Thursday, May 8, 2008

Ramps Part Deux

Last night, after eating some quiche, I was still feeling a bit peckish and had most of my ramp greens left over. The wheels in my head started turning and my inner dialogue went something like this, "I'm starving. But I don't want to eat a third piece of quiche. And I hate to waste all those greens. Hmm, what else do I have? Tofu? Ugh. Cheese and crackers? Boring. Peanut Butter Toast? No. Sweet potatoes?! I could saute the sweet potatoes with the ramps, it would be sort of like my papa's amazing fried potatoes with onions, wait, ramps are like onions are like leeks and sweet potatoes are a different twist on potatoes and, THAT'S IT! Sweet potato and ramp chowder!" Incidentally, that's what it's like in my head most of the time, dizzying, isn't it? This took me a while because I roasted the sweet potatoes for maximum flavor but once that was done, the soup came together in minutes.

Sweet Potato-Ramp Chowder

2 large sweet potatoes
The rest of your ramp greens, or pretty much the entire bunch
1 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
12-16 oz stock or water, depends on how thick you want to consistency to be
1 ounce cream
salt and pepper

Roast the sweet potatoes until completely soft, about an hour at 350 degrees. While they're cooling coarsely shop the ramp greens and saute in butter-olive oil for a few minutes and turn off the heat. Now peel the sweet potatoes and puree them in the food processor, add the cream here so they have a bit of liquid to get them going. Add the pureed sweet potatoes to the pot with the ramps and pour in stock/water until you achieve the consistency that tickles your fancy. Salt and pepper to taste.

Notes: If you don't have ramps, sub leeks, or even onions. However, the ramps add a nice contrast in color so you might want to consider adding a handful of baby spinach or watercress, which I did anyway to amp up my vegetable intake. I am a huge fan of sweet-hot flavor combinations and so I wanted to offset the soup with a little heat. I threw in a dusting of chipotle powder, which was fine, but not what I was after. Heat with a more subtle flavor. I'll keep working on it.





2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, this sounds delicious! I love sweet potatoes and ramps! Do you have any fabulous mushroom recipes? We're hosting a recipe contest and will be mailing the winner 2 lbs. of fresh, wild Morel mushrooms. (You don't have to give exact measurments :o). Recipes can be submitted to http://marxfood.com

Anonymous said...

wow, looks DELICIOUS!! and man, i wish my head went like that.. my inner gourmet is more like "hmm.. what kind of food do i feel like eating.. lemme go look up a recipe and then go to the store and get like 89 billion ingredients" and then... VOILA! we have a dish that is almost as tasty as this sweet potato ramp soup!
u so talented, girl! xox