Parsnip and Sweet Potato Soup

It's October!  Where did the summer go? Still, now it's time to pack up your shorts and pull out those woolly jumpers, that can only mean one thing - it's soup season again (aka The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year)

I was in two minds  about starting up the soup blog again; after all, there must be a finite number of soups a man can cook, right? So yesterday, I was opening a carton of soup for my lunch and two things struck me - firstly that I feel guilty every time I buy soup rather than making it, especially as cooking soup is as easy as falling off a log, but less painful, and secondly, that most shop bought soups are usually hugely disappointing. As if to prove my point, the Goan Spicy Lentil and Chicken soup that I eat was slightly bitter tasting, had woody vegetables and left me feeling sad rather than being a hug in a bowl, like all good soups should be

To ease myself back into blogging (and soup making) I set myself the challenge of opening up the vegetable drawer of the fridge, grabbing the first few things that I could lay my hands on and tuning them into a tasty soup.  Just to get myself back into the swing of things.

The first things I pulled out were a can of beer, a bottle of vodka and a lime.  Which would make an awesomely demented cocktail, but not really good for soup.  The next dive into the fridge yielded sweet potatoes and parsnips.  This, I thought to myself, I can work with...

So some quick thinking, a look in the spice cupboard and viola,  a simple, rich and tasty soup that took about 5 minutes to make, 30 minutes to simmer and then was ready for lunch.

Can't say easier than that, can you?  So shut up and make some soup...

Ingredients
2 Onions
2 Parsnips
2 Sweet Potatoes
2 Cloves of Garlic
2tsp Finely chopped Ginger
1tbsp Lemon Juice
1tsp Turmeric
1tsp Cumin
1tsp Dried Chili Flakes
1tsp Salt
1.2l Stock
Yoghurt
Fresh Coriander

Method
1. Chop the onions and fry fry gently until golden

2.  Peel and chop the sweet potato and parsnip.  Add these to the onions and sweat gently for a few minutes until the start to soften

3.  Add the stock, ginger, garlic and spices.  Bring the soup to the boil then cover and simmer for 30 minute, or until all the vegetables have softened

4.  Using a stick blender, purée the soup until smooth.  Adjust seasoning to taste.

5.  Garnish each bowl of soup with yoghurt and fresh coriander.  Enjoy!

Zupa Koperkowa - Polish Dill Soup

I had some friends who went on holiday to various East European countries, and when they returned, the brought back tales of culinary horror.  Not only was it nigh-on impossible to get a decent vegetarian meal in Latvia, but in Poland - horror of horrors - they put dill on EVERYTHING.  And my friends REALLY couldn't stand dill. Now I can't vouch for the veracity of these stories, but I'm pretty sure my friends would hate this soup...

This is a really simple soup that is really all about the dill, although it is really filling and creamy and would be good as a winter warmer, or as a summer soup.  Of course, the recipe I really wanted to do this week was a Polish Tripe soup, but the supermarket seems to have stopped stocking cow's stomach linings, so I will have to take a trip to Leeds Market to procure some.  You have been warned...

Ingredients
1 Carrot
1 Potato
2 Parsnips
250ml Sour Cream
150g White Rice
1.5l Chicken Stock
1 Bunch of Fresh Dill
2 Bay Leaves
Salt and Pepper

Method
1. In a large pan, heat your chicken stock.  Add the bay leaves and the carrot, potato and parsnip, all peeled and cubed.  Bring to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes

2. After 20 Minutes, add the rice and continue to simmer for another 15 minutes, until the rice is cooked and the vegetables are soft.

3.  Finely chop the dill and add to the pan, along with the sour cream. Heat through

4.  Adjust seasoning to taste and serve with some extra dill for garnish.  Enjoy!

Purresuppe - Norwegian Leek and Potato Soup

Week two of what my crack team of lawyers are telling me to avoid calling 'Around the world in 80 soups' - not because Jules Verne might sue, but because it's a rather obvious thing to do isn't it?  So today we come to Norway.  When I'm looking for recipes to put on the site, especially from other countries, I am often stymied by the fact that some ingredients are just too darn difficult to lay my hands on.  For example, two really exciting Norwegian soups called for Reindeer meat and cod tongues - both rather difficult to lay hands on on a Monday afternoon (however, there may be a Norwegian store in Leeds Market - I shall have to investigate next time I'm there.

