Chestnut and Porcini Soup with Rosemary Walnut Biscotti

You know when homemade food tastes like love? Do you ever say it? I do, and I don't know if it's just one of my idiosyncracies, or if people actually say this. In order to say it, you have to feel it- be pretty darn passionate about food I guess.

Today we had another Sunday lunch with friends. An "epic" Sunday lunch that I spent my whole week planning, shopping for, marinating, stewing, simmering, whipping, well, you get the picture. Oh, and by shopping, I should elaborate. I push a 20 pound stroller with a 26 pound baby and 15 pounds worth of groceries uphill over ridiculously bad sidewalks, all the crosswalks blocked by illegally parked cars, and every second sidewalk blocked for some sort of construction work. I think I earned the right to eat heavily on Sundays. Go triceps.

I've sort of been on a roll of cooking with ingredients that I've never used before. This week I chose chestnuts. In Paris in early November, my friend served me a chestnut and porcini soup, that I kept thinking about. It had a richness to it, and a sweetness at the same time, and I finally decided to make my own to serve for today's starter. It's the perfect late fall, early winter soup because it's thick, velvety, hearty, comforting...the kind of soup that makes me say, "this tastes like love."

Roasted Chestnut and Porcini Soup

Adapted from Sara's Secrets on the Food Network

I was pretty intimidated by roasting the chestnuts. Now that I've done it, it's not so bad at all, it was just slightly painful to peel hot chestnuts but I suppose I could have let them cool more. The work was worth it, as this is a luxurious tasting soup, slightly sweet from the chestnuts and the parsnip, while the porcini add a whole other layer of complexity and richness.

1 1/4 lbs roasted chestnuts, coarsely chopped

1/3 cup dried porcini mushrooms

2 cups water

2 tablespoons butter

1 medium carrot

1 stalk of celery

1 parsnip

2 shallots

1 sprig of fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

3 cups chicken stock (I used my recently made turkey stock.)

2 tablespoons dried sherry (I used white wine)

Creme fraiche for garnish

To roast the chestnuts, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Place each chestnut flat side down on a clean dishtowel and with a medium size, very sharp knife, make an x in the shell of each chestnut before roasting (or they may explode in the oven.) Roast them for about 20-25 minutes until the skins have peeled back where you made the incision and they are golden in color.

When they are cool enough to touch, peel them, removing both the hard shell and inner skin. (don't leave them too long, or peeling will be difficult). Then coarsely chop and get on with the rest of the soup.

Place the porcini in a bowl and cover with two cups of boiling water. Let steep for 20 minutes.

Dice the carrot, celery, parsnip and shallots. In a sauce pan, melt the butter and saute the vegetables until tender. Add the thyme, bay leaf and the stock. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the porcini mushrooms to the sauce pan. Then transfer the porcini soaking liquid to the sauce pan, making sure to drain out any gritty sediment before adding. Add your chestnuts, bring to a boil and then cover, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Working in batches, puree the soup until velvety and return to the saucepan. Add sherry or white wine. Bring to a simmer and add salt and pepper to suit your taste buds. Before serving, add a dollop of creme fraiche, that your guests can then swirl into the soup and swoon over. Can be made one day in advance.

Rosemary Walnut Biscotti

After last week's biscotti, I wanted to make some savory biscotti accompany this soup. I started with a savory biscotti recipe by Giada di Laurentis and added rosemary and walnuts. They were not as crunchy as my regular biscotti, they were softer and I really enjoyed having something to nibble alongside the soup.

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons chopped Rosemary leaves

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/4 cup (2 ounces) goat cheese, at room temperature

3 tablespoons sugar

2 eggs, beaten, at room temperature

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, rosemary, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and goat cheese together until smooth. Beat in the sugar and eggs. In batches, add the flour mixture and beat until just combined, then incorporate the walnuts. Transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet. With damp hands, form the dough into a 13 inch-long, 3 1/2 inch-wide loaf. Bake until light golden, about 30 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for 30 minutes.

Lower the oven temperature to 300. Transfer the loaf to a cutting board. Using a serrated knife, cut the log on the diagonal into 1/2-inch thick slices. Arrange the biscotti, cut side down, on the baking sheet. Bake until pale golden, about 15 minutes, then flip the biscotti and bake for another 15 minutes on the opposite side. Transfer the biscotti to a wire rack and cool completely, about 30 minutes. Store in an airtight container.

Italian Biscotti or a cookie by another name...

My mother used to make these biscotti in the 80's and she had never been to Italy. In fact, I've come to think that she traveled by cooking. Dinners were feijoada from Brazil, dal from India, empanadas from South America and Polish stuffed cabbage and she had never been to any of those places. If she had, I'm sure she would have been like me, eager to try and adapt local dishes, incorporating all of those flavors, foreign and familiar, into her life.

Biscotti means twice cooked, and these cookies are indeed baked twice to gain the perfect crunch for dipping in tea or coffee. Here in Italy, they go by different names (cantuccini or biscotti di Prato) and can incorporate different nuts, spices and sometimes candied or dried fruits. They are also shorter than we are used to seeing in the United States by about 1/3 the length. Twice baked cookies and breads were a staple of the Roman Legions because they kept well. There is a long history of these types of cookies all over Italy and parts of France and Spain. My mom's recipe called for only hazelnuts, but I had only 5 ounces, so I added 3 ounces of almonds. The nuts are toasted in the oven before they go into the cookies and this brings out a lot of flavor. The cookies themselves are satisfyingly simple, rather mild tasting, begging to be dipped into a hot cup of morning coffee or an afternoon tea or hot chocolate.

Biscotti con Nocciole

8 ounces shelled hazelnuts (or almonds, or a mix)

4 ounces butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Spread the hazelnuts on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove the nuts from the oven and while they are still warm, wrap them in a clean dish towel. Let them steam for 1 to 2 minutes, then rub the nuts together vigorously in the towel to remove as much of the skins as possible. Coarsely chop the nuts, leaving some whole.

Increase oven temperature to 350. Cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Lightly beat the eggs with the vanilla, add to the butter and sugar and mix well. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt, add the nuts and coat well with the flour mixture. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until well blended.

With lightly floured hands, form the dough into two strips, each about 12 by 3 inches. Place the dough strips on a baking sheet coated with a silpat or parchment paper (or simply butter the baking sheet.) Bake for 30 minutes or until the dough is set and slightly colored.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 275. While the strips are still hot, with a sharp knife, slice the strips of dough on the diagonal into 1/2 inch thick pieces, or thicker if desired.

Place the cookies cut side down on the baking sheet. Toast in the oven for 13 minutes on each side or until light golden in color and slightly dry. Stored in airtight containers, they will keep for up to two weeks.