SPRING FEVER GOT US LIKE...
A bright comforting bowl of soup + the best biscuits you've never tasted!
Happy first week of Spring! While it certainly may not *feel* like it right now, buds are budding, birds are chirping, and flowers are about to POP up everywhere!
The beginning of spring is always so exciting, and yet so confusing at the same time. What do we wear? A dress? Shorts? A parka?!? Could be all of the above, on any given day. But Spring isn’t just a season, it’s a state of mind… it’s about rebirth and emerging from our winter cocoons to fresh vegetables, greener pastures, and new life.
This week, we’ve got two recipes that will help you straddle the often-confusing spring weather: a Spring Green Vegetable Soup that is verdant and popping with spring flavors, and Cacio e Pepe Biscuits that are the perfect pairing (but also a must-make on their own!).
SPRING GREEN VEGETABLE SOUP
AU: If Spring is springing where you are, consider yourself lucky. For most of the U.S. this week, it’s downright chilly. When your heart is saying, “Spring is here,” but the weather begs to differ… It’s time to make this comforting bowl of Spring’s Greatest Hits! Soup is kind of like the more-comforting version of a salad, no? A soup warms and nourishes you, while a salad cools you and makes you feel virtuous.
EK: I am here for it! It’s been surprisingly chilly to downright cold in Charleston this week and a chunky homemade soup and hot-from-the-oven biscuits are soooo cozy and comforting! This is going to be my weekend menu.
AU: This soup is decidedly green, and is infinitely riffable—use whatever spring veg you’ve got on hand. Leeks, garlic, spring onions, and fennel create a flavorful base for beans, new potatoes, greens, peas, and herbs. Every comforting spoonful, is bursting with bright green spring flavor!
AU: I started by sweating the leeks, garlic, and spring onion whites (save the greens for later!) slowly over moderate heat. I want to try and keep that mild allium flavor, instead of caramelizing and browning them. Thinly sliced fennel and the stems of Swiss chard get added to the mix, and cooked until they’re just barely starting to soften (to retain texture in the finished dish). Then I added in some baby yukon golds that I cut into 1/2”-1” pieces. You could use any young, semi-waxy potato here.
I added a can of rinsed great northern beans, but you could just as easily use cannellini, fava, or gigante beans. Top everything off with a bunch of stock—either homemade or store bought—and for extra flavor, I added a big ol’ parmesan rind. I don’t know about you, but I have an entire bag full of parm rinds in my freezer, just itching to be simmered!
EK: Yeesssss!! That is THE SECRET, right there! The parmesan rind is what takes it from good to GREAT!!
AU: Once the potatoes are tender, it’s time to add MORE GREEN to the soup. Stir in the Swiss Chard that you’ve torn into pieces. Add most of the scallion greens, reserving some for garnish. If you’re going to serve the soup immediately, I’d add in my frozen peas here—but if it’s going to be a while, wait to add them until before serving, so they retain their gorgeous green color.
This is also where you could add in any number of spring vegetables: green beans, snap peas, asparagus, ramps! All would be welcome additions. In addition, you’re going to want to add the zest and juice of a whole lemon. Do not skip this, as it’s paramount to the final dish’s flavor. Lemon always just lifts everything up and makes it taste alive.
I finished my soup with mint and parsley, but it would also be great with tarragon, basil, or chervil.
AU: And while the recipe is written to be a vegetarian meal, you could easily add pulled rotisserie chicken, pre-made chicken meatballs, or even try topping each bowl with a poached egg!
CACIO E PEPE BISCUITS
EK: I have never quite made a biscuit like this. It’s a cross between a biscuit and a cheese straw, but with the flavors of Cacio e Pepe, a.k.a. Cheese and Pepper.
AU: Girl, you’re saying all the right things…
EK: I could tell when it was baking, just by the smell of it, that it was going to be one of those ethereal first bites!
EK: I used my basic family biscuit recipe using AP flour (and not self-rising flour). Anthony reminded me that unless biscuits are in your blood, you probably don’t keep self-rising flour on hand. And we already covered those biscuits here.
AU: I think it’s true! I’ve never had self-rising flour in my pantry, but most people I know from the Carolinas or Deep South do. It’s definitely the way Texans always have a can of Ro-Tel in theirs.
EK: I chose to use Lard (instead of butter and Crisco), because I wanted the biscuits to be on the savory side and have the crispness of a good pie crust. I added a brush of good European butter for flavor between the layers.
In keeping with the Italian cheese and pepper flavor theme, I used shredded Pecorino Romano for the sharp, salty and authentic flavor, and added chopped Gruyere cheese for its meltability, browning, and universal cheesy appeal—who doesn’t like the top of French Onion Soup?!
For the pepe, I used a scant tablespoon of coarsely ground pepper. It looks like a lot, but because it is course-ground—and not fine-ground—it has all the flavor of pepper but very little heat. Interesting fact: it’s actually the pepper dust that packs a punch, and not the larger flakes of ground pepper, so the finer the grind, the more peppery it is.
If you haven’t made biscuits from scratch before, the only real work is cutting the fat into the flour mixture. This is very easy to do with both lard, Crisco, and butter. The key is cutting the fat into smaller pieces and covering them with flour. You can mix the fat and flour with a blending fork, a pastry cutter, two knives, or even your hands.
EK: Because I wanted the cheese and pepper to be integral through the whole biscuit, I made a kind of cheese-and-pepper spread, borrowing from the way you make pimento cheese. I mixed the two cheeses and pepper with a little mayonnaise. I did this first so that the mayonnaise would hydrate the cheese and pepper a little as it sat before I mixed it in with the flour mixture. The mayonnaise that I used to bind the cheese and pepper adds a little extra fat and makes a big difference in the final biscuit. I would not leave that out.
AU: It’s probably kind of like how adding mayonnaise to your chocolate cake batter makes for an unbelievably rich cake—after all, mayonnaise is essentially eggs and oil!
EK: Exactly! If you skip the mayo, you would have to use an equal amount of lard in this recipe but it won’t taste the same, or bake the same, so don’t skip it!
This is not a featherlight southern biscuit. Instead, it is a denser, almost shortbread-like biscuit with cheesy peppery notes in every bite, and a lot of depth of flavor, which means that you don’t need to add any extra butter or olive oil on it. It is a complete bite in itself and I can’t think of anything better to serve with a bowl of soup, or on its own with a cocktail.
