness of the technique and the beautiful aromas that result from the spices.

Fun factor: 7

15. Moussaka for the Ages

Moussaka: eggplant layered with potatoes and beautifully spiced tomatoey lamb sauce, blanketed with yogurt béchamel

Our recipe for Greece’s most famous dish was my family’s unanimous favorite out of maybe nine jillion dishes that came out of our kitchen this year. (For my husband Thierry, it was tied with a dish that appears near the end of this list.) It was also a reader favorite: Though we only published it a week ago, it’s already among the most clicked-on of the year.

Why we love cooking it: It’s fun the first time, making the layers (potatoes, then eggplant, then lamb sauce). And the lamb sauce, spiced with cinnamon, allspice and more, fills the kitchen with a beautiful aroma. And then the “wow” moment when you see that incredible thick layer of yogurt-béchamel baked to puffy, toasty golden-brown: It’s breathtaking. Another plus: Once you make it a two or three times, it becomes second nature, because each step is quite easy. Did we mention that unlike convention versions, this one doesn’t require frying?

Fun factor: 7

16. Olivia Lopez’s Aguachile, Colima-Style

Olivia Lopez’s Aguachie, Colima-Style

In a story in May, we featured a glorious aguachile — raw shrimp bathed briefly in chile-spiked citrus and then sauced — from Dallas chef Olivia Lopez. We made it many times in the summer, and will make it again next time we’re overcome with longing for a Mexican beach getaway.

Why we love cooking it: It’s quick, easy and transporting.

Fun factor: 3.

17. Ottolenghi’s Puy Lentils and Eggplant

Puy Lentils and Eggplant from ‘Ottolenghi Simple’

I had a hard time deciding whether to include this recipe or Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe for Stuffed Zucchini with Pine Nut Salsa. Both are included in Ottolenghi Simple, for which we are long-overdue on a review. I’ve cooked the zucchini many times — and no doubt will many more. But I can’t stop thinking about the lentils, a glorious, delicious mess of a dish. Think I’ll make it this coming Meatless Monday.

Why we love cooking it: The method is easy and soothing, and the result wholesome and delicious.

Fun factor: 4

18. Papa Ed’s Shrimp and Grits

Papa Ed’s Shrimp and Grits, prepared from a recipe in Marcus Samuelsson’s ‘The Rise’

The shrimp and grits recipe in chef Marcus Samuelsson’s new cookbook The Rise makes the best version of the dish I’ve ever had. Yes, literally. The recipe honors Ed Brumfield, executive chef of Red Rooster, Samuelsson’s restaurant in Harlem. It’s so good I won’t wait for okra season to make it again; I’ll buy frozen okra.

Why we love to cook it: In less than an hour you can have it on the table. There’s a zen-like quiet loveliness in small-dicing all the veg, and the okra are beautiful cut that way.

Fun factor: 2. The fun is in eating this one, which would be a fun factor 10!

19. Rice Noodle Salad Bowls with XYZ Skewers

A Rice Noodle Salad Bowl with grilled pork skewers adapted from Andrea Nguyen’s ‘Vietnamese Food Any Day’

A Rice Noodle Salad Bowl with grilled pork skewers adapted from Andrea Nguyen’s ‘Vietnamese Food Any Day’

Mostly over the summer, we riffed on this fabulous recipe, adapted from Andrea Nguyen’s Vietnamese Food Any Day, maybe seven or eight times. Our adapted recipe mentions “XYZ” skewers because the skewers could be just about anything — grilled chicken, grilled shrimp, grilled pork (as shown here), or even not-skewers, like the sashimi shown in our story’s lede photo.

Why we love cooking it: Because it’s infinitely riffable, super-fun to assemble and thanks to the nuoc cham, insanely delicious.

