recipes@decwrl.UUCP (09/18/87)
RAINBOW-SOUP(SP) USENET Cookbook RAINBOW-SOUP(SP)
PEPPER RAINBOW SOUP
RAINBOW-SOUP - A light summer soup with multicolored peppers
Every year in late summer, produce counters fill with mul-
ticolored bell (capsicum) peppers. Green bell peppers, red
bell peppers, yellow bell peppers. Even purple bell peppers.
Creative chefs try hard to take advantage of the splash of
colors, and make rainbow salads or rainbow appetizers. Here
is a different way to rejoice in multicolored peppers:
pepper soup. The peppers float to the top of a light broth
and artfully dodge your spoon as you try to eat them.
INGREDIENTS (Serves 6-8)
6 cups chicken broth
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cups cooked rice
4 bell peppers, in assorted colors.
1/2 tsp savory
2 tsp chives
2 egg yolks
2 Tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper, to taste
PROCEDURE
(1) Bring the broth to a boil. Cook the rice.
(2) Chop the onion and saut' the pieces until they are
golden brown. Add to the broth. Add the savory
and chives to the broth.
(3) Clean the seeds and cores from the peppers and
chop the cleaned peppers into pieces. Set chopped
peppers aside.
(4) Add the rice to the broth and cook for 5 minutes.
(5) Add the chopped peppers to the boiling broth and
simmer for 1 minute. Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks
in a 2-cup bowl.
(6) Thicken the soup with the egg yolks by adding the
hot soup to the beaten yolks a little bit at a
time, stirring constantly, until a cup or two of
soup has been added to the yolks. Dump this mix-
ture back into the simmering broth. Add the lemon
juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serve.
NOTES
The thickening technique is identical to that used in
avgolemono recipes, which you can consult for more details.
The flavor and texture balance of the soup depends on the
amount that the peppers are cooked. The more you cook them,
the more their flavor exudes into the broth but the more
they lose their texture. I find that about 2 minutes in sim-
mering broth is the right amount.
You can have fun with colored geometric patterns as you cut
the peppers. They don't have to be chunks. You can cut the
yellow peppers into circles and the green peppers into long
strips and the red peppers into cross sections and the pur-
ple peppers into stocky triangles. Be creative. The colored
shapes will float to the top of the broth and play hide-
and-seek with each other.
RATING
Difficulty: moderate (egg yolk thickening and pepper cooking
require some practice). Time: 10 minutes preparation, 10
minutes cooking. Precision: No need to measure.
CONTRIBUTOR
Brian Reid
DEC Western Research Laboratory, Palo Alto, California, USA
decwrl!reid -or- reid@decwrl.dec.com