Cheddar Cheese Soup!

Mmmmm... delicious! There's few things better on a cold, brisk day that a bowl of cheddar soup. I grew up with my mom's recipe, which is incredibly cheesy and delicious.

Alas, the recipe I just made wasn't quite that good. It consisted of butter, onions, carrot, celery, garlic, chicken broth, half and half, bay leaf, dry sherry, sharp cheddar cheese, and thyme. It was supposed to have cayenne, but I didn't have any. Not surprisingly, it came from a Cook's Illustrated issue.

I choose this recipe as an exercise in temperature control - specifically, an exercise in maintaining an emulsion. Cheddar cheese is an emulsion of fat and liquid, but to maintain that emulsion the soup cannot rise above a certain temperature. (An emulsion is when tiny droplets of one liquid are suspended in another - e.g., mayonnaise is an emulsion of egg and oil. The problem is that these can easily "break," causing the oil to separate out and become visible splotches on the surface of the liquid).

Indeed, this recipe called for the cheese to be added at the very end, after the soup had been cooling for a few minutes off the heat. While this did maintain the emulsion (which is good), the flavor wasn't nearly as cheddary as I remembered my mother's being. At first, I added some worcestershire sauce for depth and some chiptole chile powder for smoky heat. This helped. But, I think next time I'll add a good bit of grated parmigiano-reggiano for more cheese flavor and perhaps bacon instead of the chile chiptole powder. Hopefully that'll help.

Anyways, next week will be a Giada De Laurentiis recipe (she's a Food Network chef) called "Salmon in Lemon Brodetto with Pea Puree." I'm pretty excited. I'm looking forward to it b/c (a) I don't cook salmon that often, and (b) the vegetable puree is something I rarely do. And it looks pretty healthy. And I'll actually be able to post the recipe! (I've refrained from posting recipes I got from books b/c they are copyrighted. The Food Network recipes, while copyrighted, are already available free on the internet, so I don't feel bad about posting a link to the recipe).