Easter Dinner Part 2 - Tatiana's Nettle Soup

I had to run an errand and was at the home of my singing group's director, Tatiana Sarbinska . This meant enjoying the usual Bulgarian hospitality of good food and company. Today, though, I got a special treat and Tatiana gave me some nettles and young fresh garlic straight from her garden. We were talking while she cut them for me. Picture below shows the nettles and garlic after being washed. She had some nettle soup on the stove and it smelled so good my indecision over what to have with the rabbit vanished right away.
She also gave me some homemade tomato sauce, sort of a cross between ketchup and chutney and very good, with directions to put about half of it in the soup. So I did.

Tatiana's Nettle Soup
(makes 6 cups; recipe reflects what I used)

6 c stock (I used stock from my braised pork bones)
1 qt nettles, leaves pulled and stems chopped well (use gloves when doing this! They are called stinging nettles for a reason!)
Tops from one bunch of leeks, sliced about 1/2" thick
3 fresh young garlic plants (stems and bulb), sliced into 1" lengths
1/2 c cooked rice, steel cut oatmeal, or other grain (I used cooked millet)
3/4 c chunky fresh mild tomato salsa (I think this is the closest you will find to Tatiana's wonderful Bulgarian sauce)
1/2 t celery seed
salt and pepper to taste

Bring the stock to a boil. Add the nettles, leek, garlic, and grain. Boil until the leeks are soft. Add the salsa and spices. Simmer another 15 minutes or so and remove from heat. Serve hot. Picture below shows finished dish.

Eating Notes: This is surprisingly filling (which is why we ended up not eating the vegetables from Easter Dinner Part 1). The nettles add a sharp tone and complexity that is well balanced by the hint of tomato from the sauce.

Dinner At Ansill Food and Wine - Part 2

Our next course at Ansill was steak tartare with cognac, which I had and loved on my previous visit. Tasha allowed us to keep our chardonnay with this. Mixed in the quail egg and some of the sauce and spread it on the accompanying homemade toast. I like the cognac taste and am going to try it the next time I make tartare. It gives a side-of-the-mouth sweetness and fills out the tartare.

I suggested to David that the cognac approach would be really good using heart as the meat. He said he couldn't do that at the restaurant - raw hearts would be a bit beyond the comfort zone of the clientele. Too bad! But it doesn't stop me from trying it at home. I have a lamb heart from the latest batch and think I'll try it that way.
Next up was soup and salad and a change of wine that I wrote down the name of so illegibly it is lost in the annals of time. The soup was tomato with escargot. It was served with a bakala (dried salt cod) salad.

Soup first, because that's how we ate it. The tomato and mussel broth. The soup also had a strong carrot flavor from the mirepoix. It was thinner than a bisque but with a good deal of body. The combination of sweet-salty carrot/tomato/mussel broth and earthy snails turned it into high-class comfort food. Deeply satisfying and smooth, punctuated by a few perfectly toasted croutons to add interest.

With its mellow vinegary tones, the bakala was a natural follow-on. David said he soaked the cod for a couple of days and it showed in the subtle meld of flavors. I would make this myself, especially after David reminded me that you can just pick off the amount of salt cod you want for any occasion and leave the rest for later. For some reason I have always just looked at this big dried fish and thought 'how could I possibly use all that?' and let it go. But now I have good reason to try something new at home.

Next up: crispy pig trotters; kidney and bacon skewers served with lentils