Fun factor: 9

20. Sonoko Sakai’s Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki prepared from a recipe in Sonoko Sakai’s ‘Japanese Home Cooking’

After years of searching for a great okonomiyaki recipe, I finally hit the jackpot in Sonoko Sakai’s Japanese Home Cooking, which we reviewed in June. Okonomiyaki, in case you’re unfamiliar, is a savory pancake (this one is filled with cabbage and shrimp) brushed with tonkatsu sauce and topped with bonito flakes.

Why we love cooking it: “Okonomiyaki” means “as you like it,” and it’s infinitely riffable once you know the technique. Forming the pancakes and cooking them is satisfying, and it’s meant to be shared right away. We enjoyed taking turns making the pancakes (the recipe makes 4 fat ones).

Fun factor: 10

21. Salaryman Potato Salad

Japanese potato salad from a recipe by Dallas chef Justin Holt. It was a favorite at his restaurant Salaryman, which has since closed.

In the summer, potato salad became our drug of choice, and Japanese versions felt especially captivating. In a July story (remember picnic season?!), we featured one we love from Dallas Japanese ramen house Salaryman, where chef Justin Holt topped it with ajitama eggs, ramen-style. Holt has since closed the restaurant because he has been battling an aggressive form of leukemia (here is a GoFundMe to help with his mounting expenses).

Why we love cooking it: The ajitama egg, such a brilliant flourish, feels magical to make.

22. Shrimp, Sausage and Okra Gumbo

Shrimp, Andouille Sausage and Okra Gumbo

In the scanty-offerings-on-grocery-shelves days of early pandemic, I found okra, shrimp and andouille sausage at the supermarket all at the same time, and happened to have a package of dried shrimp in my larder, so I improvised a gumbo. It was deliciously soothing — both to make and to eat. I made it again, and again, tweaking until it was just where I wanted it. It’s also great to riff on according to what you have on hand. Okra season is finished, but you can skip it or use frozen.

Why we love cooking it: The power of transformation is intoxicating — shrimp shells into fabulous broth, flour and oil into a mocha-colored roux, and then the two combining into a saucy broth.

23. Tom Kha Kai

Tom Kha Kai from Leela Punyaratabandhu’s ‘Simple Thai Food’

I can’t think of a better way to enjoy the sunny flavors of Thailand on a cold winter day than diving into a bowl of Tom Kha Kai, coconut-galangal chicken soup. This one is from Leela Punyaratabandu’s excellent primer, Simple Thai Food (a must-have for anyone new to Thai cooking who wants to explore).

Why we love cooking it: The aromas are absolutely transporting, it’s super easy to make (once you collect the ingredients) and the result is thrilling in its Thai-ness. Cutting fresh makrut lime leaves into strips is maximum kitchen fun — what a perfume!

Fun factor: 8

24. World Butter Chicken

World Butter Chicken

To commemorate the first-ever World Butter Chicken Day, marking the 100th anniversary in October of the restaurant in India where butter chicken (murgh makhani) was invented, we developed a new, streamlined version of earth’s most popular Indian dish. Our first version was adapted from one by Monish Gujral — grandson of the chef who invented the dish. This version takes a couple hours of marination time out of the equation, with equally delicious results. Until Moussaka for the Ages came along, it was my husband Thierry’s favorite thing we’ve cooked during The Great Confinement, and he requests it again and again. (Now it is tied with Moussaka for his favorite.)

Why we love cooking it: I love the tandoori hack for the chicken, and the sauce is soothing to make, with fabulous aromatics.

Fun factor: 6

25. Yangzhou Fried Rice

Yangzhou Fried Rice from Fuchsia Dunlop’s ‘Every Grain of Rice’

If I weren’t on a serious mission to eat whole grains rather than white ones, I’d make the Yangzhou Fried Rice from Fuchsia Dunlop’s splendid book Every Grain of Rice every week or two — it’s that good.

Why we love cooking it: Making it the first time is a delicious lesson in Chinese fried rice technique, and Dunlop provides guidance on how to improve according to the ingredients in your fridge.

Fun factor: 7