Prettying It Up

I made bean soup the other day, with no clear idea of how I wanted it to taste - I was just hungry for beans and I had about six cups of smoky chicken stock made from that same, well-loved chicken.

After soaking the flageolet beans overnight, I sautéed the usual suspects together (onion, garlic, celery), added the beans and the chicken broth and set them to simmering. Simmered for perhaps an hour. The color was an uninspiring yellowish brown. The taste was pretty, but not yet gorgeous, so I added some corn, chopped carrot and frozen peas. As it got lovelier, it also got tastier.

Sip, taste, still not beautiful, so I chopped a couple of chicken apple sausages and added them. Better, but still lacking a certain style. A healthy squirt of sriracha helped quite a bit and a sprinkle of fresh cilantro got us nearly there. The pièce de résistence was the juice from a quarter of a lime squirted into the soup at the table, partly for its flavor but also for the extra color.

Fabu soup for eye, tongue and tum.