♪ ♪ - You know, back in the 1700s, that great folktale about stone soup, essentially soup from nothing.

So I liked the idea so much, I went to Romania and I sat down with Oana Udrea.

She made a soup from nothing-- water and toasted caraway seeds.

It was delicious.

- Work with what you have.

I don't know, people going and trying to buy a lot of things.

"Because I need them, I need them.

I need them for the recipe."

No, you don't.

- Then I went down to Bucharest and I spent some time with Marius Tudosiei, and he made a lettuce soup with lettuce and milk, believe it or not, and bacon.

Sounds weird, but it's delicious.

- This is a funny recipe, but, you know, sometimes you have to cook with whatever you have in your house.

- And I got a lesson from James Ooi in Britain, who does a wonderful soup with creamed corn out of a can, chicken and chili crisp.

So please stay tuned as we make supper from, well, nothing.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

♪ ♪ - Life is very quiet in these villages.

We live in a very, very small house located near the fortified church in the village.

At the end of our property, there is an old Saxon orchard.

If you go through that, you will find the pastures.

We collect the hay for the cows.

This village is 700 years old.

And as you see in the Saxon areas, the villages are quite concentrated.

You will not see houses here on the hills.

We don't build and we don't spread on the hills.

Today, I will cook one recipe that I learned from my grandmother.

I remember her doing it for me while I was a kid, and I clearly remember the smell.

It's a caraway soup.

It's her version.

There are several versions, but this is 100% her version.

The most important thing about this recipe is picking your caraway seeds.

If you don't have very good seeds, you don't start the soup.

It's as simple as that.

You always have to smell them before using them.

I can do this the entire day.

With the caraway seeds.

(chuckles) I love them.

Caraway seeds and tarragon are the basic things in this area.

I mean, for cooking, you'll have to use one of these.

And there is this confusion.

I always try to enlighten people on the difference between cumin and caraway because they are so different.

Not as much as in the way they look, but the taste is completely different.

If they don't pop, no worries.

Oh, they are popping.

(light popping) Work with what you have.

I don't know, people going and trying to buy a lot of things, because, "I need them, I need them.

I need them for the recipe."

No, you don't; you can simplify.

You can, you know, change one with another.

Just be creative.

- What's interesting is you make essentially a stock out of toasted caraway seeds.

- Exactly.

- And then you make some onions.

You make a roux.

- A sort of roux.

Yeah.

- With flour, sweet paprika.

- Try not to burn it, just cook it.

This is our soup coming together.

As you see, is a very, very, very simple soup.

When people from other parts of the country come and visit us and I serve them this, they say, "What's this?

I've never heard of this type of soup."

And I say, "Just try it."

We will try to make a little bit of pesto from horseradish leaves, the youngest we could find this time of the year.

Smoked walnuts from last year's crop.

This is how we keep them from the winter.

Usually, we don't take the skin off.

So the thing about these biscuits is the cheese and, of course, the flour.

I use two types of local cheeses.

The rest of the ingredients are... ...it depends-- if I like to do this... like this, these days, I do it like this.

It's not something that is fixed.

So if I have nigella seeds, which I usually have, or I have mustard seeds, because we make pickles, and we use them in each and every pickle that we make here.

Otherwise, I would have poppy seeds.

But I have to think of the taste and how, of course, how to, you know, harmonize for me.

The biscuits are ready.

I feel proud because it's the proper smell.

For me, the smell is, you know, of essence.

When I cook my grandma's dishes, the smell, I remember it from when I was a child.

And if the smell is not okay, I'm upset.

I know I did something wrong, and I'm quite upset with myself.

I know my grandma would not be happy with this.

Today is a good day.

(chuckles) I think the whole village smells it by now.

(chuckles) ♪ ♪ - There are lots of recipes in the world, sort of folk tale recipes, like stone soup, soup from nothing.

And when I was in Romania, I completely changed the way I think about cooking, especially with a soup.

We're starting here with some toasted caraway seeds.

We're starting here with water.

That's the stock.

So if you think about it, you can create a stock out of anything.

So not just chicken, not just beef, not just bones.

When you think about cooking, start with water.

