Celeriac and Chard Soup

We are all about the vegetables over at Soup Towers this month.  For reasons that are now shrouded in the mists of time, it seemed like a good idea to go meat free for a month, so the next few soup recipes will all be veggie.  When I told my Mum I was dropping the meat, there was an amazing look of horror and disbelief on her face, and a I half expect her to come round with a care package of bacon and black puddings before the month is out.

But the truth is, like a lot of people these days, it's actually not that much of a shift to go vegetarian as about half of the meals I cook are meat-free anyway, and a quick glance down the recent blog posts here show that the vegetable soup recipes are at least as many as ones with bits of dead animal floating in them.

So after a weekend that was a veritable orgy of meat (at least one huge mixed grill, a chunky gammon steak and a hilariously long hot-dog smothered in chili) I commenced, starting with this soup.

After the last recipe, which was made entirely of items found in anyone's cupboard, this soup is a riot of fresh veg, and rather brilliant for it - in fact it used up about half of our veg box for this week - and it's also a lot like Ribollita, but without the bread to thicken it, and chard instead of cavolo nero.  However, you could pretty much chuck in whatever vegetables you have to hand and it would still be amazing...

Ingredients
1 Large Onion
1 Celeriac
2 Stalks Celery
1 Large Carrot
Chard
1 Can Haricot Beans
1 Tin Chopped Tomatoes
900ml Stock
4 Cloves Garlic
1tsp Thyme
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Salt and Pepper
Butter

Method
1. Peel the celeriac and cut into 1cm cubes.  Peel and chop the carrot and onion, slice the celery thinly.

2.  Heat some butter in your soup pan and  then gently cook the vegetables for about 5 minutes, until they start to soften.  Add the finely chopped garlic and cook for another 2 minutes.

3.  Add the stock, tomatoes, beans, thyme and balsamic vinegar and then bring the soup to the boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

4.  Wash the chard, remove any tough stalks and then shred.

5.  Add the chard to the soup, adjust seasoning to taste and then cook until the chard has wilted.

6.  Serve with grated Parmesan and fresh bread.  Enjoy!

Celeriac And Cumin Soup

Is summer here yet?  Looking out of the window today, the answer would be a qualified 'yes' but tomorrow we may be knee deep in more snow, so rather than breaking out the light, summery recipes (and I've got some exciting things planned to do with all the wild garlic that is starting to spring up down the side of the canal - speaking of which, does anybody know where I can get my hands on some snails?)

Today's soup is another celeriac recipe.  I use this quite a bit in soups for two reasons - it's amazingly tasty and it also looks like something that may have tried to invade the Earth and been defeated by Tom Baker era Doctor Who (Younger readers may be interested to know several other actors played the good Doctor before David Tennant turned up*)

I also continued my experiemnts with making the soup the day before I ate is, chilling it overnight and I really am beginning to think that it does improve the flavour of soups, especially the blended variety.  If anyone else has thoughts on this, let me know in't comments section!

*Sarcasm

Ingredients
400g Celeriac
1 Large Potato
2 Cloves Garlic
2 Onions
40g Butter
100ml Single Cream
1.2l Vegetable Stock
2tsp Cumin
1tsp Cumin Seeds
Salt and Black Pepper

Method
1.  Peel wash the celeriac and potatoes.  Cut them into cubes about 1cm square.

2.  Thinly slice the onions.  Heat the butter in your soup pan.  Gently sweat the onions, garlic, potatoes and celeriac for 10 minutes, until they start to soften.

3.  Add the ground cumin and cook for another 2 minutes, to coat everything in the spice, then add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes, until everything is cooked and soft.  Remove from the heat and allow the soup to cool.

4.  Blend the soup smooth.  Taste and adjust seasoning and re-heat.

5.  In a frying pan, heat the cumin seeds until they are nicely toasted and giving off a spicy aroma.

6.  Serve in bowls with a swirl of single cream and a sprinkling of toasted cumin seeds.  I also added flat bread as an accompaniment.  Enjoy!

Haggis, Kidneys and Kievs. A Week of Meals 004

Week four of 2013 - A Stomach Odyssey brought us foods from around the world, exciting new ingredients and a rare food-fail.  How, what and why?  Keep reading as the answers lay within...

