It hasn't been mentioned here yet, but books are my bag. I grew up without a TV--the girl who (actually one of three sisters who all) walked down the sidewalk with her nose in a book on her way home from school. This led to official things like writing courses and an MA in Creative Writing (among other things) and a (brief) professional career in the publishing. Unofficially, it led to a vaguer, headier aura of BOOKS ARE MY BAG! An avid reader yes, but a book collector for the sake of filling my bookshelves; a credit card debt accumulator carefully pruning my pile of books to a reasonable number like 8 or 9 before walking to the check out counter. I swept cookbooks into my book buying fury easily--starting with big pretty picture cookbooks before I really cooked much, and, more recently, replacing them by denser tomes like The Joy of Cooking, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and How to Cook Everything.
In the latter book, Mark Bittman styles himself as a self-made cook who calls his cookbook, "a devotion to the basics, and almost nothing but the basics." It is that. The index lists line after line of recognizable classics and more exotic dishes, and the book include ingredient charts, essential techniques, basic recipes with multiple variations, and more. If I want to know how long to pan-fry scallops or need an idea for some red potatoes I have in my kitchen that need to be used, I turn to Bittman for the answers.
I came across his recipe for Fast Avocado Soup a few weeks ago (in the book, but you can read the recipe online here), and I was intrigued. I perceived it as a substitute for gazpacho, replacing the tomatoes with avocados (one of my favorite fruits--helloo!), and I've clung to this recipe since--waiting for the perfect moment to break it out.
Here's where being a book person matters. If I had come across the recipe randomly online via Tastespotting or another site, I would have looked around for a few other avocado soup recipes and cross-referenced them. It's likely they would be pretty similar in content and process, but I would have seen enough variations in the recipe to prompt me to think about how the ingredients would work together and adjust according to my own taste and expectations of the dish. But since I got the recipe from A Book (a book!), I never even paused to think. Assemble the grocery list--check; chop, purée, salt, beat, chill--check; add a generous helping of lime juice at the end--check! One of Bittman's own variations on the recipe suggested adding some chopped shrimp or crabmeat to the soup along with a little vinaigrette, but I was serving shrimp in a different dish at the same meal, so I stuck with the original recipe. I wanted a fresh, spring soup to serve with a picnic.
It was disappointing, but I can't really blame the recipe. The soup tasted exactly like I should have expected it to taste: thick, creamy, and avocado-y. The problem was that it was too thick. Its viscosity increased after I chilled it overnight. Creamy may sound like a good thing, but there was nothing to temper the fat of the avocado squared by the fat of the milk. Avocado is one of my favorite foods; I can eat it straight out of the skin with some salt, but salt is the key taste element in that snack. Though this recipe called for salt and lime juice (which should have increased the sour taste element), there wasn't enough of either in the recipe to accentuate the flavor of the avocado and expand its taste. After a few thick spoonfuls, I could only imagine drinking green milk straight from a cow's udders.
So next time I'll spend a little more time thinking about the ingredients to make sure that there's enough acid or salt to balance out the fat content. And, maybe I'll stick with gazpacho.
photo credit: j_silla
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