Base taste on spices, vegetables

Beef up a winter vegetable soup without meat.
By RUSS PARSONS
LOS ANGELES TIMES
And now we enter the soup season. In the face of such recent challenges as freezing temperatures, battling the flu or recovering from the lingering effects of holiday overeating, there is nothing quite so restorative as a bowl of soup.
Few things are easier to fix than a soup made from vegetables. No long simmering of meaty bones or tough cuts, no complicated stocks. Build a vegetable base and add water. That's basically it. You don't even need to use broth -- as the vegetables simmer they'll release their own.
A well-made vegetable soup has just about everything you could want in a winter dish -- balanced flavors, a soothing warmth, enough heft to sustain, and a surprising lightness despite its big taste.
These soups are a pleasure, not a penance. Serve them with good bread and cheese, and fruit and cookies for dessert, and you've got an incredibly satisfying meal.
They can be assembled with a fairly free hand, but nothing about the preparation of these soups should be haphazard. Like all good cooking, a pot of soup needs to be carefully thought out.
For meat-eaters, the hardest part of making vegetarian soups is coming up with a combination of ingredients that has enough substance to make you feel like you've eaten.
Throw a bunch of root vegetables in a pot and you'll get something that tastes pretty good -- think of first-course soups made from pureed potatoes or carrots. But it will lack the body that can let a soup be the center of a meal.
Finding a substitute that doesn't involve meat takes creativity. The best solution is beans. Because they're naturally high in protein and have a dense, meaty texture, beans fill in nicely, giving the vegetables the balance they need.
Start dry
Generally, the best soups are made by starting from scratch with dried beans. As the beans soften during cooking, they release starch that thickens the broth, giving it body and savor.
Starting with dried beans is not as much bother as you might think. You don't need to soak them in advance; in fact, the texture of the broth will be infinitely better if you don't. They do take a little longer to cook this way, but usually less than three hours -- and for almost all that time the pot is sitting by itself, bubbling merrily away in the oven or on the stove.
Lentils are even easier. They'll cook in less than an hour and have a pleasantly peppery, meaty flavor.
The most notable exception is dried garbanzo beans or chickpeas, which need to be soaked to get the cooking time down from days to hours. Canned chickpeas are a boon for soup and stew makers. Rinse them well to get rid of the tinny-tasting canning liquid, and you'll be hard-pressed to tell them apart from beans you took a couple of days preparing.
After that, though, vegetable soups are a breeze. The actual preparation isn't demanding and it's leisurely paced. A half-hour's worth of chopping and slicing is usually plenty.
Exact shapes and sizes of cuts aren't critical. Chop the vegetables as neatly or as sloppily as you wish. Just make sure that things with similar textures are cut in similar sizes so they'll cook evenly.
Easy to do
Almost all of the actual cooking is done over low enough heat that you'd have to take a mighty long nap to risk burning anything.
The white bean and fennel soup has a thick, rich-flavored broth that comes mostly from the cooking liquid from the beans. What makes the soup sing, though, is three levels of fennel flavor -- silky sweet from the stewed bulbs, aromatic and herbaceous from the chopped fronds, and nutty and caramelized from the quickly fried wedges that are added as a garnish.
In the soup with winter greens and chickpeas, it's the braised greens that give the dish its savor. The more kinds you use, the better the broth will be. Prop a couple of toasted baguette slices in the bottom of each soup bowl to soak it all up. Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese ties the whole thing together.
If you've ever wondered just how sweet cabbages and root vegetables can be, try the "minestra." Without the peppery flavor of the lentils, it would be over the top. But along with a healthy swig of vinegar cooked off at the end, they provide just the right balance.
Ladle it into a warm bowl. Sliver some good Gruyere onto slices of bread and toast until the cheese is browned and bubbling. Then settle in to watch a game on television. It's winter!
WHITE BEAN AND FENNEL SOUP
Olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 fennel bulbs
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound dry Great Northern or cannellini beans
1 bay leaf
Salt
1/4 cup white wine
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons best-quality olive oil, divided, for garnish
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Warm 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy soup pot over medium-low heat. Add onion and carrots, and cover and cook until they soften, about 20 minutes.
Trim branches and fronds from both bulbs of fennel; chop at least 1/3 cup of the fronds, wrap tightly and refrigerate. Quarter 1 bulb lengthwise and cut out the solid core. Dice and add to the soup pot. Set other bulb aside.
When vegetables in the soup pot are softened and aromatic, stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, 2 or 3 minutes. Add the beans, bay leaf and 8 cups of water. Cover and place in the oven to cook for 1 hour.
After 1 hour, remove the pot from the oven and stir in 11/2 teaspoons salt. Return to oven to finish cooking until the beans are tender, another 45 minutes to 1 hour, 15 minutes. Cooking time can vary depending on the condition of the beans, so begin checking after 30 minutes.
When beans are tender, remove pot from oven. If a few beans are slightly chalky, leave the pot covered for a while and they will finish cooking in the reserved heat. If the soup loses too much moisture in the oven, add water as needed to maintain a soup-like consistency.
In a small skillet, heat 1/4 cup olive oil over medium heat. Quarter the remaining fennel bulb lengthwise, but do not trim the core, so the fennel bulb will stay together. Fry the bulb until well browned on all three sides, covering tightly in between turns to avoid splattering. Remove the pan from the heat momentarily to carefully add the wine, replace the cover, and cook until the fennel is tender, about 10 minutes.
When the fennel is tender, remove from pan, sprinkle with salt and cut each quarter in half lengthwise. Add to the soup. (The dish can be prepared up to this point a day in advance and refrigerated, tightly covered.)
When ready to serve, warm soup over medium heat in a covered pot. Just before serving, stir in the reserved chopped fennel fronds. Add freshly ground black pepper to taste and more salt, if necessary. Ladle soup into warm, wide soup plates and finish each with a drizzle of the best-quality olive oil. Serve immediately. Serves 8.
Total time: About 2 hours, 45 minutes.
Each serving: 293 calories; 13 grams protein; 37 grams carbohydrates; 12 grams fiber; 11 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 0 cholesterol; 481 milligrams sodium.
SOUP WITH WINTER GREENS AND CHICKPEAS
1/4 cup olive oil
2 carrots, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 onion, diced
1 turnip, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound chopped mixed greens (mustard, kale, turnip, or others)
Salt
1/2 teaspoon minced rosemary
1 (16-ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, to taste, plus additional to pass at the table
16 slices baguette, toasted
Freshly ground pepper
In a heavy soup pot, warm olive oil over medium-low heat. Add carrots, celery, onion and turnip, cover and cook until they are soft and aromatic, about 20 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, 2 or 3 minutes.
Add mixed greens, a big handful at a time, stirring and giving them time to soften and shrink before adding the next handful.
When all of the greens have cooked, add 8 cups of water, 1/2 teaspoon salt, rosemary and chickpeas. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat; cover and lower flame to maintain a simmer. Cook until broth is deeply flavored, 45 minutes to 1 hour.
When ready to serve, stir in 1/3 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and season to taste with salt and pepper. Arrange 2 toast slices in the bottom of each warm soup bowl and ladle soup over the top. Sprinkle with more cheese to taste. Serve immediately, passing a bowl of cheese to be added at the table. Serves 8.
Total time: About 1 hour, 30 minutes
Each serving: 235 calories; 7 grams protein; 31 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams fiber; 9 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 3 milligrams cholesterol; 432 milligrams sodium.