LEFTOVER SOUP š¤ RISOTTO
On the docket today: how to give your leftover soup a new life, and why German children always finish their soup.
Move over, grilled cheese. Today, weāre transforming the tomato soup pictured above into risotto, using just a few extra ingredients. Risotto calls for broth, so using leftover soup (which is essentially broth, just thicker) makes absolute sense in my eyes.
Iāve been thinking about this food marriage for a while, and tomato soup seemed like the natural contender because like risotto, itās hearty, wholesome, and it goes well with cheese. The stars aligned last week when I had some tomato soup left over (see here for a very basic roasted tomato soup recipe).
Roasted Tomato Soup Risotto
Ingredients (feeds 2)
2 cups leftover soup of choice
1 tb salted butter
1/2 tb olive oil
1/2 onion, peeled and chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup Arborio rice
1/4 cup dry white wine
As much grated Parmesan as your heart desires
Instructions
Keep the tomato soup at a gentle simmer in a small pot.
Heat the butter and the olive oil over medium heat in a small-medium pan or pot (I used a pan).
When the butter has melted, add the onion, garlic, and salt, and cook for another minute, stirring occasionally.
Stir in the rice, mixing everything together so that the oils coat the grains and gradually toast the rice, stirring often for 2 or so minutes.
Pour in the wine and simmer until the liquid has almost evaporated, continuously stirring.
Add 1/4 cup of the tomato soup, and stir until almost completely absorbed (1-2 minutes). Continue adding the soup 1/4 cup at a time until the rice is tender - this should take around 20 minutes.
Stir in the grated parmesan cheese, remove from the heat, taste, and season with additional salt and black pepper. Serve hot and with a few basil leaves for colour.
Soup Lit 101
Now, on to darker topics: we need to talk about German pedagogy, specifically as it pertains to childrenās books.
Most fairytales contain some form of moral teaching: kindness will be rewarded, selfishness wonāt (Cinderella), donāt trust strangers (Hansel and Gretel), and hard work and dedication pay off (The Three Little Pigs). Some German ones, however, are straight-up terrifying.
Enter Struwwelpeter: a compilation of 10 cautionary tales for children by psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffmann (German kids, iykyk). Some of these stories are fairly reasonable, others involve extremities being chopped off or death by fire. Angst galore!
Here areWikipedia summaries of the more gruesome tales (this is soup-related, I promise):
Struwwelpeter describes a boy who does not groom himself properly and is consequently unpopular.
Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem Feuerzeug ("The Very Sad Tale with the Matches"): A girl plays with matches, accidentally ignites herself and burns to death. Only her cats mourn her.
Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher ("The Story of the Thumb-Sucker"): A mother warns her son Konrad not to suck his thumbs. However, when she goes out of the house he resumes his thumb-sucking, until a roving tailor appears and cuts off his thumbs with giant scissors.
Die Geschichte vom fliegenden Robert ("The Story of Flying Robert"): A boy goes outside during a storm. The wind catches his umbrella and lifts him high into the air. The story ends with the boy sailing into the distance.
And finally, my personal villain origin story and the tale that brought us here today: Die Geschichte vom Suppen-Kaspar (or The Story of Augustus, who would not have any Soup), a plump and healthy boy who one day proclaims that he will no longer eat his soup, and proceeds to wither away and ultimately die (you can find an English translation here).
Moral of the story?! Brush your hair, donāt play with matches, keep your thumbs out of your mouth, and most importantly: eat your soup!
Thanks for tuning in ā£ļø