Spicy Morrocan Carrot Soup

Guess which jars annoy me...

When I first started cooking properly, back when I was a student, three things were the backbones of any dish, in various combinations.  A huge plastic generic container of 'mixed herbs', another of 'curry powder' and a jar of Chili Powder.  Like a Picasso of the palate, I could mix these few flavourings with any other foodstuff - usually Netto tinned casseroles, chicken soup or just some good old tinned tomatoes - to produce erm, well, something that was at least edible enough to be slapped on top of some pasta to give me enough sustenance to soak up the huge quantities of booze that I would invariably drink at the local nasty nightclub (It was called 'Spiders' in Hull, where cocktails came by the pint, dodgy goths lurked in darkened corners and the music ran the whole gamut from bad to awful... ah, good days...)

Fast forward some years and my spice collection has grown a little bit more elaborate.  In fact it seems like I'm getting a little obsessive about them now.  I started buying them in large bags and putting them into old coffee jars, and now it annoys me unless ALL THE JARS ARE THE SAME SIZE, so when we go to the supermarket, I have to buy the exact brand of coffee to get the jars.

And I have also started labelling the jars using a Dymo Brand™ label maker so all the jars ARE LABELLED EXACTLY THE SAME.  If you, like me suffer from borderline OCD, I highly recommend getting a Dymo Brand™label maker.  Not only do they keep a uniform appearance to all your jars of various brown powders (and before I got my Dymo Brand™label maker, you have no idea how many times I got my corianders and cumins mixed up) but they also give your jars a lovely and satisfying retro look, like something from a Victorian scientist's lab, but without the formaldehyde or eyeballs

Just to prove it's not just my spices that are obsessively orgainised, here is (some of) my book collection.  And yes, they are alphabetized by author and then arragnged by publication date. Problem? Me?

The point of all this rhapsodising about my Dymo Brand™ label maker is that, ummm, oh yeah, having a large and properly labelled spice collection enables you to take any old ingredient and turn it into a delicious soup.  Take for example this Moroccan carrot soup, which is nothing more than a few carrots and an onion, plus some spices.  'Simples' as the annoying rat on the telly says.  And it's all thanks to my Dymo Brand™label maker.

[The post was not, by the way, sponsored by Dymo Brand™label makers]

Ingredients

600g Carrots
1 Onion
1.2l Chicken Stock
4 Cloves Garlic
1tbsp Ginger Puree
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
1tbsp Cumin Seeds
1tsp Caraway Seeds
1tsp Cinnamon
Sprigs of Thyme
Juice of 1/2 Lemon

Method
1.  Heat the oven to 180ºc.  Peel the carrots and cut into chunks.

2.  Put the carrots in an oven proof dish, along with some oil, salt, pepper, thyme and balsamic vinegar, then add the cumin and caraway seeds.  Toss them all together so the carrots get covered in the oil and the seeds.

3.  Put the dish in the oven and roast for 30 minutes, until the carrots are starting to caramelise and brown at the edges.  Once this is happening, take them out of the oven and leave to cool.,

4.  Finely slice the onion and fry in your soup pan for 5 minutes, until they start to soften.  The add the garlic and ginger, fry for another 2 minutes, until they are both cooked and then add the cinnamon, stir and then add the stock.

5.  Put the carrots and seeds into the soup pan and bring to the boil.  Cover and simmer and then cook for 20 minutes.  Remove from the heat and leave to cool

6.  Blend the soup until smooth, then re-heat, adjust seasoning to taste and add the lemon juice.  Serve and enjoy!

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!

Easy Peasy Spicy Bean Burgers

So I was free-styling a mean for the end of the week, as I usually crash in from work and just want junk food, but in this time of resolutions (Such as the one I made to lose some weight, but horror-of-horrors this might mean cutting down on beer, and me with lots of exciting home brew ideas to try...) I wanted something a bit healthier.

And so I thought - bean burgers - they are pretty healthy, right?  And they must be easy to make too, right?  And you know what, I was right, and guess what also, they are tasty too.  So if you are looking for an alternative to meaty snacks, why not make some of these, freeze them and then dig them out when you need a meal in a hurry!