Instead, I found a nice leek and potato soup recipe, all the while cursing myself for playing it safe.  Especially because from what I know about Norwegian cuisine, it can be anything but safe (See Surströmming for example - a tinned fish so dangerous that it's banned from being carried on aircraft lest it explode!)  Also, all the Norwegians I have known have been crazy to borderline insane (in a good way) Maybe to make this soup more dangerous, I should have stirred in some elk blood or something.  At the very least listened to some black metal whilst burning down a church...*

This soup really is a thing of beauty, creamy without resorting to cream, thick and warming without being too heavy and also perfect for a winter's day (which will soon be coming, and then the page views for my blog will start to go up again - yay grotty weather, you go!)

I have a vague aversion to soup recipes that are just x & y soup, where x and y are random vegetables thrown together (although I have made and blogged plenty of those) so writing about Purresuppe allows to to include what could be seen as a rather mundane soup and give it a sheen of the exotic.  And it really is very nice...

*Soup Tuesday does not advocate burning anything, or listening to horrible music

Ingredients
2 Leeks
3 Parsnips
1 Onion
500g Potatoes
4 Cloves Garlic
1.5l Chicken Stock
3 Rashers Smoked Bacon
Fresh Thyme
Salt 
Pepper
Butter

Method.
1. remove the green parts of the leeks and slice them.  Peel and slice the onion

2.  Heat the butter in your soup pan and cook the leeks and onions until they start to soften

3.  Peel and cube the potatoes and parsnips.

4.  Add them to the pan and let them cook for a few minutes to

5.  Add the stock and season.  Bring to the boil, cover and reduce to a simmer, then cook for 45 minutes, until all the vegetables are falling apart.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool

6.  Using a blender, blend the soup until it is smooth.  Pass it through a sieve if you want to remove any lumps lurking in the soup

7.  Fry the bacon until crispy, then cut into small pieces.

8.  Serve the soup with a sprinkling of bacon pieces and some fresh thyme leaves.  Enjoy!

Honey Roasted Parsnip Soup

 First off, let me apologise for there being no soup recipe last week - possibly the first time I've ever missed a post (but not really - it seems I've missed quite a few...)  Anyway, the reason for my absence was that I was in Bruges, enjoying the sights and tastes of a quite beautiful city.  I ate deep fried gravy (Bitterballen)  which has already featured on the blog, and Flemish Rabbit stew, which I shall attempt to replicate this weekend (Any Belgian readers who have a recipe, feel free to send 'em my way...) as well as many, many beers, waffles and frites.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be having a Belgian soup special, in the manner that last year we had Dutch week, so stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, let me introduce you to this week's soup.  Regular readers may remember my dismay when a few weeks ago, my vegetable box did not deliver on its promise of parsnips.  Well, this week (Huzzah!!!) there be parsnips in that thar box (Did pirates eat parsnips?) so I can make parsnip soup. The vegetable box, by the way is from Yorkshire Farm Shop

The last time I tried to make parsnip soup, it was a parsnip and cranberry recipe that ended up like pink wall-paper paste, so this time I was determined to avoid repeating that mistake.  I can't stand those soups that are thick and gloopy, so I always strain through a sieve or add more stock to keep the consistency, well, soupy.

I guess you could make it without the crispy bacon bits, and use vegetable stock instead of chicken if you are a vegetarian (or 'fussy eater' as my Grandma would have put it)*

*My Grandma's views are not the views of Soup Tuesday or its writers...

Ingredients
450g Parsnips
1 Large Onion
1 Medium Potato
1 Medium Carrot 
1.2l Chicken Stock
2tbsp Honey
1tsp Turmeric
1tsp Grated Ginger
1/2tsp Chili Powder
2 Cloves of Garlic
3 Sprigs Fresh Thyme
Salt 
Pepper

Garnish
1 Parsnip
150g Bacon

Method
1.  Heat oven to 180ºc.  Peel the parsnips and cut into sections.  Slice the onion into wedges.

2.  In a bowl, mix the parsnips and onions then drizzle them with oil, the spices, ginger and garlic, then add the honey an mix everything together so the vegetables get coated in all the other flavours. (Really get your hands stuck in there, as Jamie would have it, or you could just use a wooden spoon and not get your hands all sticky...)

3.  Roast Onion and parsnip for 30 minutes, until everything is nice and golden brown.  Check regularly, so the parsnips don't burn.  You can always add a little more oil if you wish.

