In honor of Earth Day, I am making trash soup. I thought about waiting until I was able to present you with a bright and beautiful bowl of Pho, but then I decided to let it all hang out. The picture above is not appetizing. The wilted spring onion stems, the dry lime, the shriveled knob of ginger...it’s so tempting to just toss them out. While they might not look like much they—together with some simple techniques—can bring a lonely bit of broth to life.
I first learned about the concept of trash cooking from Chef Gabrielle Hamilton. Her hard-to-navigate cookbook has a chapter dedicated to the odds and ends that can be salvaged into great meals. You learn early on that Gabrielle is exacting in the way she runs her kitchen (Prune…RIP) and waste is something she cannot tolerate. In her book, Blood, Bones & Butter, there is a passage where she excitedly mentions a time she saw her (now) ex husband’s Italian grandmother finger-scrape the inside of a dozen egg shells to gain almost an entire egg worth of whites.
Chefs will always extol the virtues of having only the freshest ingredients on hand. Garbage in, garbage out (GIGO)…so to speak. This is a noble goal but it also isn’t always possible and it certainly is not the cheapest route for the home cook. The cheapest route is always going to be to use what you have. The expectation you should have a fridge full of crisp produce of all times and a teeming bowl of lemons on your dining room table is once of the more insidious forms of greenwashing. Do not fall for it.
Okay, let's get to it:
To make your soup base, gather your spices and temper them in a dry pan or a bit of olive oil
Sauté or roast your alliums and root vegetable until they are just undercooked and mix into the spices.Let them rest and cool.
Decide which broth to use or make. Water can absolutely be turned into broth. Combine with the spiced vegetables.
Decide what will go in your trash soup. Tonight I will add shaved frozen Kobe beef that I buy in bulk from the Asian market, mandolin-ed white onion, and those sad, green onions above. For your trash soup, consider potatoes, beans, or pasta.
Simmer and go read a book for a couple of hours.
To round out my trash soup, I will be reconstituting some old baguettes I have in the freezer. I spray mine with lightly-salted water and crisp them up for 12 minutes at 350 degrees. I do this because this is how my daughter likes to use the extra Pho broth. I understand how this breaks with Vietnamese tradition.
Now that I think of it. I had better pull some butter out of the freezer. Happy Earth Day to all! Make it one for your tummy and one big, warm bowl of love for the planet.