Like, water lets the other ingredients shine.

And there are a million ways to flavor water.

But at the end of the day, it's something you all have in your kitchen, you don't have to go out and buy it.

And I think it's actually more delicious.

So change the way you cook-- hey, start with water.

So three tablespoons of caraway seeds.

We're gonna crank up the heat a little more here.

You do want to watch this, by the way.

What you don't want to do is go out and take a phone call or answer the doorbell or something.

'Cause when they start to, to go, it'll go fast.

Obviously, caraway seeds have a ton of flavor.

That's why they can flavor-- this is two quarts of water.

And in half an hour, you can get a really flavorful stock.

In those little Saxon villages, they're interesting.

All the properties are fairly narrow, and they go way back into the forest or the fields, it was kind of like storybook-- it was absolutely beautiful.

And she's one heck of a cook.

You know, it made me feel like, you know, I have this nice kitchen.

I have all these appliances.

She cooked pretty simply with simple ingredients and is a better cook than I am, so.

So I learned a lot.

Some people toast spices actually in the oven, which I find is difficult because you really want to watch the stuff closely.

It's also good to do it on a stainless pan because you can see the color.

So now we have two quarts of water.

(hissing) Rather dramatic.

We're gonna bring that up to a simmer, partially covered, and let that cook for about half an hour.

♪ ♪ So now the onions, and we're just really softening these.

This is not French soup.

Okay, a little garlic.

Actually, looks like more than a little garlic, doesn't it?

Over the last half century-- that sounds so depressing-- over the last half century, I've started cooking things a little more gently because I find it gives you a little bit more time so you don't make a mistake.

If I have to step out of the kitchen, less likely I'm going to come back to a disaster.

Although, that does happen occasionally.

Flour.

And sweet paprika.

Someone at Milk Street a couple years ago had a recipe and it called for a tablespoon or something of sweet paprika.

And by mistake, she put in chili powder, and she said it was-- tasted good, but she... (chuckles) ...it was kind of hard to eat.

Although they look very similar.

So this is just a classic case of using flour to thicken.

We're gonna cook it for maybe a couple of minutes.

You sort of see the flour.

It starts to stick to the bottom of the pan.

Caraway seeds in here, which we don't want in the final soup, so we're gonna pour about half of this in, And we're gonna whisk this to incorporate everything.

So a little more salt, three-quarter teaspoon.

So we're just gonna keep this on a low simmer for 15 minutes or so.

This is a pesto-- now, she made a pesto, it was interesting, out of smoked walnuts and radish greens, right?

I just love the idea of just taking what was in her garden and making a pesto.

So we're using regular walnuts and a little Parmesan and garlic.

Parsley instead-- it's a very, very simple pesto.

She added that to the soup, which I think adds just a tremendous amount of flavor to it.

And then she made these cheesy biscuits.

These are also really delicious and simple to make.

In that old 18th century story about stone soup, it was so interesting because it was water and a stone, and the people came by and kept adding things to it.

By the time they were done, it was just this fabulous soup.

So she starts off with water and toasted caraway seeds.

But then, you know, okay, we have a little onion, and we have a little garlic, and then we have a little paprika with a little flour, and then we have a little pesto.

And you end up with a nothing soup that's really a something soup, right, by the time you're done.

It's almost a clear broth.

It's delicious, it looks great.

Little pesto, and these cheesy biscuits, I ate about ten of them when I was there.

This really changed the way I cook, because it made me think, millions of people around the world start with water.

Like, that's the basic ingredient in the soup they're making, or stew.

Whereas I always think about stock.

And it really teaches us that sometimes the simplest, cheapest ingredients, whatever's lying around, turns out the absolute best food.

So we're going back to Bucharest now, and I spent better part of a day with Marius Tudosiei.

Now, he made, hold on, a lettuce soup.

Absolutely delicious and also very different than anything I'd ever made before.

♪ ♪ - I love to cook, I love to eat, I love to offer my food to, to people.

It gives me so much energy and a good one.

Let's start with the soup.

I will use, it's a kind of bacon, that part from the belly.

We always have some pork fat-- traditionally, we sacrifice some pigs on it for Christmas.

