almost vegetarian Sancocho

My significant other went out today with work mates for dinner at Epic Roasthouse. Epic is part of a ‘chain’  of restaurants owned by or partially owned by Pat Kuleto here is San Francisco. Pat Kuleto finances this type of enterprise throughout the Bay Area.  Some of them are especially fancy e.g., Jardinière. I have been there and enjoyed the food a lot, though it has been a while. I do remember the handpicked selection of cheeses they offered. It was at Jardinière that I first tried a triple cream oozy French cheese named Brillat Savarin; so delicious, so decadent!  I assume the cheese must be named after Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin, a 19th century French dude who was a lawyer obsessed with food and wrote a famous book on the subject,  the Philosophy of Taste. Among some of the things he said was “a dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye.” Maybe sexist though I think he would’ve loved watching Futurama!   On another occasion he writes, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”  So preposterous, so discriminatory…. however advanced for his time given the importance that he gave to food and the consequences of living on this or that type of diet. Well there is a lot to say about his interesting work but today I just wanted to talk about Sancocho.

Sancocho is a traditional Colombian dish made with lots of vegetables cooked in a beef broth with cola (oxtail). My Sancocho leaves the entire land animal thingy out.  My inspiration came from the aging vegetables in our fridge.  What could I do with them before it was too late?  Here is what I found:

1 ear of corn
8 small taro roots
1 yam (orange)
2 stalks of celery
1 zucchini
a handful of green beans
3 cloves of garlic
3 shallots
1/2 small cabbage
less than 1/2 a bunch of parsley
2 filets of anchovies
2 Serrano chilies pepper preserved in escabeche (from our Mexican dinner last night)

And from the pantry:

3 tbs. olive oil

salt and black pepper to taste
2.5 qts. water

The soup was made this way:

Chop all vegetables roughly.
Sauté shallots in olive oil till translucent. Add garlic and celery and sauté for a couple more minutes. Add anchovies, taro root, yam, and 1 and 1/2 tsp of kosher salt. Sauté it for another 4-5 minutes. Add 2 and 1/2 quarts of water and ear of corn broken into 3 pieces. Boil everything till taro roots are ‘al dente‘ (about 10 minutes). Blend Serrano chilies with a bit of the hot broth and return the juices to the pan. Add cabbage, zucchini, beans and parsley.  Cook for another 5 minutes. Adjust salt, add some fresh black pepper and serve in bowls with a drizzle of a good olive oil.