Wild Garlic Soup

It's springtime! The sun is (sometimes) in the sky and everywhere, nature is erupting from its winter slumber like an, erm, volcano of green things.  And one of the greatest things about this time of year is wild garlic!

I've done a few soups with wild garlic before, but out of every one I've tried, this is by far the best and the most simple.  On  Sunday afternoon, we had guests for a roast dinner, so I served this soup as a starter, which meant a quick walk down the the canal, following my nose until I smelled the unmistakable smell of the wild garlic, grabbed a carrier bag full of the stuff, headed home and an hour later the soup was on the table - how's that for 'straight from nature'?

Wild Garlic, yesterday, in a secret location

 Of course, it goes without saying, if you are going to pick wild garlic, make sure that you know what it is first, no picking deadly poisons and then trying to sue me, okay? Secondly, wash it thoroughly - there are lots of dogs and dog walkers around where I pick mine, so it needs to be cleaned properly.

Even more wild garlic. Surely no-one will miss a few kilos for soup purposes, right?

Bearing that in mind, wild garlic is about the easiest thing in the world to forage for, and its a brilliant ingredient that you never see in the shops, for reasons I can only guess at. Anyway, the addition of some cream, black pudding slices and croutons will make this a quick, easy and tasty soup.

Ingredients
150g Wild Garlic
1 Large Onion
1 Large Potato
40g Butter
900ml Vegetable Stock
100ml White Wine
Juice of half a lemon
Double Cream
Black Pudding Slices
Salt and Pepper

Method
1. Peel and chop the onion and potato.  In a large pan, heat the butter and then gently fry the onion and potato until they start to soften.

2.  Wash the garlic and remove any tough stems.  Add to the pan and allow to wilt.

3.  Add the stock, lemon juice and white wine, bring the soup to a simmer and cook for 25 minute.  Take off the heat and allow to cool

4.  Blend the soup until smooth, passing through a sieve to remove any lumps, then return to the pan and reheat gently, adjusting seasoning to taste

5.  Fry some slices of black pudding

6.  Serve with a swirl of cream, some black pudding slices and a few crunchy croutons.  Enjoy!

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!

Wild Garlic and Basil Pesto with Fresh Pasta

We are mad for wild garlic here at Soup Tuesday.  The wild garlic, chorizo and black pudding soup has proven to be one of our most popular recipes, and as we love the taste so much, here's another wild garlic heavy recipe.

I remember when I was getting into food - I mean starting to appreciate food and enjoy making new and unusual recipes - two things seemed alien to me. One of them was making your own pasta, which seemed like a crazy science experiment mixed with the finer points of knitting (for some reason) and the kind of thing that chefs on TV talk about, but no-one in their right minds would ever bother with in the safety of their own kitchen (possibly even including Italian matriarchs, as seen in Dolmio adverts and the films of Martin Scorsese)

A quick straw poll of friends revealed that whilst many had pasta makers, most of these were consigned to bottoms of drawers or tops of cupboards, after being used once, discovering what a phaff it was and then being put alongside slow cookers, ice-cream makers and bread makers in the graveyard of kitchen gadgets.

Having just discovered the wonders of slow cookers and bread makers (and whilst not owning an ice-cream maker, it's on the list of things to buy) it seemed like the time to face my inner cookery demons and get out the pasta maker that had been recently received as a birthday present, after all, how hard can it be? At least one person on Team Soup has a PhD! and we were determined not to let our machine rest in gadget hell...

Lo and behold, it was actually quite easy, and now I'm more than a little bit addicted to fresh pasta. So the moral of this story is this - go, dig out your pasta maker - yes, I know you have one, in the same place my was languishing- and have another go - I promise you won't look back...

The other thing I couldn't get my head around was olive oil.  I know it sounds strange, but the idea of using oil for anything other than frying things with, to my mind sounded like madness, especially in something like a pesto - just herbs and oil?  Urgh, won't it be all greasy?

After biting the bullet and trying the stuff (I should note that these attitudes were directly the result of growing up in the 70's where Spaghetti Bolognese was the most exotic food I was exposed to, and Arctic Roll was considered a delicacy..) I found out it was actually really nice.

And what better way to use some lovely wild garlic than in a pesto? If you make lots, you can always put it into ice-cube trays and freeze it, or have it with the home made pasta that I persuaded you to try earlier...