Will last in the summer.

You put some vegetables, some greens, dill and parsley, and spring onion.

This is really roughly chopped.

This is the moment we have to add the liquids, and I will use... ...kind of equal parts of water and milk.

Let's say less water and more milk.

Now, this is a funny recipe, but, you know, sometimes you have to cook with whatever you have in your house.

You don't have so many ingredients sometimes.

Yes.

It's the only moment I use a knife and the lettuce at the same time.

I don't like to cut the lettuce for salad.

Some people are boiling the lettuce.

I'm making fun of them, killing twice an ingredient.

So I prefer it a little bit crunchy.

You boil for a couple of minutes.

We have to put some yogurt on the end.

Sometimes, I like this way.

And beat the yogurt with an egg, Because the recipe is from Transylvania.

Today I'm using yogurt from water buffalo.

♪ ♪ And meanwhile, you have to take care of the omelet.

So I think that's it.

At the end, just put the omelet in the soup.

You don't have to boil the omelet any longer.

Perfect.

That's the taste.

Smoked pork, omelet, greens, dairy.

- And sometimes, garlic.

- Yeah.

- We used to put grated garlic in the yogurt, yeah?

- A little bit of garlic.

We eat a lot of garlic.

Italian are soft, like the pizza dough.

Our gastronomy is based on strong tastes.

- This is really good.

♪ ♪ - Cooked lettuce-- we think lettuce is just for salad, but every vegetable has many personalities.

And when you cook lettuce, it gets sweeter and it gets softer, which is something people all around the world have known for centuries.

You can stir fry it in China, you can braise it in Sicily, and you can make it into a soup in Romania.

So we're gonna start, actually, by getting some bacon-- sort of the opposite of lettuce-- nice and crispy.

And this is a trick I love for recipes that are vegetable forward but are not quite vegetarian.

So we just want to heat this until it's really crispy.

'Cause that's gonna be our crunchy garnish.

And then we're gonna use that fat to soften our aromatics.

This is gonna take a few minutes, and you don't want to stir too often, otherwise nothing will ever get very crispy.

So now our bacon's nice and crispy, and we're gonna use a slotted spoon to remove all of it onto a paper towel lined plate.

I have to say, this bacon's perfect.

It's golden brown and crispy, but it's not charred and smoky, which would be a flavor that's not right for this soup.

And I've got plenty of fat to sauté my aromatics in.

That's the virtue of patience.

So I'm just gonna go ahead and add in the scallion whites.

We're saving the greens for garnish.

I love ingredients that you can use twice.

It just means you double down on flavor, which makes your dish taste better.

But it also means that you have a little kitchen economy and you save time.

We're doing the same thing with dill.

So here are dill stems, which we've chopped up.

A lot of people know you can eat cilantro stems, but you can also eat the tender parts of dill and parsley stems and use them as an aromatic base.

And then garlic-- we have four cloves of minced garlic.

And you probably saw there's a lot of fond on the bottom of my pot, that's all flavor from crisping up the bacon.

And it's going to lift right up when I add in four cups of chicken broth.

And then also two cups of water.

And we're gonna bring this up to a simmer while I get our lettuce ready.

So this is romaine lettuce, and we want 12 ounces, but you can also use escarole, which is slightly more bitter.

It's not the most bitter of bitter greens, but I really like it in this soup because it gives that little extra flavor dimension.

However, romaine is much easier to find.

Romaine lettuce.

Do you know it comes from Istanbul?

So when the Romans ruled Istanbul, there were these gorgeous farms between the fortified walls of the city.

So the walls are two walls thick, and in between, there were all these farms, and they fed the city, and romaine lettuce was born there.

So it's actually a protected type of lettuce.

A little fun history fact for the soup.

So I quartered my lettuce lengthwise, and now I'm just gonna cut it across into... ...about two-inch pieces.

♪ ♪ Okay, our broth is up to a nice, lively simmer, and I'm gonna go ahead and season it, and now I'm gonna add in the romaine, sort of, handful by handful, so it has a little time to wilt down before I add the next bunch.