Ingredients


2 Tins of beans (I used chickpeas, but kidney, black, or any other variety are good too)
2 Onions - Finely chopper
2 Cloves Garlic
A good handful of fresh coriander
1tsp Cumin
1/2tsp Chili Powder
Some cream crackers
Salt and pepper


Method
Fry the onions until they brown slightly.  Put them in a food mixer with the (drained) beans, garlic, coriander and spices, then season to taste.  Blitz the mixture until it turns into a thick and fairly smooth paste.

In a pestle and mortar, crush the crackers, and add them a bit at a time, to the bean paste, until it thickens up.  The number of crackers needed will vary depending on consistency of the bean mixture, bu you are looking for a firm texture, so the burgers don't fall apart when you cook them.

Once you have the right texture, leave the mixture to stand for 10 minutes, then form into patties - the recipe should make six to eight, depending on how small you want them.  Then you can either freeze them for later, fry or grill them (Frying works best, but grilling is more healthy...)

Serve however you like your burgers - I like mine smothered in full fat mayo and lots of cheese.  Hmmm, so much for that diet idea then...

Enjoy!

Spicy Octopus Soup

So it's the new year, and as I write this, it's raining cats and dogs, and already most of those good intentions that I had on New Year's eve are starting to evaporate.  One that hasn't however, is the desire to keep up to date on the blogging front, as I slipped a bit towards the end of last year, although the delightful Mrs Soup has been taking up some of the slack with her wonderful baking - of which I hope we shall be seeing more this year.

So to this week's soup recipe (as it is Tuesday, and this blog is still called Soup Tuesday, and I don't want to let you down...)

I've always been a B-Movie geek.  One of my earliest memories is watching the 1953 version of War of the Worlds and being terrified of the Martian creature, and yes, I did hide behind the sofa, although never at Dr Who - I never found that too scary (Peter Davison was my Doctor, although on reflection, I always found Adric a bit un-nerving, and let's not mention Turlough...)

(Bare with me - I'm getting to the soup btw...)

King amongst the B-Movie makers was Ray Harryhausen - you will know him from the fighting skeletons of Jason and The Argonauts and the (original and good) Clash of the Titans.  But my all-time favourite of his films was It Came From Beneath the Sea, in which a giant Octopus, mutated to gigantic proportions by the evils of Atomic Power! attacks San Francisco. (Also, I got this film on DVD for christmas, courtesy of Mrs Soup)

Ever since then, I have been repulsed and fascinated in equal measures by the Octopus.  And so, by way of revenge for countless childhood nightmares, I give you - Spicy Octopus Soup!

Octopus should either be cooked very quickly (fried) or long and low, like in this unusual but tasty soup.  I got mine from the local supermarket, where they were only too happy to clean and dress it, so all I had to do was cut it into chunks

Ingredients
1kg Octopus
1 Onion
2 Stalks of Celery
1 Carrot
3 Cloves Garlic
120ml Tomato Puree
100g Bulgar Wheat
1tsp Chili Powder
1tsp Caraway Seeds
1tsp Coriander / Ground Coriander Seeds
1/2tsp Cayenne Pepper
Handful of chopper Coriander Leaves

Method

Finely chop the onion.  Heat some oil in a large, heavy pan.  Gently fry the onions until they start to colour.  Next, add the chopped carrot, celery and minced garlic and cook over a low heat for 10-15 minutes, until all the vegetables have softened.

Add the tomato paste an cook for another 5 minutes, then add seasoning to taste.

Cut the octopus into 3cm chunks, and add this to the pan, with the stock and spices, bring the pan to the boil and then simmer for 1 and a half hours, until the octopus is nice and tender.  Add the Bulgar wheat and fresh coriander, check the seasoning again and cook for another 20 minutes then serve.  Enjoy!

Beetroot, Lime and Wasabi Soup

Ahh, beetroot, stainer of shirts, pickled pink nemesis of salads, how maligned you are these days...

I'm a sucker for hard-luck vegetables - sprouts, parsnips and the humble swede, are, in my eyes every bit as wonderful as butternut squash, or whatever is the flavour de jour.  So here is a rather nice beetroot soup, which turns the rather ugly tuber into a thing of ruby red magnificence, a spicy and zippy little number that is almost as good as my sprout soup

This is a really light soup, and the coconut milk does wonders to counter-act the earthy flavour that puts a lot of people off.  It would work well as a starter or put it in a flask to take on a picnic.

Beware the fact that your kitchen may get messy when preparing the beetroot.  My hands were stained red for a few hours afterwards!