Fennel Cream Soup With Beet-cured Salmon, Spinach, Rye Crispbread and Salsa

I have been cooking on a daily basis for such a long time that I know quite a lot of recipes and cooking techniques by heart that help me get through weekdays.

Still, every now and then there comes a time or a special occasion when we long for something new, something out of the box (obviously our box of everyday traditional meals). Luckily, I love to learn new things and stroll through interesting recipe books and also my social media feed for ideas to come up with something new. When it comes to soups, one of my favorite books in the subject is Magic Soup by Nicole Pisani and Kate Adams.

The recipe that I share with you today was inspired by “Celery soup with beetroot-cured salmon” that I found there.

I very rarely follow recipes for cooking word by word (baking is a different issue), this one I also made mine, changed the vegetable used, added more spice to the salmon marinade, added a little spinach and I also made crisp rye bread plus a salsa from the ingredients of the soup and the marinade to accompany it. The flavors came together just right, the creamy, slightly anisey fennel soup, the tangy flavor of oranges, the rooty, earthy tones of beet and the freshness of marinated salmon. The crisp bread was a real hit, even for my kids who are not a huge fan of non-white breads, it disappeared from the table in no time.

Ingredients:

For the soup:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion
• 2 ½ fennels
• 300 ml chicken broth
• 200 ml water
• 1 mid-sized potato
• 150 ml cream
• salt and pepper to taste 

For the beet-cured salmon:

• 350 g salmon (in one piece, skin on)
• 180 g granulated sugar
• 180 g salt
• 300 g beetroot (raw)
• 1 long pepper
• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• zest of 1 organic orange
• juice of 1/2 orange

For the salsa:

• ½ fennel
• 1 beetroot (roasted)
• 2 oranges

For the spinach:

• 100 g baby spinach
• 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic 

For the crispbread:

• 60 g wheat stock starter
• 250 g rye flour
• 130 g strong bread flour (wheat)
• 220 ml water
• 10 g salt

plus flour for dusting

Utensils:

• digital scale
• bowls of various sizes
• mortar
• mandolin or grater
• paper towel
• parchment paper
• tinfoil
• citrus juicer
• thick-bottomed pot
• stand mixer with dough hook
• blender
• sharp knife
• pizza cutter
• rolling pin
• baking tray
• tweezer to remove bones from the fish
• box with a tight lid
• thick-bottomed pot
• skillet

Let’s get started with the rye crispbread (it can be done days ahead but should be started a minimum 18 hours before). 

The first thing to do is to refresh your starter. If you are a frequent baker like many of us turned into during the lockdowns, you know your starter for sure, and you’ll also know when and how to feed it in order to get it in the ideal state.

Giving a full description on the starter story exceeds the framework of this Instructable, or else it would render it incomprehensible.

Good news is that I have already done that previously, as for how to make starter from scratch see: https://www.instructables.com/Sourdough-Starter-and-Bread/

and how to refresh starter you can check out here: https://www.instructables.com/Sourdough-Magic/

Plan B: In case you do not happen to have a glass of starter sitting in the fridge, use 5 g active dry yeast, omit the starter, increase the amount of bread flour by 30 g and the amount of water by 30 ml. Everything else is unchanged.

Add both types of flour, water and sourdough starter into the mixing bowl of the stand mixer equipped with the dough hook attachment. Mix at low speed until the dough kind of almost comes together (pic 3.), add salt and keep mixing until the sides of the bowl are clean.

Dump it onto the countertop and knead for 2-3 minutes. Form it into a ball.

Clean the bowl, dust with flour, place the dough ball and dust the top. Cover and keep it in a cold place (fridge or balcony during winter) overnight. Do not expect it to rise considerably. 

Next day, preheat the oven to 180 °C. Place a piece of parchment onto the countertop, generously dust with flour, tip the dough onto it and flatten slightly.

Cut it in half to make it easier to work with. Leave one half on the parchment, dust flour over, place another piece of parchment on top and roll the dough until it is 2-3 mm thick. Then cut it into the desired shape (rectangles). Place the dough pieces onto a baking tray lined with parchment, poke with a fork. Repeat the process with the other half of the dough.

Bake in the preheated oven until crisp, for about 10-12 minutes.

Wrap beet (with skin on) in tinfoil and bake in the preheated oven until soft and tender (about 45 minutes – 1 hour).

For this project you just need 1 mid-sized roasted beetroot, but I do not switch the oven on for just one, that is why the photos may be somewhat confusing in the light of the text. I use the others to make something else. 

The secret behind curing is time (and of course the ingredients in the marinade) therefore it is essential to start the curing process about 12 hours prior to the time you plan to use it.

Wash the salmon, pat dry. Remove any bones.

Peel the roasted beetroot.

Slice it finely with a mandolin then cut across into thin stripes (or grate as an alternative). 

Crush spices in a mortar. 

Dump beetroot into a bowl, add salt, sugar – no mistake with the quantities, it seems a lot but in the end the salmon will turn into something magnificent.

Squeeze the juice of the orange half, add it also to the marinade.

Add spices crushed to the marinade and also the orange peel.

Give it a thorough mix. You will soon see that the beetroot will release its juices. 

Pour half of the marinade into a box with a tight lid in which the piece of salmon would fit. Lay the salmon over and cover with the rest of the marinade.

Place the lid on and let it sit in the fridge overnight. 

Next day, remove from the fridge. Dig in, you’ll find a beautifully orange- reddish piece of salmon.

Rinse it briefly with cold water, dry with paper towel.

Place it on a cutting board and with an extremely sharp knife cut into thin stripes by cutting down right to the skin and then turn the knife slightly into an angle and cut the slice off the skin. 

Now, this is gonna be real easy to make, just like any other cream soup.

First off, you need to get the vegetables prepared.

Peel and chop the onion. Don’t worry too much about the regularity or size of onion pieces, we’re gonna blend it anyway. 

Remove the not so appealing outer layer of the fennel and also remove nice green leaves for decoration purposes. Slice fennel (both green and white part). 2 ½ fennels go into the soup a half goes into the salsa. Save leaves for decoration.

Peel, wash and cut potato into cubes. 

Pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a thick-bottomed pot. Set it on low heat and add sauté the onion. As usual, add salt at this stage as it extracts water from the onion that prevents it from burning.

Add fennel (both green and white parts) on top of the onion, cook until it starts to soften. 

Add stock and water into the pot, throw in the potatoes and bring it to boil. Gently simmer until everything inside gets soft.

Add cream, the freshly pressed juice of half of an orange and blend.

Adjust it to your taste by adding salt and pepper.

Peel roasted beetroot and cut it into small cubes.

Fillet oranges – cut both ends, then (while it is standing on one end) cut downward following the shape of the orange so that the whole of the pith is removed). If you wish, you might as well cut the segments from between the membrane, but that is simply too much for me. 

Cut oranges into tiny cubes.

Cut the half fennel into tiny cubes. 

Set them aside until use (you may keep orange and fennel in the same bowl, but beware putting beet in there, unless you are looking for beet colored fennel and orange where they touch.

Peel and finely chop garlic.

Wash and dry baby spinach (the easiest way is using a salad spinner).

Pour 1 tablespoon olive oil into the skillet, heat on medium heat.

Add garlic, give it a stir or two and as soon as its smell hits your nose, add in spinach leaves. Heat until they get slightly wilted. 

Pour soup into a soup bowl, place beet-cured salmon slices and 1 tablespoon of wilted spinach into each. Serve with a piece of rye crispbread and salsa spooned atop. Decorate with fennel leaves. Enjoy!