The flavor transformation in cooked lettuces is lovely, that's why I say they have a lot of different personalities.

And heat brings out a sweetness that you don't necessarily get in raw lettuce.

So really let it cook.

And thankfully, you have something to do to occupy your hands, and that is make the egg yolk-yogurt mixture that we'll use to thicken this and really take it to the next level.

The egg yolks will curdle if we just add this straight to the broth, so we're gonna do something called tempering.

I'm gonna take a ladle full of hot broth and slowly whisk it in to sort of stabilize those egg yolks.

And then we're going to add it in to the soup.

♪ ♪ So now we just want to finish it with our second dose of dill.

So these are the chopped leaves, and then here are the scallion greens.

We used the whites earlier.

And then the crunch, the bacon that I cooked so perfectly.

So I like to start with more of the lettuce substance.

Make it-- oh, look how pretty and bright green that is.

It's so nice.

And I do that so that the bright green stuff is floating, sort of, on top.

And then I can figure out how much extra broth to add in off to the side.

Let's give it a taste.

Mm.

You know, this would be perfect in the middle of winter, when you're dreaming of anything green and fresh.

But it's also a great soup for those spring and fall nights that are cooler than warm days, when you want something hearty but, it's still warm outside.

This is the perfect, sort of, in between season soup.

I love soup from nothing.

You feel so efficient.

You feel so powerful.

You're creating, like, kitchen alchemy with hardly anything.

So next time you have an extra head of romaine lettuce in the crisper, you could make a salad, or you could make this soup from nothing.

Remember, vegetables have many personalities, and I think this is one way to make lettuce shine.

♪ ♪ - I've been saying for 45 years, that bay leaves are a complete waste, because, you know, I open the jar, I can't smell anything, and you put them in a beef bourguignon, you put them in a stew, you can't really taste them, right?

So we have four bay leaves: Turkish, we have California, we have fresh, we have old, and we simmered them, two leaves, in two cups of chicken stock for 15 minutes.

Now the question is, can I tell a difference?

Can I taste anything at all?

And so either this is gonna be the worst day of my life or say once again how smart I am, I don't know.

Very mild.

B. Tastes like cinnamon.

That was completely tasteless.

This one seemed to have a sort of meatier flavor.

Well, this one and this one were, I'd say, flavorless.

These two?

No, this one pretty mild.

This one, B, has a kind of an odd cinnamon-y thing going on.

D does have a more robust flavor, I would say.

So I have to pick one, I'd probably pick D. Now the big reveal.

So here are the ones I tasted, I guess.

we have a little key here.

Let's see how I did.

The first one I said was really mild.

Didn't have a lot of flavor-- these are old bay leaves.

Okay, so far, so good.

This one I said had a cinnamon flavor.

It was kind of a weird taste.

Those are the fresh leaves, which are weird.

C is Turkish-- I thought that didn't have much flavor at all.

And then, of course, we have California bay leaves.

I thought this one actually had the most flavor.

It had sort of a beefy, meaty flavor to it.

And the last one, E, was a control, and there were no bay leaves.

So I said these two had the least flavor, which means Turkish and nothing.

This one is old and dry.

I didn't think it had a lot of flavor.

This is fresh, it had a weird flavor.

And the winner would be the California bay leaf-- but let me just repeat what I've been saying since 1980, which is that when you put meat or chicken or sofrito or whatever else, you have hot sauce, fish sauce, in a dish, a stew, a soup, whatever.

You're not going to taste a couple of bay leaves, even three or four bay leaves.

And my opinion is, my condolences to the bay leaf industry, is that a couple of bay leaves, three or four bay leaves, aren't going to make any difference whatsoever by the time you finish cooking your dish.

So if you want to add an herbal element, right, to a dish, there are lots of herbs out there, folks, that actually have big flavors like rosemary, for example.

Bay leaves, eh, not so much.

♪ ♪ - Hi, Milk Street, it's James Ooi and I want to share my favorite midweek soup.

This is my take on a traditional chicken sweet corn soup.

And the reason I say it's my take is because... ...it's something that everyone can cook at home.

Like, it's really, really easy to make when time is not on your side.

