Soup

Spiced Parsnip Soup

On a raw February day when the wind is like an absolute knife cutting through you with bitter cold, lunch cries out for soup.  Have it in a mug and warm your hands as well or, show it off in a beautiful bowl!  The blue bowl here just set off the golden turmeric colour of this parsnip soup perfectly though its delicious taste would be the same whatever you served it in!  Parsnips somehow manage to be sweet yet earthy and this soup with its spicing makes them (and me!) sing.

This is a simple soup to make and uses a mild curry powder though you could always blend your own if you wanted to experiment.  A good basic blend is to use equal quantities of ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, fenugreek with as much or as little chill powder as you like.   Have fun experimenting by varying the proportions or adding a favourite spice – I promise that the parsnip can take it. Continue reading →

Chunky Moroccan Vegetable Soup

  1. I seem to have developed a bit of a yearning for clean flavours in 2020.  In particular I’ve gone from despising preserved lemons to having a bit of a “moment” with them!  Maybe unusually this soup makes use of them to great effect combining them with tomatoes, cumin, turmeric, chilli and a little cinnamon.  It brings the sunshine of North Africa to what is turning out to be rather a wet and grey January in the UK.

Morrocan Market

The other good news for those who are trying to see off the extra pounds that Christmas invariably means is this soup is actually quite low in calories as well as being a real comfort food.  Add a little less liquid and you could eat it as a stew so it’s quite versatile too.  Make a batch and use extras to have as lunch during the week and bring warmth to January. Continue reading →

Plum, Hazelnut and Sloe Gin Crumble

Autumn is well and truly here and with that comes the time for crumble.      This recipe sees deep jewelled magenta plums spiked with sloe gin,  bubbling through a golden knobbly, textured crumble that is laced with toasted oats and hazelnuts

I know everyone thinks of crumble as an easy, ordinary dish but I think with the few extra tweaks here it becomes something amazing.    Sloe gin and hazelnuts are a marriage made in heaven.   The two types of sugar really add to the depth and texture of the crumble and the toasty flavour you get from the oats and demerara sprinkled on top are worth it for the smell alone   I add, perhaps surprisingly, a few leaves of fresh thyme to the crumble mix which just work in a way you just can’t place  This recipe really is the embodiment of the “mellow fruitfulness” in Keats’ ode To Autumn

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Spicy Tomato and Lentil Soup with Roasted Chickpeas

It seems like everyone is going down with colds just recently so I wanted to share with you a soup that is great for helping you/them get better!   An alternative to the classic chicken broth that traditionally is the cure-all for so many people.

I have to admit that I make this Spicy Tomato and Lentil Soup because it is delicious but sometimes when I am feeling a bit sniffly I like knowing that It contains lots of herbs and spices that are held to help fight off symptoms of a cold or the flu.  I can of course, make no substantiated claims to this soup being a magic cure for colds and flu, but it always helps me feel as though I am doing something positive which is no bad thing and at least there is no eye of newt or tongue of toad needed in this caldron/saucepan to make this potion/soup!   It does, however, contain:

  • ginger as an highly effective against nausea, a powerful anti-inflammatory, great for treating indigestion and for fighting infection.
  • garlic which is renowned for its cold and flu fighting properties. It has anti bacterial  properties
  • chilli is very high in vitamin C. Capsaicin is the wonder property here and is reported to have anti oxidant and anti inflammatory properties
  • cumin Is held to increase antioxidant intake and promote digestion
  • ground coriander reportedly has anti inflammatory and anti bacterial properties as well as aiding digestion
  • turmeric’s active ingredients is curcumin which is said to be anti-inflammatory and to increase anti-oxidant capacity. Black pepper increases the absorption of curcumin by something like 2000% – so always have pepper with turmeric.

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Sweet Potato Satay Soup

I love a good soup.   This Sweet Potato Satay one is pretty special.  Ok I know it’s not a flavour combo you’d probably expect in a soup but it works.    It’s warm and spicy with the flavours of chilli, garlic and ginger and sweet and earthy with red lentils, carrots and the sweet potatoes themselves.  It’s full of good things that fight both a cold and the cold itself,  and yet it’s satay flavours lend themselves to being eaten in warmer weather when you need a pick up.  It’s “accidentally” vegan, gluten free and if you have a nut allergy works as a spiced sweet potato soup if you don’t add the peanut element.  It’s an all round winner!

