Taigan Fetch Magazine by Taigan

Chris and Idie Hastings opened Birmingham’s Hot and Hot Fish Club in 1995, and it has been one of my favorite restaurants ever since. Chris worked with Frank Stitt at both Highlands Bar and Grill and Bottega, and helped open Bradley Ogden’s fabulous Lark Creek Inn outside San Francisco. Idie trained as a pastry chef and worked in San Francisco under the great Jeremiah Tower at Stars and Wolfgang Puck at Postrio. When they returned South to open Hot and Hot, they emphasized local ingredients and seasonality long before it became the rage.

So it is that in their new cookbook the recipes are arranged by season and there are lovely asides about some of the farmers who grow the ingredients. The fall/winter soups featured here are perfect for chilly weather and equally at home as a formal first course or a main course with lots of crusty French bread and a green salad (I love a winter salad with endive and watercress, fresh hearts of palm, and shaved Parmesan or Pecorino). Julia Child’s cheese wafers, also pictured, would do well either way.

As a garnish, I love the totally easy—and delicious—fried sage leaves from the Hastings’ cookbook, but the saltiness of some frizzled prosciutto or country ham is a perfect foil for the sweetness of the pumpkin soup. (Tear or cut the cured meat into small strips and fry in a bit of olive oil until crisp.) And the white truffle oil suggested for the divine cauliflower soup is terrific with the slight nuttiness of the vegetable.

I am a big fan of Child’s cheese wafers from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. You can use any combination of cheeses (they are great for utilizing leftovers from a cheese plate, and you can freeze the dough to have on hand any time you need a cocktail nibble). But there are all sorts of other options to serve with the soup. Try a grilled Gruyere sandwich with sage leaves or prosciutto, or both. Slice Gruyere thin, layer onto a slice of Very Thin White Pepperidge Farm bread with the crusts cut off. Top with two or three flat sage leaves and/or prosciutto, cover with another slice of bread, and “grill” in a hot frying pan in which you’ve melted butter. Flatten with a spatula, flip and flatten again, and cut in half to form triangles.

Julia Reed

Pictured above, left: Chris and Idie Hastings and The Hot and Hot Fish Club Cookbook. Above, right: Cauliflower Soup, garnished with fried sage leaves and white truffle oil, and Cinderella Pumpkin Soup, garnished with prosciutto, in Mud porcelain flared bowls in Ocean. The Mud tray is in White and the fried sage leaves are in a Mud salt dish in Slate.

Mud porcelain is available at Pied Nu and Star Provisions on TAIGAN. Prosciutto, cheeses, and olive oil are available at Star Provisions on TAIGAN.

Below, the recipes:

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Cauliflower Soup
With White Truffle Oil
From: The Hot and Hot Fish Club Cookbook
Yield: about 5 cups or 6 servings

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 ½ cups sliced yellow onion, about 1 medium
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1 pound white cauliflower florets
2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
white truffle oil (optional)

Melt the butter in a medium stockpot over medium-low heat. Add the onion and thyme and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until the onion is softened and translucent. Add the cauliflower and stock and bring the mixture to a boil; reduce the heat to medium low and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the cream and cook for an additional 15 minutes or until the cauliflower is tender and the mixture is slightly reduced.
Transfer the cauliflower mixture to a blender and process until pureed. Season the soup with the salt and pepper. Ladle ¼ cup of the soup into six bowls and drizzle each serving with 1 to 2 drops of the truffle oil, if using. Serve immediately.

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Cinderella Pumpkin Soup
From: The Hot and Hot Fish Club Cookbook
With Fried Sage and Lemon Oil
Yield: 2 quarts or 8 servings

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups thinly sliced leeks (white part only)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
8 cups peeled and medium diced Cinderella pumpkins
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
½ cup chicken stock
4 cups water (or just enough to cover)
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
8 fried sage leaves (see recipe below)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon lemon oil

Melt the butter in a heavy stockpot over medium heat. Add the leeks and thyme and cook until tender but not brown, about 5 minutes. Add the pumpkin, salt, sugar, chicken stock, water (only enough to barely cover the diced pumpkin), and pepper and bring to a boil; cover and reduce the heat to low. Allow the mixture to cook, covered, at a simmer for 10 minutes or until the pumpkins are fully cooked through and tender. Remove the stockpot from the heat and allow the mixture to cool slightly.
Transfer the pumpkin mixture to a blender in small batches and puree until smooth. Adjust the seasonings with additional salt and pepper, if needed. Ladle the soup equally into eight warm soup bowls. Garnish each bowl with a fried sage leave, if using, and drizzle ½ teaspoon of the lemon oil over each. Serve immediately.

Fried Sage Leaves
Yield: 30 leaves

1 cup peanut oil, for frying
30 fresh sage leaves
pinch of kosher salt

Pour the peanut oil into a deep-sided skillet to a depth of ½ inch. (Alternately a deep fryer can be filled with peanut oil.) Preheat the oil to 300 degrees. Pick fresh sage leaves off of the stem. Fry the sage leaves in the preheated oil for 1 minute or until crispy and dark green. Carefully remove the leaves from the hot oil and drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Sprinkle the leaves with a pinch of kosher salt and use immediately. Fried sage leaves can be used as a garnish on a variety of dishes. Once fried, they will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one day, but are best served immediately.

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Cheese Wafers
Adapted from: Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Yield: about 30 wafers

½ lb. (about 2 pressed-down cups) grated Gruyere cheese or a mixture of cheeses
½ lb. softened butter
¾ cup all-purpose flour, more if needed
¼ tsp white pepper
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Salt to taste
Lightly buttered baking sheets
1 egg beaten with ½ tsp water in a small bowl
A pastry brush
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
A cooling rack

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Knead all ingredients together in a bowl or on a board. The mixture will be sticky. Roll a 1-tablespoon bit into a ball in the palms of your hands, then flatten it into a cake ¼ inch thick. Bake 10 to 15 minutes in hot oven to observe how it holds together; it should spread slightly, puff lightly, and brown. If it spreads out more than you wish, or is too fragile, knead in ¼ cup more flour and make another test.
When you are satisfied, form the rest of the dough into cakes and place on baking sheets. Paint the tops with beaten egg and top each with a pinch of grated cheese. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until the wafers have puffed, and browned lightly. Cool them on a rack.

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