Palo Alto Grill part 3 - Soup's On!

Today we showcase our soup lineup for the upcoming menu.  I love making soup, I think its a great way to showcase different products, from meats to produce.  Soup highlights the true flavor of things, literally distilling them down to their essence.  With these two recipes, we are doing our best to showcase the height of vegetable puree-style soup, as well as a less traditional treatment of a consomme.

Our consomme-style soup is a Tuscan inspired soup, featuring sausage, chicken and tortellini.

Begin with whole chicken

Disassemble chicken into deboned legs and whole breasts.

Ingredients (serves 6-8)
1 whole Chicken
2 each Carrots
3 ribs Celery
18 pasta, wonton or dumpling skins
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/2 cup breadcrumb
1 each Egg
1/4 cup chopped Parsley
2 ea Italian Sausage
1 head White Cabbage, shredded
3 ea Fingerling Potatoes, large

The rest of the chicken, bones and wings
 goes into a stockpot with water to cover.

Carrots, Celery, Onion go into the pot with the
chicken, boiled and allowed to simmer 4-5 hours.

The thigh meat is ground...

Mixed with Seasonings...

Then laid out on pasta skins

Folded and pinched into shape

Chicken tortellini

Another garnish:

Take the Italian sausage, 

roll into balls 

and fry over medium-high heat 

until well browned.

Strain out the chicken stock and discard bones and vegetables.  Allow stock to simmer and slowly poach chicken breast meat.

Brown shredded cabbage in rendered sausage  fat

Shred chicken breast and set aside until ready.

Freeze the chicken stock 

in ice cube trays

Simmer the fingerling potatoes
in water until tender.

The next day, place the frozen stock cubes
in cheese cloth and allow to drain

The consomme, after the stock thaws

How easy is that??  You just put it in the freezer and take it out.  The consomme clarifies itself by the matrix of gelatin.  All you people who paid $35,000 for culinary school, I heard you all just yell WTF!! I totally getcha, its messed up.

Heat the ingredients, layer in bowl, top with parsley, parmesan, olive oil and pour hot consomme over the top.

The second of our soups: Asparagus soup 

with Lemon Butter Ice Cream

Begin with shallots, the white part of the asparagus, and celery, cover with water and coconut milk.

Puree smooth and chill

Blanch the green parts of the asparagus in boiling water.

Puree blanched asparagus 

in chilled soup base 

(to preserve color)

We saute milk powder in butter until brown, simmer in milk and add egg yolks, sugar and lemon juice, spin in an ice cream machine to make Lemon/Butter Ice Cream





To garnish the soup, grill thinner asparagus over high heat and char lightly.

The soup is finished with toasted garlic bread 

and poured tableside

and those are the 2 soups for our opening menu...

coming soon.......