Ingredients

For the Pesto
30g Wild Garlic
30g Basil
30g Hazelnuts
30g Parmesan
90ml Olive Oil


For the pasta
250g plain flour / pasta flour
1tsp Salt
1 Egg and 3 more egg yolks, lightly beaten
1tbsp Olive Oil


125g Button Mushrooms
Handful of Spinach leaves
Pancetta Cubes

Method

Make the pesto first, which couldn't be easier.  Toast the hazelnuts lightly, in a dry frying pan, heat them until they start to colour, then set aside.  Then throw everything in a food mixer and blitz until it turns into a beautiful bright green paste.  This can then be refrigerated until needed.

Next, make the pasta.  I used pasta flour, which is finer than plain flour, but if you can't get it, then plain will do just fine.  Sieve the flour and salt into a pile on a clean surface, then make a well in the middle.  Pour in the beaten eggs and oil and start to bring the mixture together with your finger tips.

After a while, the mixture will start to come together, but if it's too dry, add some water, sparingly as you don't want to make it too wet.  Once it forms a ball, need for about 5 minutes, until the dough becomes smooth and a bit elastic.  Then wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Run the pasta through your pasta maker, according to the instructions, and then cook in slated boiling water for 3-4 minutes.

In a thick bottomed pan, fry your pancetta cubes and mushrooms until they are golden, then throw in the spinach leaves and let them wilt.

Drain the pasta over the sink, then return to the pan and stir in pesto to taste, enough to cover all the pasta with it's green and tasty goodness, then serve on a warm plate with the pancetta, mushrooms and spinach.  Enjoy!

Red Onion and Wild Garlic Soup

Well, today you wouldn't think it was spring, there are dark clouds, rain and even snow in places (which is great, 'cos I'm planning on spending the Easter weekend under canvas in my new, hilariously huge tent) but luckily, today's soup recipe works as well in the cold and miserable weather as it does in the sunshine.

I love onions, especially when they are caramelised, that deep rich flavour that comes out is amazing - its the first place I start when I make gravy (and regular readers will know just how important a good gravy is to me), curries and yes, soups.

I once made french onion soup on a date when I was trying to impress with my culinary skills, but unfortunately, the recipe I was following produced a nasty, bitter soup that didn't cast my mad soup skillz in the best light.  And the dish that followed, Baked Camembert was equally a disaster, as the cheese I bought turned out to be Camembert STYLE cheese that didn't melt, and just tasted weird when it came out of the oven. Happily, the person I was trying to impress found it all a bit funny, especially when she saw I was close to tears due to the menu malfunction, so all's well that ends well

Needless to say, this soup is NOT that recipe, and uses some more of my current culinary obsession - wild garlic.  However, if you can't get any, the soup works well without it...

Ingredients
750g Red Onions
20g Butter
Olive Oil
2tsp Brown Sugar
2 Sprigs Fresh Thyme
1.2l Beef Stock
150ml Red Wine
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
French Bread
Goat's Cheese


Method
1.  Peel and finely chop the onions.  I cheated and used a food processor for this - mainly to spare myself from tears!

 

2.  In your soup pan, heat the butter and a good glug of oil, then add the chopped onions, sugar and thyme.  Give the onions a good stir to make sure they are coated in butter and then reduce the heat.

3.  Cook the onions for 20-25 minutes, until they have turned nice and soft.  Stir regularly to stop the from sticking!

4. Add the red wine and turn up the heat.  Let the liquid reduce by half, and then add the stock and balsamic vinegar.

5.  Bring the soup to a simmer, cover and cook for 45 minutes.

6.  Heat the oven to 180ºc.  Cut the french bread into slices and pop it in the oven for 5-6 minutes, turning once

7.  Chop the wild garlic and throw into the pan just before serving.  Also, check the soup and season to taste.

8.  Spread a generous helping of goats cheese onto your french bread.  Put a couple of slices in warmed bowls and then add soup

 Enjoy!

