Aigo Boulido Soup From Forthcoming Cookbook

French Soup

AÏGO BOULIDO

INGREDIENTS

1 head or bulb of garlic (The number of cloves will vary.)
2 cups water
4 thin slices of French bread (Baguette style is best.)
4 tablespoons grated Pecorino Romano cheese (Plain Romano cheese will do. And yes, Italian cheeses are allowed in a French dish.)
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon olive oil

(Makes two bowls)

PREPARATION

Peel and mince all the cloves in the head of garlic. (If the number of cloves in the head of garlic varies from head to head, will the intensity of the garlic taste vary as well? Yes, it will. Either way, this is a dish best eaten after a job interview.)

Pour 2 cups water into pot. Add minced garlic and cook on high for 15 minutes. Keep lid on to avoid evaporation. Monitor occasionally to avoid boiling over. Add bay leaf and sage. Stir.

While the garlic and water is cooking for 15 minutes, toast four slices of bread. Try to cut them as thin as you would for a sandwich. Sprinkle olive oil on both sides of toasted slices. Sprinkle 1/2 tablespoon Pecorino cheese on each side of each slice. Do this over a soup bowl so that the cheese that doesn’t stick on the bread falls into the bowl.

Put two bread slices into each of two bowls. Pour garlic/water mix into bowls. Add 1/4 teaspoon olive oil to the surface of the soup, but don’t mix it in.

Bon goût.

TIDBITS

1) “Taste great, less filling” translates into French as “Bon goût, moins de remplissage.” Not as catchy, is it?

2) Foreign cookbooks can be so darned vague. Augh! Augh! Augh! There, I feel better now. I hope this version is clear.

3) The French sure like garlic and onions. Mais oui.

4) The average American eats about twenty-one pounds of onion a year. Libya leads the world with an average of sixty-seven pounds per person per year.

5) America is a robust republic. Culinary political analysts fear the new Libyan republic will be on shaky ground unless it brings its per capita onion consumption below fifty pounds.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.