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!

Snert : Dutch Pea Soup

Today's soup entry is sort of a cheat, as eagle-eyed readers will remember that I've made it before.  Last time it appeared, it was called Erwtensoep, but the recipe is also known as Snert, so by cleverly changing the name, I'm hoping to throw people off the scent.

The reasons for repeating myself are threefold.  1 is that as part of my Postcrossing recipe experiment, a nice Dutchman suggested I make it, as Erwtensoep is a Dutch recipe, plus he made me a hand-drawn postcard, so how could I refuse. 2 is the fact that it's cold and pea and ham soup in any form is a brilliant cold weather recipe, and finally reason 3 is that I found out I could swap the ham hock for pig's trotters, and I've always wanted to make a soup with pig's trotters in it.

Oh, and it's called 'Snert'  How could I resist...

However, there was one slight problem with the pig's trotters.  After putting them in the soup, then fishing them out to strip the meat off (See recipe below) I found out, much to my horror, that there appeared to be no actual meat on them anywhere.  Now, never having used trotters before, I have no idea whether this is normal, or have I been sold a couple of duff pigs feet?

If you can't get trotters, or just plain don't want to use them, I suggest swapping a small ham hock or knuckle.  I wasn't too disappointed in the lack of trotter meat, as just their presence in the soup added a wonderfully meaty flavour to the stock.

Ingredients
300g Split Peas
1.5l Chicken Stock
2 Pigs Trotters
100g Smoked Bacon
2 Carrots
1 Large Onion
3 Leeks
1 Stalk Celery
Small Bunch Flat Leaf Parsely
300g Smoked Sausage 

Method
1.  Roughly chop the carrot, celery and onion.  Remove the green parts of the leeks and chop those too, but put the white parts aside for later as well as half the carrot.

2.  Put the chopped vegetables in the soup pan, along with the  trotters, stock, bacon and split peas.  Bring the pan to the boil, cover and simmer for 2 hours, until the peas have softened and the trotters are fully cooked through.

3.  Take the pan off the heat, remove the trotters and allow everything to cool. Blend the soup until it is smooth

4.  Remove the meat from the trotters.  Add this back to the pan, along with the finely sliced white parts of the leek and the remaining carrot, and simmer for another 15 minutes, until the leek is soft.

5.  Slice the smoked sauasage and add this to the pan, letting it heat through for about 5 minutes

6.  Serve in warm bowls, garnished with parsley and slices of sausage.  Enjoy!