Wild Garlic and Chorizo Soup with Black Pudding

There is a definite feeling that spring is in the air, after all, the sun is shining, birds are tweeting, the clock will be changing and confusing everyone (one unforeseen consequence of the DVD revolution is that at least no-one has to fiddle with their VHS machine and spend 20 minutes shouting at it anymore)

And with spring comes new growth, and the start of the season where we wander the hills and dales looking at things we find on and under trees and wondering if they are safe to eat, and more importantly, can they be turned into soups?  (And the side-effect I've mentioned before, of people looking at me like I'm mad when I turn up to the local park with a carrier bag and start gathering nature's harvest)

So first up on the menu of things I have pulled out of the ground with my actual hands and not just bought in a shop is wild garlic, which I was introduced to a year ago when a friend made a wild salad when we were camping (It was a 40th birthday party and that salad was about the only fruit or veg that entered my body for 4 days, unless beer counts as part of my 5-a-day)

Although I knew what the plant looked like, and the smell of it (that wonderful onion-y, garlicky smell you often get when walking through woodland in springtime) I had no idea you could actually eat it - looking back, I think it was this incident that inspired me to find out what else is growing around us and eatable, so thanks for that Wendy!)

This delicate spring soup was made with freshly picked wild garlic (it doesn't keep very well)

100g Wild Garlic
100g Chorizo
100g Black Pudding
2 Onions
3 Medium Potatoes
1.5l Chicken Stock
2tsp Balsamic Vinegar
2 Cloves Garlic, Minced
Oil
Salt
Pepper

1.  Peel and finely chop the onion.  Cut the chorizo into thin slices (peel the tough outer skin off too, if you want.  I hate it as it makes the sausage chewy, so I usually remove it)

2.  Heat some oil in your pan.  Put the onion and chorizo in the pan and gently fry for 5 minutes, until the onion is soft and the chorizo is starting to release its golden paprika infused oils

3.  Peel and cube the potatoes then add them to the pan. Add the minced garlic cloves  Let them cook for a few more minutes before adding the stock and balsamic vinegar.

4.  Bring the pan to the boil and then simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the potatoes are starting to break up - you can always give them a helping hand with a potato masher to start the breaking up. Check the seasoning at this point and add salt and pepper to taste

5. In a bowl, mash up the black pudding with a fork (it helps if the black pudding is at room temperature).  Then roll it into balls, about 1/2cm diameter.

6.  Heat some oil in a frying pan and gently fry the black pudding balls for 3-5 minutes, until they are cooked.

7.  Chop the wild garlic and add it to the soup, cooking for 5 minutes.

8. Pour the soup into the bowls and garnish with the black pudding balls and a few wild garlic leaves.

Enjoy!

Plum Chutney

Another plum recipe, because we were given quite a few plums, and rather than just make a huge batch of one thing, it seemed like a good idea to experiment.  So here is a plum chutney.  As well as having the plums given for this one, we were also given the onions (thanks Mum!)

 I think that for Christmas, I will be giving everyone I know either seeds or baby trees (Saplings?  Treelings?) so that next year I will be on the receiving end of even more fruit and vegetables.

Also, if you know someone who has a fruit tree in their garden but doesn't do anything with the produce (you will be able to pinpoint the houses of these people as the pavement in front of their houses will be slick with rotting windfall)  why not just knock on their door and offer to relieve them of the fruit that they don't want.  After all, it would be such a shame to let it all go to waste!

Spiced Plum Jam

One of the great things about making your own jam (and this also holds true if you make your own wine too) is that once you tell people about your hobby, you will never be short of the raw materials.  Anyone who has a fruit tree in their garden will soon be presenting you with carrier bags and boxes full of apples, pears, plums and anything else you can comfortably grow in your back yard.

This free food is amazing, and the generosity of friends is very much appreciated, but it does beg the question of why the purveyors of fruit aren't turning them into jams, wines, pies, crumbles and assorted other goodies instead of passing them on to me.  I for one am not complaining (and never having owned a fruit tree, perhaps the quantities produced are enough to satisfy anyone's fruit-lust and still have some to spare)

So here we go with another jam recipe, this time a spiced plum jam.  I love plums, can't get enough of them - they are perhaps my favourite fruit.  I have a habit of liking them very un-ripe and sour, and as a consequence, I get told off for eating them before anyone else has a chance to.  The plums we were given were a lot more ripe than that, which is better for making jam with (and also stopped me from eating too many when they were being pitted, which is probably for the best).

 This jam is a wonderfully spicy, fruity taste that made the whole kitchen smell like Christmas, even though it's only September.  Blimey, less than 100 days, need to start planning some Christmas posts...


This recipe only makes 3 jars - I only had a limited amount of plums and wanted to do a few different things with them.  Feel free to increase the amounts should you have bushels of plums (can you measure plums in bushels?)