4.  Remove from the oven and allow everything to cool for a while.  Peel and cub the potato and carrot

5.  In your soup pan, heat some oil, then fry the carrot and potato until they start to brown.  Then add the stock to the pan, as well as a few sprigs of fresh thyme.  Bring the soup to the boil and then cover and reduce to a simmer. Cook for 20 minute, or until all the vegetables are soft

6. Meanwhile, make your parsnip crisps for garnish.  Slice a parsnip very thinly - you could use a mandolin, but I just used a vegetable peeler.  Coat the strips in oil, season and then the oven on a baking tray, pre-heated to 160ºc for 25 minutes, turning half way through.  Also, I fried some bacon until crispy to use as a garnish as well

6.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool, then blend until smooth, return to the pan and heat through and serve, garnished with the parsnip crisps and crispy bacon.  Enjoy!

Lamb and Mint Soup

Ah, spring is here, the sun is in the sky and birds are tweeting.  At the weekend we went for a walk in the countryside, and the fields were full of lambs, gambolling around without a care in the world, and it was this sight that inspired today's soup.
 
A roast dinner on a Sunday (or any other day of the week for that matter - it's too good for just a weekend!) is one of my favourite things in the entire world, and a good bit of roast Lamb is the best Sunday roast of all.  I try and do one every week (although I refuse to submit to the emotional blackmail that a certain instant gravy company that shall (*sniff* ahhh) remain nameless insist on putting in it's adverts that your family will fall apart if you don't make a roast once a week, and presumably be taken into care, your neighbours will whisper behind your back and you will become an alcoholic and die and be buried in a pauper's grave - or am I taking this a bit far?)

On top of a mountain.  I'm the one on the left...

At one of Soup Tuesday's weekly soup and cake planning meetings (yes, we have meetings...), I had the idea to soup-ize meals, and this is an attempt to turn a roast lamb dinner into soup.  The soup is actually made with left over roast lamb, but you could buy fresh if you wanted. Also, instead of making the roast potatoes and parsnips, if you have any left-over mashed potato, you could make mini potato cakes by adding some flour, rolling the mixture into little balls and frying them, before adding to the finished soup

Ingredients
2 Carrots
2 Leeks
2 Parsnips
1 Large Potato
1 Onion
250g Lamb
1.5l Stock
Frozen Peas
1 Lemon (Zest)
Handful Fresh Mint Leaves
Oil
Salt and Pepper

Thanks to Lizzy for parsnips straigh from the allotment

Method
1. Put the over on to heat up to 200ºc

2.  Chop the carrots, leeks, parsnips, potatoes and onion into small cubes / slices

3. Heat some oil in a pan and gently sweat the carrot, onion and leeks for 5 minutes

4. Put a roasting tin into the oven, with some oil in it, and get the oil nice and hot.  This should take about 5 minutes.  Then put the cubes of potato and parsnip in it, tossing them in oil so they are covered all over.  Put the tray back in the oven and let the vegetables roast for 25-30 minutes.  Check on them regularly, so they don't burn, and shake the tray so the vegetables brown evenly on all sides

5.  Once the carrots, leeks and onions have sweated for 5 minutes, add the stock (I put left-over gravy from the Sunday roast in with the stock to add extra flavour) and the cubed roast lamb.  If you are using fresh meat instead of left overs, either roast the meat beforehand, or brown it in the pan before sweating the carrots and leeks

6. Grate the zest of the lemon into the soup, bring to the boil and cook for 30 minute.

7.  5 minutes before serving, add a handful of chopped fresh mint to the soup (or use mint sauce) as well as a few frozen peas, taste and season.

8.  Serve in warm bowls.  Garnish with the roast potatoes and parsnips and a few mint leaves

Mulligatawny Soup

So this week I was still full of cold - a continuation of last week's suffering (and it's NOT man-flu, OK?) but at least I got my sense of smell and taste back, which I can only think is a good thing, and a sign that the illness may have reached a high-water mark and is now receding!

As soon as I developed a sniffle, it seemed like everyone was tripping over themselves to offer remedies, from staying in bed (my favourite) to drinking Hydrogen Peroxide (Not so keen on drinking rocket fuel...) and also as people know I write a blog about soup, people are also offering their idea of the perfect illness fighting soup.  (indeed, a quick check at search terms that brought people to my sight reveals an increase in interest in my chicken noodle soup, and also a search for 'chicken soup vs minestrone for illness.  If you are still reading, person who searched for that, I hope you are feeling better now!)