Of course the use of the peanut satay flavours in this soup doesn’t make this an authentic Indonesian dish   We are entering the same battlefield as M&S are at the moment with their biryani wrap in terms of authenticity.  To call a soup satay (which historically was essentially a meat kebab) is technically incorrect,  but my use of satay here does give you an extremely good idea of this soups flavour profile which I can’t think of any other way of doing so succinctly.

Depending on the time of year, I like to adjust this soup’s thickness/viscosity.   In the winter I like it thick and almost dhal like.  In the summer, by letting the blended soup down by adding water, I like it looser and more of a traditional soup consistency.  This is all a matter of personal preference of course so do whatever feels right for you. Continue reading →

Mushroom Soup

There is a distinct nip in the air in the mornings now and I am beginning to turn away from salads in favour of something more homely and comforting.  A bowl or a mug of soup is the equivalent of a food hug and I am happy to huddle down in the kitchen with some, yet, if the weather sunny it’s something I often take outside to eat in the garden. It makes a great packed lunch put into a flask especially if you take a bread roll to eat alongside (or dunk in) !   I particularly like taking this soup with me when I take the dogs for a walk.   It fits right in with foraging for sloes and picking wild damsons or blackberries for a crumble or pie.   I love  Plum, Hazelnut and Sloe Gin Crumble  so I am always on the look out for damsons.  Mind you a great apple pie is hard to beat and there are lots of apples about at the moment as well as wild blackberries.

When I was young, soup tended to come in tins.   We weren’t allowed anything to do with the Campbells in our house (something to do with the Campbells betraying the rest of the clans to the English at a highland gathering they were hosting) so it was either Heinz or Baxters.   Tomato was my favourite (Heinz) and Oxtail or Mushroom were my brothers.   I have very fond memories of those days but homemade mushroom soup is an absolute revelation compared to the canned stuff.   I will never be able to open a can of it again.

Mushroom soup maybe doesn’t look the prettiest soup in the world but boy does it taste wonderful.  There are a lot of mushrooms about in the countryside right now.  As I much as I’d like to be able to channel my inner Antonio Carluccio I’m not an expert when it comes to identifying mushrooms so I often end up making this with bought mushrooms rather than foraged ones. *  My favourite one for this are chestnut or field mushrooms though you could always garnish this with some fancy varieties such as girolle or morel if you wanted to look fancy! Continue reading →

Minestrone Soup

On a cold, dull winters day this soup brings a welcome vibrant warmth. I seem to be in need of that at the moment as this follows on from my Roasted Mediterranean Vegetable Lasagne.  I am obviously longing for blue skies and warm sunshine in my subconscious!    It reminds me of summer yet it’s base is the Italian combination of carrots, celery and onion known as sofrito that is available all year round. Add some red or yellow pepper, some frozen sweetcorn or peas and a jar of passata instead of fresh tomatoes, and you are immediately under summer skies again and you’ve banished any winter blues with yellows, reds and bright verdant green.

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Vibrant Minestrone Soup

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Galette des Rois

The 6th January means all the Christmas decorations are down.  Something I find rather depressing to be honest  – it feels rather like undoing Christmas   But it shouldn’t feel like that because the 6th January is actually Epiphany which used to be, in the past, a day of celebration on par with Christmas  Day itself. A day of fun and celebration.   Ok so in this day and age we don’t really celebrate Epiphany but it still does mean one very important thing that I do every year – make (and eat) a Galette des Rois.

This rather unprepossessing “cake” is supposedly made to celebrate the arrival of the Three Kings at Bethlehem.  It actually isn’t a cake as we would think of one, it’s buttery puff pastry filled with almond frangipane cream and, in my version, fresh pears, although you could used tinned or leave out altogether. It really is absolutely yummy.  You need to make one – diets don’t count on feast days after all!

In France it is the centre of the main fun of the day.   They serve the Galette with a gold paper crown on top and put a charm in the Galette (a bean or a China figure) and the person who finds it becomes king or queen for the day and wears the crown – and then everyone has to do as they command.  I am sure you can imagine just how much fun that could turn out to be – particularly if you are the one wearing the crown! Continue reading →

Pumpkin Soup, Egg and Chorizo

There is something about the velvety sweetness of this pumpkin soup that really sets off the spicy chorizo and soft poached egg.  It becomes a complete supper dish rather than just a delicious warming soup.  If you swap the toppings the soup can be used as a base for vegans and vegetarians.  Try adding  some tofu pieces fried with paprika and oil on top for vegans or for vegetarians poached egg sprinkled with a cloud of paprika over the top    It really is a perfect dish for when you have a group that has different dietary needs!

 

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