Wild Garlic Soup with Wild Garlic Dumplings

When I started this blog, its remit was simple - soup, soup and more soup.  Then it mutated to include cakes, random recipes and then wild food / foraging as I started to notice the wonderful treasure trove that was lurking on cycle paths and hillsides, by the canal and in the woods.  Most of that stuff was turned into jams or boozes of various kinds, but the one ingredient that I truly fell in love with was Wild Garlic.  The smell of it when it comes into season is the smell of my childhood - spent as it was skulking in woods and by streams, getting muddy and making dens (and I'm really not making this up - kids today etc etc...)

The humble Allium ursinum plant is prefect for soups as it has an amazing delicate flavour and a texture that is a little like spinach (It also works well in quiches, potato salad and as a pesto replacement for basil) and it's easy to find as it grows in the shadow of larger trees - of course every fan of wild garlic has their own secret location for their harvest.  I'd tell you mine but then I'd have to turn you into soup (Hint - it's by the canal path in Kirkstall)  It goes without saying as well, that always wash carefully anything you pick and make sure you know exactly what it is that you are picking...

And the great thing about this recipe is that it has dumplings in it... yay!  Oh, and one last thing before I leave you to go garlic hunting - 250g (the total amount you will need for this recipe) is about a carrier bag full...

Ingredients

For the soup
200g Wild Garlic
1 Large Onion
1 Large Potato
1.2l Vegetable Stock
100ml Single Cream
Butter
Salt
Pepper

For the dumplings
100g Stale Bread
75g Wild Garlic
1 Clove Garlic
1 Small Onion
1 Egg
3 tbsp Plain Flour
75ml Milk
Oil
Salt

Method
1.  Cut the stale bread into cubes and soak in milk for 10 minutes

2. Using a food processor, blitz 50g of wild garlic with some oil, salt and pepper to make a puree

3. Cut the onion and garlic clove into small pieces, then gently fry until golden.

4.  Finely chop the remaining 25g of wild garlic

5. Gently kneed the soaked bread and then add the garlic puree, onion, garlic and chopped wild garlic, beaten egg and milk, combining thoroughly, then add enough plain flour to make a dough, roll out the dumplings into small (2-3cm) balls and refrigerate for 30 minutes or so.  They are pretty sticky, so use lots of greaseproof paper to stop them gluing themselves to whatever you place them on

6. Wash and peel the potato, then cut into small cubes.  Peel and finely chop the onion.

7.  Heat some butter in your soup pan then add the potato and onion, cooking for 8 minutes over a gentle heat until they start to soften.

8.  Add the wild garlic and cook for another 5 minutes, until everything is cooked through.

9.  Add the stock and bring to the boil then simmer for 25 minutes

10.  Using a blender, whizz the soup until its smooth (Use a sieve to make it even smoother if you want)

11. While the soup is cooking, steam the dumplings for 10 minutes, hopefully timing it so that everything is ready at the same time...

12.  Reheat the soup after blending and season to taste.

13.  Serve with 3 dumplings per bowl, and a swirl of single cream.  Enjoy!

Koftas, Fattoush, Baby Onion Risotto and more. A Week of Meals 002

Week two of recording our meals for posterity, and things are going swimmingly (and why shouldn't they?)  Because it's the middle of winter, we seem to be in the realm of stews at the moment, hence the appearance of two of them in this week's menu.  If this snow carries on, I'm sure there will be many more, plus regular readers will remember my fondness for dumplings...

So without further ado, here is this week's menu

Saturday - Baby Onion Risotto

Risotto is my enemy!  No matter how closely I stick to a recipe, how carefully I measure the ingredients and watch the timings and heat, the rice never cooks and it just plain makes me cross, which is odd given that it is such a simple meal.  Luckily, this dish was Mrs Soup's choice, from one of those books of one-pot meals you can pick up at the checkouts of most supermarkets.

Unlike me, Mrs Soup can ace the risotto, and this was creamy delicious heaven!

Sunday - Seafood Stew

This one was made up on the fly, mainly because we had some frozen bits of fish to use up, and a hankering for some fennel.  I thought that those two flavours worked will together, so threw in some tomatoes and orange zest, plus some other bits and came up with a lovely, fresh stew.  I had to hold my fire on adding dumplings to this, and much to my chagrin, I have to admit I was probably right to do so

Monday - Lamb Koftas and Fattoush

Because we are nothing if not wildly international here at Soup HQ, this Lebanese feast came from the pages of an Australian Women's Weekly recipe book and was my choice from Mrs Soup's pick of the books.

