Salsify and Jerusalem artichoke soup + updates and life stuff

Hey. It's been a long time. 

I'm sorry about that. I haven't forgotten about the blog. It's always been on the back of my mind, nagging me. There have been several reasons why I haven't been working on it. First is that I'm working on a cookbook. That's taking up most of my time but when I hear people tell me they like my blog and my writing it makes me want to keep doing it. So I'm going to try to post more often. I may even post some of the recipes that are going in the cookbook. 

The second reason I haven't been posting as much is because it's tiring. I've been enjoying cooking and I didn't want to have to take pictures of every step and then write an interesting and engaging blog post about it just to find out I missed one picture and now it feels incomplete and you get the picture. Or you don't. Haha get it? Yeah. I know where the door is. 

Anyways to solve this problem I'm just going to have less pictures in my posts. I'm sorry if the pictures are your favorite part but it just makes making the post way to stressful and not fun. 

Another thing I wanted to ask was how would you readers mind if I branched out into other kinds of posts besides just herb and spice focused posts. I've been wanted to do a thing where I recreate food from games and tv, but if nobody wants to read that I won't do it. Or I will, I just won't write about it. 

One last thing. I want people to give me more feedback. I made comments available for a reason. Even if it's negative feedback, I still want it. But when I post a blog post and get no feedback at all it makes me feel like nobody is even reading it. That's another reason I stopped posting entries. I felt like nobody was even reading the things I posted and I was putting time and effort into something nobody cared about.

Anyways, that's all for now. I guess you want to know how to make the soup in the picture now huh? Here you go then. 

Panch Phoran Spice Mix

To make Panch Phoran, mix together equal parts mustard seed, fennel seed, cumin seed, fenugreek seed, and nigella seed. I recommend making more than you need for this recipe because it's delicious on simple things like potatoes or other vegetables. Use whole spices for this mix, as it is always used whole or lightly crushed, never ground (the fenugreek in particular would be far too bitter ground)

Soup

2 tbsp butter or ghee 2 tbsp panch phoran 12 curry leaves 1 onion, diced 3 cloves garlic 1 cup chopped salsify root 1 cup chopped burdock root 2 cups cubed Jerusalem Artichokes 2 tsp honey 2 tsp turmeric 2 tbsp whiskey 2-3 cups mushroom stock 1/2 cup cream Salt to taste Freshly grated nutmeg 

Melt the butter over medium high heat. Once it starts to foam and bubble, add the panch phoran and curry leaves and fry the spices until they become fragrant and and begin to infuse into the butter. You know it's been long enough when the mustard seeds start to pop and sizzle in the hot butter.

Add the onions and garlic and stir to coat with the spices and infused butter. Add a few pinches of salt and sweat for 10 minutes until they begin to turn translucent and a brown crust starts forming on the bottom of the pot. This is called a fond and it's delicious flavor.

Add the burdock, salsify, and Jerusalem artichokes, season with salt, and stir to coat with the spices. Deglaze the pan with whiskey and add the honey, then cover the pot and let everything steam for 10 minutes or until the burdock can be broken with a spatula.

Stir in the turmeric, then add the mushroom stock. I added just enough to barely cover the vegetables, but if you want a thinner soup, you can add more stock. Bring the soup to a boil, then turn it down and simmer for 15 minutes.

Transfer the soup to a blender and purée until it's very fine. Transfer back to the pot, bring to a boil, and stir in the cream. The liquid may separate from the puréed vegetables. If it does, just stir them back together. Serve with freshly grated nutmeg. 

This is one of the best soups I've ever made to date. Do use the root vegetables I listed if you can find them. If you can't, you can subsitute basically any other root. Even just 4 cups of potatoes would work. It's all about the spices in this soup.