Weekend Recipe 2/7/09

Since this is a blog about my road to culinary school, I figure I should share some recipes that I've come across. This first one comes from one of my old cookbooks, The Dorn Cookbook. This is a very interesting read, in addition to having great (and sometimes unusual) recipes. With some of the recipes, the author provides the story that leads to his first encounter with the dish. Brigadier General Frank Dorn (1901-1982) was in the Army and served in the China-Burma-India Theatre in WWII. He has written a fair number of books (http://www.librarything.com/author/dornfrank), some of which have to do with cooking. In The Dorn Cookbook, he has stories and recipes from his various assignments in China, from the cooks and helpers from the bases in the US, and from friends in numerous countries. If you have the means and interest to impress with exotic dishes, I highly recommend picking up a copy. Also, just a tip that I have, use old cookbooks as much as possible. The recipes you find there will most likely have evolved to something that many people know about today. But using those original base recipes, you can blaze a completely unique path and make a dish that is entirely your own. Anyway, I digress. The recipe that I want to share today is the first one that I tried from The Dorn Cookbook, for "Cream of Peanut Butter Soup." The name may put you off, but trust me, this is a great warm dish that is perfect for rainy days and cold weather (not much use in sunny southern California, but certainly will come in handy when I get to NYC and experience my first real winter). Enjoy:

2 stalks of celery, chopped small
1 small onion, chopped fine
2 tbsp. butter
2 tsp. flour
1 qt. chicken stock/broth
11 tbsp. peanut butter (do NOT go overboard on this or it will dominate the dish)
1/2 pt. cream
Salt to taste
1 cup sour cream

In a skillet over a low flame cook the chopped celery and onion with the butter until the onion becomes transparent. Add the flour, stir thoroughly, and cook until the mixture is blended. Place the above mixture in a saucepan or pot. Add the chicken stock, and stir constantly as the contents come to a boil. Add the peanut butter, and stir constantly until contents again come to a boil. Remove from the heat, and stir in the cream, adding salt to taste. Place in large soup bowls, floating a big gob of sour cream on top of each (this is a fairly thick soup). Serve with tostados or Melba bread.

This recipe from The Dorn Cookbook is copywrited in 1953 by The Henry Regnery Company in Chicago. This reproduction of the text is intended for educational use only.