Friday - Haggis, Tatties and Neeps

Friday was Burns Night.  Not being Scottish in any way, shape or form, I nonetheless wanted to get in on the action, as I am a big fan of sheeps lungs boiled in their intestines, oh yes!  To go with the haggis, I made its traditional accompaniment, Tatties and Neeps.  There was some discussion on twitter about whether the Neeps in question should be Turnips or Swede.  I war reliably informed by someone what is an actual Scotsman that true Tatties and Neeps should contain swede, so with that rutabaga based question resolved, I whipped up a batch and t'was delicious

Saturday - Mole Poblano de Pollo (Chicken in Chili and Chocolate Sauce)

This was my recipe picked from a cookbook called 'A Mexican Celebration', full of festive foods from Mexico.  Predictably, I picked it because it sounded weird and wonderful, but I was worried that the chocolate that I got (80% cocoa solids) would still be too sweet when put into the sauce.  I shouldn't have worried because it turned out a great recipe - a little like a Mexican Korma.  If you are interested in making it, there's a recipe here that is very similar to the one I followed

Sunday - Chicken Kiev

Mrs Soup had a go at making the old 70's dinner party classic from a cookbook that I got way back when I was a student.  It was a first for me as I've only ever had those nasty ones that are made of mechanically reclaimed chicken.  Having them made fresh was a bit of a revelation, and I was impressed that the garlic butter staying in its meaty pocket during the frying process...

Monday - Kidneys in Sherry

A recipe from my Offal Cookbook "The Fifth Quarter".  Apart from Steak and Kidney Pie, I've never cooked kidney before.  Even after soaking in water and lemon juice to cleanse them, the kidney had an odour that could only be described as 'urine' or, as Mrs Soup put it "Like an old people's home" - an evil old people's home run by bad people , I should add.  There was at least one plate that wasn't cleared at the end of the meal, which is a rare occurrence, and I suspect that it will be a while before I try kidney on it's own again...

Tuesday - Thai Noodle Soup with Fish Balls

See the blogpost here

Wednesday - Chicken and Celeriac Stew with Harissa

This was a random, thrown together stew, using some veg from the veg box and the harissa paste that we recieved as part of a foodie pen pals box a while ago.  No dumplings with this stew, you may notice, and the Harissa was unexpectedly spicy, which almost overpowered the dish.

Celeriac and Stilton Soup

Just recently, someone  suggested that I should watch the Harry Potter films.  I said that I had seen the first one and hated it - reminded me too much of those twee children's shows that the BBC used to show on a Sunday evening - adaptations of Narnia books and the like with posh drama school kids over-pronouncing everything and slightly shoddy special effects.

However, because the person who told me I should give the rest of the films a go has great taste in films, and also because she agreed to watch Game of Thrones if I watched the Potter films (If you aren't watching Game of Thrones, then go buy DVDs right now.  Sean Bean is the best thing since sliced bread in it, and for so many other reasons) then I relented and watched the rest of the Harry Potter films.

And as readers of this blog will know, I am prone to wild and strange digressions, but a discussion of a series of fantasy films?  This links to cookery how?  The answer, my lovely readers, is Mandrake Root.

Today's soup has celeriac in it, which is possibly my favourite vegetable, aesthetically speaking, and it looks just like Mandrake Root from the Harry Potter films. Don't believe me?

How can something so weird, so strange and un-earthly looking have such a delicate taste?  Without further ado, I give you Butterbeer...er... Mandrake...Celeriac and Stilton Soup, perfecr for winter evenings when Potions is cancelled due to heavy Dragon showers or something.

Ingredients
1 Celeriac
2 Onions
1 Leek
1tsp Thyme
2l Vegetable Stock
2 Apples
150g Blue Stilton
70g Butter
2 Cloves of Garlic

Method
First off, you need to prepare the Celeriac, by cutting away all the tough roots and them the skin.  Treat it like you would a turnip, you will need to cut away about half a centimeter of the outer skin, and then cut the celeriac into centimeter cubes.

In a thick bottomed pan, heat the butter and then add the celeriac, chopped onions and leek, then sweat the vegetables until they go soft.  Once this is done (about 5 minutes), add the garlic, thyme, stock and apples - peeled, cored and cubed and then cook the soup for 30-40 minutes, before letting it cool.

I really hate thick blended soups that have the consistency of wallpaper paste, so when you blend the soup - I use a stick blender - you can always pass the soup through a sieve afterwards to give it a smoother consistency, and maybe add a bit more liquid.

Then return the soup to the heat, and crumble the Stilton into it, season to taste and then serve.  Enjoy!