Tortilla Soup: Your Post-Thanksgiving Reward

A Rainy, Damp, Chilly Day. Perfect for MAKING SOUP!

There is not a home cook among us who doesn’t use the turkey carcass to make stock, so this is less about, “Hey! You can make stock out of your Turkey Bones!!” than, “Here is an awesome soup to make with your stock!”

I don’t know what it is about living in Texas, but you get to a point where food just isn’t satisfying unless it has Jalapeno peppers (or some kind of hot peppers) in it. If it’s not spicy, it’s not quite….satisfying. Because of this phenomenon, regular old turkey soup, while perfectly nice, just isn’t as requested as Tortilla Soup.

To make the stock, I submerged my Turkey carcass in water in my biggest stockpot, and added a quartered huge white onion, all the celery trimmings I saved from making cream cheese stuffed celery on Thanksgiving (okay, it was Jalapeno Cream Cheese stuffed Celery!), all the carrots in my fridge that were still left from the May harvest (yes they last that long, and the ones you are buying in the store very well MIGHT be that old too) and let’s see….what else? Oh I threw in a bunch of parsley because I have a lot in the garden right now. Then I simmered the stock for four hours or so, let it cool, strained it with one of those kitchen implements that looks like a dunce cap, and stored it in the icebox for a few days. I seldom make soup on the same day as stock, because making stock in enough of an effort for one day. Also, fat removal is much easier with cold stock.

While the Stock simmers, the house fills up with the rich aroma and the kitchen windows steam up

The Stock simmers on the Stove

To make the soup:

Now, soup is kinda like PIE. You really don’t have to actually MEASURE anything. As usual, all my measurements are rough and your soup will not be RUINED if you use two onions instead of one, or if you think it might be fun to add some beans. (If you add BLACK beans though, drain and rinse them first!)

You will need:

Stock

Some Turkey Meat you cut off the carcass before making the stock. If there was NO meat left on your turkey carcass, you can use a boneless chicken breast or two; cook them in a pan and set aside, reserving the fond. (To put in the soup!)

Frozen Organic Corn (any corn that you buy in a supermarket, unless marked organic (and they NEVER sell that around here, and sweet corn will not grow here either) COULD BE that new scary SCARY GE corn that has PESTICIDE in it’s DNA: that’s right, it is engineered to Make it’s Own Pesticide. Which should concern you, because Pesticide is one of the things that really DOES cause breast cancer. Monsanto SUX! THX for RUINING fresh corn for me.)

A big White Organic Onion

Hot peppers! I used Poblanos from the garden I picked before the first freeze. I used four. If you don’t like your food spicy, only use one. Or you could use one jalapeno, or one serrano. Whatever’s handy!

You could use a tomato if you want

Corn Tortillas, two per person (For the above mentioned reason, I use organic corn tortillas. THE BEST KIND are the SPROUTED ORGANIC CORN tortillas. OMG! They have like three times the amazing flavor of regular corn tortillas! I buy them at Whole Foods, and I always have a few packages in the freezer, so that I always have them on hand.

a heat-tolerant cooking oil like Canola, enough to cover the bottom of your cast-iron skillet

ripe avocado (at least 1/2 an avocado per person)

A bunch of CILANTRO

Some cloves of Garlic

A Lime

The Soup in the Pot

Chop up the onion and the hot peppers. Skim some of the fat off of your cold, gelatinous stock, and put it in the bottom of your soup pot. Put the heat on Medium high. When the fat melts, add the onion and peppers and sautee in the turkey fat. When they look done and are soft, add the frozen corn, as much as you would like. I think I used the whole bag, but I had a LOT of STOCK! Add  the stock.

Cook until the corn is no longer frozen. Add the tomato or beans if you are using them. While everything in the pot is coming up to temperature, pick the leaves off of the cilantro. Cilantro from the garden is always clean and doesn’t need washing, but if you bought it at the store, be sure and wash the cilantro to get the dirt off. Peel the garlic, slice finely and add. Add the leftover turkey (or the chicken and fond) cut into appropriately sized pieces. When the soup has come to a boil, turn it off, and add all but a handful of the cilantro. Cover the soup.

In your cast iron skillet, heat up the oil. When it is hot, fry up 2 tortillas per person (one at a time). When you remove each fried tortilla to a paper towel, salt it heavily. When all are fried, turn off the heat and direct your attention to the avocado.

Peel and slice the avocado. Since I was eating my soup alone, I used THE WHOLE AVOCADO in my bowl of soup. If there are others around, you will need to divide the avocado evenly among the bowls.

Here you see the Tortillas and the Avocado sitting in the bowl, awaiting the soup to be ladled over them

Into each soup bowl, place one torn up fried tortilla and one portion of avocado. Ladle the soup over them, then add the other torn-up tortilla and some fresh cilantro leaves. Then, at the very last, squeeze a little lime into the bowl.

Although it is hard to say what EXACTLY is the Best Soup Ever, Tortilla Soup is one of the HEAVYWEIGHT CONTENDERS! I would also nominate: Portuguese Kale Soup, French Onion Soup, Tom Kha Ki (Thai Coconut Soup), Really good Clam Chowder that you make yourself, Gumbo, and possibly Minestone.

TORTILLA SOUP!

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