Anyway, most of the recipes involved either spices or lots of garlic and ginger, and the one that I thought I'd try - never having tasted it before - was Mulligatawny.  Now I know that this is an Indian recipe, and I imagine that bluff colonial types with mutton chop whiskers sat eating it in Victorian times.  Well, one can dream anyway....

Ingredients
1 Red Onion
1 Parsnip
2 Carrots
1 Potato
200g Lamb
3 Cloves Minced Garlic
1  Green Chili
50g Basmati Rice
2 Pints Vegetable Stock
1tsp Salt
1tsp Black Pepper
 2 Cloves
1ts Cumin Seeds
1tsp Turmeric
2tsp Coriander Seeds
Handful of fresh corriander

Method.
Cube the lamb and fry it off with some oil in a frying pan until its brown.

Chop the onion, parsnip, carrot and potato into small cubes.

In a pestle and mortar, grind the chili, salt and pepper, cloves, cumin and coriander seeds and turmeric into a paste

In your soup pan, heat some more oil and then add the cubed vegetables and garlic, and fry them off until they turn a little brown and start to soften up a bit.

Add the spice paste and basmati rice to the vegetables and allow to cook for a few minutes, then add the vegetable stock, bring the soup to the boil and then simmer for 30-45 minutes, until the rice is soft.

Serve and garnish with fresh chopped coriander leaves.  Enjoy!

Parsnip and Apple Soup with Black Pudding

When it comes to love 'em or loath em foods, there are only a few that I can think of that divide opinion as much as Black Pudding (Marmite and various permutations of offal being the others - all of which I love, by the way.  Hmmm, I wonder what that says about me?)

In recent years, the humble black pudding ('Uurgh, you do know it's made from blood', I hear some of you say, and 'yes we know, but it's so very tasty' the rest chant) has been given something of a new lease of life due to various chefs and restaurants picking up on it and using it as an accompaniment to pork dishes, amongst other things.  Me, I never stopped loving it, ever since nattering my mum for some when I was young I have been a black pudding lover.  The wonderful savoury flavour goes well with a lot of things, and a fried breakfast isn't complete without a few slices of deep rich black pudding next to the bacon.

So I thought I would give you this soup recipe to show off black pudding, along with a couple of other textures / flavours that go well with it - apple and cream, and also dill, all of which combine to make a rather tasty and a bit unusual soup.

Incidentally, if anyone else has a massive craving for love / hate food, I'd love to hear about it - tell us all about it in the comments section.  Me, I'm planning a tripe soup recipe for some time soon, which I'm sure will be, ummm, interesting

Ingredients

For the Soup
400g Parsnips
200g Apples (Any kind will do, but the sharper the flavour the better)
1l Stock
1 Onion
20g Butter
2 Clove Garlic
1tsp Ground Corriander
75ml Single Cream


For the Meatballs
250g Black Pudding
1tbsp Dill
2 Shallots
40g Butter

Method
Finely chop the onion and garlic, then add to a large pan with the butter and sweat for about 5 minutes, until the onion starts to soften.  Roughly chop the parsnips, peel and core then chop the apples and add them to the pan, cooking over a low heat for a few more minutes, until they start to soften too, then add the corriander, letting it coat the other ingredients.

Next add the stock, then bring the soup to a simmer and cover, let cook for 30 minutes or so and then transfer to a food mixer and blend until smooth, and return to the pan

Next make the meatballs. Finely chop the shallots and fry them in a little butter for a few minute to soften them.  Remove the skin from the black pudding. In a bowl, use a fork to break the black pudding down, then mix with the dill and cooked shallots (It is easier to do this if the black pudding is at room temperature) 

Then form the mixture into balls - make them as big or small as you want, depending on how many people you are feeding, then fry them in the butter until cooked then keep warm.  The smaller the meatballs the better, as then there are more to go round, and they make a savoury counterpoint to the sweet soup (when I made it, everyone wanted more, so feel free to increase the amount you make!)

Add the cream to the soup and reheat gently, but don't let the soup boil. Season to taste

Warm some dishes and then place the meatballs in them, then pour the soup over the top and serve, garnished with dill fronds and enjoy!

Don't forget to let us know about the foods you love but everybody else hates!