The Koftas did resemble (and there's no way of putting this delicately) dog poo before being cooked, but afterwards were a nice, spicy treat.  The Fattoush was a salad (I know, in this weather?) of tomatoes and cucumber with baked pittas crumbled up and mixed it.  A yogurt dip was also added for good luck...

Tuesday - Snert

See the soup post below this one for a nice Dutch Pea and Ham soup featuring pig's trotters.  I was disappointed that this soup isn't called Snert because that's a Dutch word for snot, by the way...

Wednesday - Vegetable Stew

Second stew of the week - a tasty but basic affair with leeks, swede, carrots and onions all provided as part of our veg box delivery.  This time there were dumplings, with the added bonus of a dollop of horseradish sauce to liven things up!  Also, as I always throw together my dumplings on the fly, I can never remember the quantities I use, which often leads to me making them the size of a large Chihuahua's head.  This time, however, I got it just right which saved me from a painful evening suffering fromt he after effects of dumpling OD!

FaiKakai and Mango Pineapple Sorbet - Olympic Food Challenge : Tonga

Tonga is today's stop on the Olympic Food Challenge and, ummm, this was a bit of a distaster...  "What on earth could go wrong?" you ask  "After all, it's dumplings and we know you are crazy about dumplings Dan".  Well, a lot of things, it turns out - the sauce turned into toffee and set like concrete - and I have a slight phobia about toffee after losing teeth to the awful stuff.  Also, the dumplings more or less disintegrated in the pan, leaving a gooey, sludgy mess, over which I tried to pur the aforementioned sauce.

Now the kitchen is strewn with plates, dishes and pans that are glued together with toffee, and I am a bit cross for messing things up.  Bah!

Still - the sorbet was amazing..

Takusa Mutton Stew - Olympic Food Challenge : Niger

Wow, day 3 already, and the first day proper of the Olympics. And with the temperature outside actually summer-y, it's time for a stew, with dumplings... I really wasn't thinking when I planned these things was I? (Actually, I knew perfectly well what I was doing, because there is NEVER a wrong time to eat dumplings)

Today our journey round the world of Olympic cuisine brings us to Niger.  They have only won one medal in their Olympic history - a bronze in boxing at the 1972 Munich Olympics, so lets hope they have plenty of success this year, where they have 6 competitors in 5 sports (including boxing, judo, rowing and swimming) You can keep track of their progress here

Takusa (Mutton Stew) With Dumplings

Today's recipe is Takusa, or mutton stew with dumplings.  It's the first time I've ever cooked with mutton, and it did find a bit hard to get a hold of, but as ever, Leeds Market was my friend.  We also had some proper cinnamon, which I had been dying to use, and this dish gave me a perfect opportunity.  As always, I'm a sucker for a good stew and yes, I did make too many dumplings...

Sopa Paraguaya and Bori Bori Soup -Olympic Food Challenge : Paraguay

Aaaaand... they are off! Both the women's football teams and the small army of insane food bloggers who signed up the the Olympic Food Challenge (We have our own hashtag for you twitter users (I refuse to say 'tweeps') which is #olympicfoodchallenge)

This is the first of the 19 dishes over 19 days that we will be blogging as part of the Olympic Food Challenge, and as we are Soup Tuesday, the first dish is from Paraguay and is, yes, you've guessed it, a soup... and something that sounds like a soup, but isn't...

Paraguay have a grand total of 8 Olympians competing in 6 sports, and have won a grand total of 1 medal in their Olympic history to date (A silver in the football in 2004, fact fans...)

You can keep an eye on Paraguay's progress here, and you can keep an eye on us as we attempt to cook our dishes without losing our minds here, don't forget to check back soon and see what we've been up to!

Gnocchi with Tomato and Black Pudding

I love my Sunday Roast, as I think I mentioned before.  There is no finer meal in a week and the care and devotion I put into the gravy and roast potatoes borders on obsessional. However, the downside to a roast dinner is it seems to take ages to make and is devoured in minutes (although that may just be due to my terrible lack of manners...)

So this week I thought that instead of roasting something, I'd try a completely different tack and do something I've never had before.  Whilst investigating soups (and in particular Nettle and Snail soup - which may just appear on the blog at some point in the future) I hit upon the idea of adding potato gnocchi to the soup.  Now I may have also mentioned before that I am a sucker for foods with beautiful sounding names, and also dumplings (which I can eat until I burst) and potato gnocchi seemed to combine both of those things in one cute little package, so how could I resist.