Ingredients
650g Plums (pitted)
650g Sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 Cup Water
1 Cinnamon Stick
5 Cloves
8 Cardamom Pods
1/2 tsp Ground Allspice
1/4 tsp Nutmeg

Method
Pit and chop the plums, then wash them.  Place them in a large pan with just enough water to cover them.  Add the sugar, lemon juice and spices, heat the mixture to dissolve the sugar and then simmer for 10 minutes.  The plums will start to break up as they cook. At this point, you can fish out the plum skins if you don't like them in the jam - it's easier than trying to peel the fruit beforehand.

Also, remember to put your jam jars in the oven to sterilize (120ºc for about 20 minutes should do it)

 
(A good tip is to remember how many cardamom pods and cloves you put in, so you can check they all come out again at the end!)

After 10 minutes, bring the mixture to the boil. Boil hard for another 10 minutes and then test to see if the jam has reached setting point.

As usual, you can check this by putting a saucer in the fridge to chill.  Drop a teaspoonful of jam onto the saucer.  Let it cool.  If you can push a jellied trail through it with you fingernail, it’s ready.

Remember to fish out the cinnamon, cardamom and cloves, then transfer the jam to the sterilized jars and store in a cool dry place.

Elderberry Scramble

So Team Tuesday (Team Soup doesn't sound quite as catchy, does it?) were out in the wilds of our local canal path, looking for berries and getting dirty looks from cyclists, and knowing looks form old ladies out for a Sunday Afternoon stroll (they know exactly what is edible, and also how to make the best pies and jams - ask one and see) and we found many, many Elderberry trees, with branches drooping under the weight of huge bunches of berries, all ripe and full of flavour.

In a flash, we had filled a plastic bag with bunches and headed home to prepare them.  As the main purpose of collecting Elderberries was to produce wine, the majority weren't too well cleaned and prepared - simply running a fork through the bunches to liberate the berries (and a few creepy-crawlies too) was enough for them, before they were put in a bucket with all manner of other things that start the alchemical processes involved in turning fruit into wine (a process I don't even begin to understand - I'll leave that to those members of Team Tuesday who have a PhD)

Having some berries left, I thought that I would whip up some sort of pudding, but I wanted to try something a bit different from the usual crumbles and pies, and then I found this interesting recipe which is a sort of a cross between a bread and butter pudding and a summer pudding.  It's a nice way to use up any left over fruit that you have lying around, and a nice way to celebrate the few remaining days of summer we have left before the nights draw in and I just want to hibernate (But at least I will have bottles of Elderberry wine to keep me company)

Ingredients
450g Elderberries
250g Pears
250g Plums
200g Bread (Crust Removed)
500ml Milk
50g Butter
3tbsp Plain Flour
2tsp Lemon Juice
Sugar
Cinnamon


Method
Make sure that the elderberries are clean and free of stalks, peel and slice the pears and pit the plums, quartering them.

In a large pan, heat the butter and then cook the fruit over a low heat for 5 minutes.  In a cup., mix the flour with some of the milk to make a paste, then add this to the fruit.

Next add the rest of the milk to the pan.  Cut the bread into small pieces and then add this to the pan as well, cooking until the plums are soft.

Season to taste with sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice, then serve and enjoy!

Crab Apple and Chilli Jelly

This recipe is one of my girlfriend's favourites.  I never really 'got' blue cheeses until just recently - I blame it on a saturday job when I was a teenager working at the deli counter of a super market and selling many varieties of blue cheese, all of which seemed to smell horrible and upset my delicate constitution.  On reflection, my constitution was probably delicate due to the copious amounts of beer I used to drink on a Friday evening before starting work first thing on a Saturday morning.

Anyway, once I discovered my love of blue cheese (current favorites - Yorkshire Blue and Smelly Apeth) I couldn't get enough of them.  I used them in cooking, but the best and most simple way of eating them is with crackers and Crab Apple and Chilli Jelly.  Oh, and some decent red wine and possibly a bowl of olives.

It just so happened that when we moved into our new flat, there was a Crab Apple tree growing in the car park, which was quickly stripped of its fruit, and then found their way into the jam pan to be made into this sweet golden jelly, with just a hint of chili heat.

Crab Apples can be found growing wild all over the place - they look like little apples and have a bitter taste.  As always, check before you eat!

Ingredients
2kg Crab Apples
1.5l Water
Sugar (Depends on the amount of juice, but about 1.5kg)
6 Chillies

Method
Wash the Crab Apples and then chop roughly, then put in a large pan with the water and bring to the boil and simmer until the apples are cooked to a pulp.

