Gorgonzola & Tomato

We had dinner at Gavi's Italian Restaurant Friday night. I have a couple of favorite dishes there, Chicken Formaggio and Calamari Crema which they list as an appetizer but I order it as an entree. Friday I had their Spicy Wedge Salad and the Calamari Crema. At the last minute I saw they had a soup listed on their daily board, Gorgonzola Soup, so I ordered a cup of that just to try it. The soup was exceptional! I asked our server about it and she confessed that it was her overwhelming favorite soup at Gavi's. I asked her if the restaurant shared their recipes and reply was an emphatic "No!", she had asked the owner if he had ever thought about putting out a cookbook and was told to "Never ask the question again, if people could make the dishes at home they'd have no need to come to the restaurant!" I don't share this opinion at all. This philosophy assumes the only reason people go out to eat is the food. That's part of it of course but the social aspect is a large part along with having the wide selection of a full menu at your fingertips, no work in prepping, cooking, or clean up.

Anyways, when we got home I looked on the internet for some gorgonzola soup recipes. While eating the soup Berdie and I were evaluating the flavors to determine the ingredients just with our tastebuds. There was definitely a tomato base and of course the cheese, but there was some sort of other white cheese in the soup too. I tasted some basil and garlic, along with some onions and of course there was likely cream of some sort. So this was either a pretty simple soup or I was missing a lot of subtle flavors. The internet search yielded a few gorgonzola and tomato soups and just about all of them had almost the exact same ingredients and prep method. I chose one of the recipes and made the soup for Saturday night dinner as a test run for next week's Soup At Work. I made several ingredient and quantity changes to and also an important prep sequence change. With these I've just about changed the recipe completely enough that I could probably call this my first original recipe.

Thinking about this being my first original recipe made me wonder if it was in fact an original recipe at all. I ate a soup I really liked, found a recipe for something similar and changed that recipe extensively, can I legitimately call the result original? It made me wonder how many recipes are really, really original versus a modification of something the creator saw or ate and modified to their particular likes.

So, here's my version of Gorgonzola & Tomato Soup.

This version makes about 5 large servings and takes about an hour to prepare from first prep to spoon in mouth.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup of diced red onion, about 1/2 of a large onion
• 1/2 cup of diced red bell pepper, one small pepper
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 16 ounces of crushed tomatoes
• 8 ounces of tomato juice
• 6 ounces of crumbled gorgonzola cheese
• 6 ounces of cream cheese, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1 cup of half & half
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons of dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon of white pepper
• juice of 1 lemon

METHOD

1. Heat the oil and butter in soup pot until shimmering
2. Add onions and bell pepper
3. Saute over medium high heat until onion is translucent, about 4-5 minutes
4. Add the garlic and saute for 1 more minute
5. Reduce the heat to medium
6. Add half & half, tomatoes, and tomato juice
7. Bring to a simmer, let simmer for 5 minutes while stirring occasionally
8. Using an immersion blender, puree the mixture to the consistency you desire. A quick blend will leave small chunks of bell pepper, a longer blend will leave a thick puree (if you don't own an immersion blender, you'll need to transfer to a blender in batches and return to the pot when pureed, be sure you leave an opening in the blender lid so the hot mixture can release pressure, best to remove the center of the lid and cover with a folded towel)
9. Add the gorgonzola, cream cheese, lemon juice, salt, basil and white pepper
10. Return to a simmer, simmer for 10 minutes stirring constantly (the soup will quickly burn on the bottom of the pot if not stirred)
11. Serve

Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana

The making of this soup came about through a discussion with two co-workers. They asked if I was familiar with a certain soup from the Olive Garden, neither of them could remember the name of the soup so we called a third co-worker and he remembered the name, Zuppa Toscana. I told them about copycat websites that publish popular restaurant recipes and if they found it I'd give it a shot. A few minutes later I was handed a copy of the recipe. This was all done during lunch time so we were our usual productive selves at work.


I'm always a bit nervous with a new recipe, not knowing how it's going to taste. This time I put myself in a bit of a corner since I put up my little "Soup At Work" sign in the department eating area the afternoon before Soup Day promising the Zuppa Toscana the next day. So if I finished the soup and I didn't like it I'd be explaining why there was no soup the next day.

Luckily I needn't have worried about this recipe. It was excellent and a big hit. It is a fairly simple make with mostly ordinary ingredients but the combination of the flavors is extraordinary.

The recipe I was given is from Food.com. I modified the heck out of that recipe so you won't find this particular version on the site if you happen to look. The are more than two dozen versions of Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana on Food.com alone so there are lots of options. I used hot Italian Sausage and found that no additional hot spices were needed. Most of the recipes call for red pepper flakes but I'm glad I was tasting frequently during the making of this soup (always using a clean spoon) because the hot sausage provides just the right amount of heat. If you find the soup needs thinning add more broth instead of water.

Prep Time is about 90 minutes. This recipe makes a large 7 quart portion of the soup.

INGREDIENTS

1 lb of hot Italian Sausage, about 4 sausages
3 large unpeeled russet baking potatoes, sliced in lengthwise strips not quite 1/2 inch square and then cut in half crosswise
1 large red onion, chopped
3 slices of thick bacon, cut in 1/2 inch pieces crosswise
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 heaping cups of kale, about 2 medium bunches, bottom portions of the thick ribs removed and sliced in 1/2 inch wide strips
32 ounces of chicken broth
2.5 cups of water
1.5 cups of half & half

METHOD

1. Cut the casing off of the sausage by running a knife down one side lengthwise and peeling off.
2. Brown the sausage in your soup pot while breaking the sausage up with a spoon.
3. While the sausage is browning, saute the onions and bacon in a separate pan until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic and cook for 2 more minutes.
4. Add the broth, water, onions, bacon, garlic, and potatoes to the soup pot containing the browned sausage.
5. Cook on medium heat until potatoes are just fork tender, start checking at about 20 minutes. You don't want to overcook the potatoes because they'll start to break down and the soup will take on a puree quality, not what you want for this soup.
6. Salt and pepper to taste.
7. Add the kale and half & half.
8. Keep on medium heat and heat through.
9. Serve.