And also, because I'm obsessed with black pudding (this must be the sixth or seventh recipe with the stuff in it) I thought I'd chuck some of that in too, because, well, why the heck not...

Ingredients

For the gnocchi
500g Waxy Potatoes
150g Plain Flour
Handful of finely chopped Fresh Basil
Salt
Pepper


For the Sauce
1 Tin Chopped Tomatoes
250g Black Pudding
1 Onion
75ml Red Wine
1tsp Balsamic Vinegar
1tsp Finely chopped fresh rosemary
2 Cloves Finely Chopped Garlic

1.  Peel the potatoes, chop into cubes and put into a pan of boiling salted water for 15 minutes, until the potatoes are soft.  Drain them and allow to cool

2.  Mash the potatoes.   I used a potato ricer for this because you want the mash to be as smooth as possible.

3. Put the mashed potatoes into a mixing bowl, then add the flour, chopped basil, salt and pepper.  Combine the mixture like you would if you were making a dough, then kneed gently for 2-3 minutes until the dough is nice and smooth.

4.  Spead some flour on a worktop and then roll the dough out into a roll thats about 1-1 and a half cm thick, then cut into 1-2cm pieces.  Set these aside for now.

5.  Fry the finely chopped onion and garlic in some oil until the onion is just starting to colour.  Then add the red wine, vinegar, rosemary and some black pepper.  Bring this to a simmer and cover.

6.  Cut the black pudding into 1cm cubes.  Ina frying pan, heat some oil and yhen fry the black pudding until it starts to brown.  Then transfer to the sauce.

6.  In a very large pan. bring some water to the boil, then put the gnocchi in, cooking for about 2 minutes, until they start to float to the surface.  Drain them well then put onto a heated plate and serve with the sauce and a grating of fresh parmesan.  Enjoy!

Beef Stew

It's Autumn. I know this because it is 6p.m. and it's dark.  It's also raining.  And Strictly is back on the telly. All signs point to the Vernal Equinox being in full effect.  This can only be described as A Good Thing as far as I'm concerned.  And why is this?  Why should the time of year when the nights close in and the mercury and leaves start to drop be a time for celebration?

One word -

Dumplings

I am a dumpling addict.  There, I said it.  I would eat dumplings until my stomach exploded and would consider it a fine and proper demise, and the best way to eat dumplings is to drop them into a fine beef stew.  And this recipe is the finest beef stew that I have ever made.  Better than my Nana's stew, which was cooked for around 3 days in a huge vat and the consistency of wallpaper paste.  Better than the Irish stew that the pub across from my old office used to make, and I ate for lunch every day, loving how the flavor increased the closer to the weekend we got - obviously another huge vat that was kept on the stove all week.

After making stew for pretty much all of my adult life, I have come to a few conclusions -
1. Shin Beef is better than Stewing Beef
2. Turnips beat Swede every day of the week
3. Dumplings should NEVER have a crust on them
4. Red wine makes better gravy than Stout

Please note, these are just my opinions, and you should feel free to disregard them if you wish to have inferior stew.


Ingredients
700g Shin Beef
3 Onions
2 Stalks Celery
3 Carrots
2 Turnips
500ml Beef stock
500ml Red Wine
2 Bay Leaves
4 Sprigs Thyme
Beef Dripping
2tsp Worcestershire Sause


For the dumplings
100g PlainFlour
50g Beef Suet
1tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt

Method

Cut the beef into about inch cubes, removing any tendons and extra fatty bits, then coat them in seasoned flour.

In a large frying pan, brown the meat in hot dripping (or oil if you want), but only do it a few chunks at a time or they will boil rather than brown.  Remove the beef and set aside for now

Next cut up the onions and fry them in the same pan as the beef, but dont let them colour too much.  Remove them from the pan and set them aside.  Now use some of the stock to de-glaze the pan, then pour the stock into your large stew pan, add the meat and onions, red wine, worcestershire sauce, thyme and bay leaves and bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, add the carrots, celery and turnips and simmer for another hour.

To make the dumplings, mix the flour and suet, baking powder and salt, then add just enough water to bind it all together in a dough, then separate into 6 balls and add to the stew, cover and simmer for another 15 minutes until the dumplings are cooked.  Then the stew is ready to serve.  Enjoy!

Also, you could try putting other things in the dumplings to make them more interesting - these could include horseradish, rosemary, thyme or creme fraiche.  Feel free to experiment, but a word of warning - don't eat too many, they are addictive!