By Nat Levin
This springlike vegetable and orzo soup is both sweet and savory – sweet from simmering the celery and alliums in butter and wine and savory from a broth built on parmesan rind, nutritional yeast, and miso. Even though you can go from prep to table in less than two hours, these ingredients conspire to make the soup taste much more complex and time-consuming than it actually is. And, while the ingredient list looks long, I bet you already have most of them in your pantry or freezer. Although we’re still a few weeks out from local produce arriving in earnest, this soup is so fresh and light from the addition of peas, lemon, and herbs you’ll think it was all freshly plucked from your own garden.
3 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 leek, thinly sliced into rounds
3 ribs celery, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
6 cups water
½ cup white wine
1 parmesan rind
1 sprig of thyme or ½ teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 cup frozen spinach
½ cup frozen peas
1.5 cups orzo
2 teaspoons white miso
1 organic lemon, juiced and zested (forego zest if not organic)
¼ cup fresh dill, minced (sub other soft herbs if you’d like: mint or parsley would be good)
Freshly cracked black pepper
Melt the butter and olive oil together in a Dutch oven over low heat while you prepare the vegetables. Dice the yellow onion, thinly slice the leek into rounds, thinly slice the celery, and mince the garlic. Tip the vegetables into the pot, stir in a teaspoon of kosher salt, and cover the pot. Turn the heat up to medium and cook for ten minutes.
After ten minutes, the aromatics should be softening and very fragrant. Add 6 cups of water, ½ cup of white wine, the parmesan rind, the bay leaf, and two tablespoons of nutritional yeast. Stir and cover again, then cook for one hour.
After an hour, fish out the parmesan rind and add to the soup 1 cup frozen spinach, ½ cup frozen peas, and 1.5 cups orzo. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes less than directed on the orzo package – this will be about ten minutes. Just before the orzo is done, stir in two teaspoons of white miso, the zest and juice of a lemon, ¼ cup minced dill or soft herb of your choice, and several grinds of black pepper. Cook for another minute or two, until the orzo is done to your liking.