It's something to make when... it's a little bit cold, the weather's changing a bit.

You want something that's a bit cozy.

So it's something that I've helped recreate.

So people-- it's a bit nostalgic with the Chinese restaurant, especially in the U.K.

So something you can eat and you can make.

And it's, and it's very simple to execute.

So ingredients-wise, super simple.

We're gonna go water, and we're gonna go chicken breast, and then you can either use cream corn-- not that easy to get in the U.K.

Might be a little bit easier in the U.S.

If you can't get creamed corn, just get a normal tin of sweet corn and blitz it.

And then we're gonna thicken it with a corn flour slurry.

And then at the end, I finish it with a little bit of spring onion, a little bit of toasted sesame oil, and I drop in a little bit of light soy.

It's impossible to make it for one person.

Okay, you can try, and you'll fail.

You'll end up-- even two chicken breasts will feed six people when you make this soup, so.

When people come around, this is like a cheat way to look super impressive in the kitchen and not actually have to do that much work.

- When we heard James describe this soup with its standout ingredient of creamed corn, we were really intrigued.

Now, I grew up in the South, where every pantry had canned creamed corn in it.

But generally, it's just a side dish on your dinner plate.

What's different about this soup is that the creamed corn really forms the primary flavor and the base of the entire soup.

We're going to begin with the chicken breast on the bone and with skin, which gives a little bit of more flavor.

And we're going to poach it in basic water with just a little bit of seasoning in it.

So just put the breast in and turn this on a medium-high.

You want to bring it up to a good, nice simmer, turn it down a little bit, and let it poach for about 20, 25 minutes, until that thick part of the breast reaches 165 degrees.

Now, this gives us for the soup, the chicken, of course.

But we're also going to use this flavored broth as part of our soup base.

Now, to this hot broth, I'll add the creamed corn.

I'm just gonna pour that right in.

And now we'll just take the pot off heat and make a quick cornstarch slurry.

This will thicken the soup even further.

Now, I'll be honest.

I have made this soup both ways, with the slurry and without.

It really is a matter of preference.

You don't want to put the cornstarch directly into the pot of soup, because it will clump, and it will be really hard to get those lumps out.

And then we'll pour it right back into the soup.

All right, now we'll shred the chicken that we took out earlier-- you know, the advantage of poaching chicken like this for your soup from the beginning, rather than using leftover chicken or rotisserie chicken, for instance, is that the chicken takes on the flavor of the broth that you want it to take on-- we added a little bit of soy sauce, salt and pepper, and that's what the chicken tastes of, which is really nice.

So we're gonna put this nice, soft, tender chicken right back into our soup bowl.

Then we'll put this right back over the heat.

We want the cornstarch to have a chance to thicken the broth, and that happens only when it's at a simmer.

While the soup heats up, I'm going to chop some fresh scallions, which we'll use to garnish the dish, and then we will be ready to give a taste.

You can see how fast this came together.

I mean, it's great for any weeknight, not just Tuesday.

And we'll take some of those sliced scallions we made and just sprinkle those over.

Now, the next thing on this soup, which really ramps up the flavor, is a little bit of chili crisp, just drizzled over the top at the very finish.

And if you don't want that little bit of heat in there, you can always use toasted sesame oil, which is also really delicious.

You know, for such a simple soup based on pantry staples, this delivers big flavor.

Now, my husband, whose eyes light up at the mere mention of corn, ate a big bowl of this soup and then went back for another one.

So I think I'll be making this again.

So whether you decide to make this soup, or Chris's caraway soup, or Rosie's lettuce soup or even all three soups, you end up with a really nice bowl of soup that comes together in no time and from ingredients that are generally always on hand.

And you can find this recipe and all the recipes from this season at MilkStreetTV.com.

- Recipes and episodes from this season of Milk Street are available at MilkStreetTV.com along with shopping lists, printer-ready recipes and our tips and techniques library.

Access our content anytime to change the way you cook.

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From Brazilian cheese puffs and French toast, to skillet lasagna and Japanese cheesecake.

The new Milk Street Cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of The Milk Street Cookbook for $34.95-- 40% less than the cover price.

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