Once this is done, transfer the pulp to a muslin bag and strain.  This is best done by suspending the bag from a cupboard handle or chair, with a bowl underneath.

Don't squeeze the bag! This makes the jelly cloudy because it lets starch from apples squeeze out, and you don't want it to spoil the clear finshed jelly.

When most of the liquid should has collected in the bowl (ours was left hanging overnight), you will be left with a rather nice rose pink liquid.  Put this into a measuring jug to check the quantity and then return it to your pan.  Now add the same amount of sugar as you have liquid - our apples produced 1.4l of liquid, so we added 1.4kg of sugar - and put the pan back on the heat.

At this point, add the chillies - finely chopped - to the pan and bring the mixture to a rolling boil, stirring constantly, until it starts to set. You will also want to skim the foam off the top of the jelly when it's cooking, or it will set into an unpleasant skin once the jelly is in the jars.  You might need to do this a few times during the cooking.

As usual, you can check this by putting a saucer in the fridge to chill.  Drop a teaspoonful of jelly onto the saucer.  Let it cool.  If you can push a jellied trail through it with you fingernail, it’s ready.  Transfer the jelly to sterilized jars and store in a cool dry place.

The jelly goes great with cooked meats or cheese and crackers!

Bramble, Elderberry and Port Jam

Yet another result of the weekend's haul of berries is this jam, which is an interesting variation on the usual hedgerow jam, the addition of the port gives it an extra zing and depth of flavour and the elderberries make the jam lighter than just using brambles alone.

At this time of year, the brambles (or blackberries if you like - I'm not really sure if there is any difference really) are reaching the pinnacle of their flavour and ripeness, and a quick trip to any hedgerow, derelict ground or similar location will yield a healthy crop. They go really well in pies, crumbles, and also with pork.

Bramble and Elderberry Crumble

Yesterday we went out looking for berries again, and ended up bringing back our largest haul yet - over 2 kilograms of the biggest, sweetest brambles that we have so far picked.  The branches were just groaning under the weight of the fruit, so it took all of 30 minutes to complete picking our haul.  Plus, we had a lovely walk in the countryside, all without seeing another berry-picker, or even much evidence that anyone else was even vaguely interested in the delicious things.  I have to ask again, how come no-one seems to be picking brambles?  Ah well, more for us anyway.

As well as brambles, we picked more crab apples, to make jelly with (recipe coming soon) and elderberries and some more wild apples - a bit sweeter and larger than crab apples.

Rowan Berry Jam

Since moving from the middle of a city, where the only trees tended to be in parks surrounded by drunks, to the (almost) countryside where hills, fields and woodland are all but a short walk from my front door, I've been gripped with the urge to find out more about what is growing in the hedgerows and on the trees I walk past most days.  And more importantly - can I eat any of it?

After picking Bilberries and turning them into jams and crumbles, and seeing that the healthy crops of brambles won't be ready for another couple of weeks yet (although many plants are already laden with ripe fruits - I think we are in for a bumper harvest this year!) I turned my attention elsewhere.

Bilberry and Apple Jam

Following on from our foraging adventures, we decided to make some bilberry and apple jam.  Sadly the apples weren't home grown or picked wild, but hey, you can't have everything, can you?

500g of bilberries took two people about an hour to pick, and gave us a very pleasant afternoon out in the countryside.  Also, for those of you not familiar with these berries, there is a nice article about them here

Bilberry Foraging [...and Happy Yorkshire Day!]

It was a lovely day today so we decided to go foraging.  As it's that time of year where a walk through the contryside  reveals all sorts of things ripening in the bushes and hedges, it seemed appropriate to grab our walking shoes, a flask of tea and go hunting for delicious ingredients that can be turned into all manner of things.

Roasted Garlic Soup

I  love garlic - can't get enough of it!  Possibly because I was scared of vampires and brought up watching old Hammer Horror films.  Anyway, I was also feeling like I was coming down with a cold, and somebody told me that garlic soup was a good cure.  So here, without further ado, is the Garlic Soup recipe that I cooked up.

And it did cure the cold (possibly with the aid of paracetamol and plenty of sleep)  Oh, and the wild garlic really adds something to it, either as a garnish, or just thrown into the soup as it cooks.  Wild garlic grows all over the place from about March to June and its' leaves can be used raw in salads (and potato salad too) or as an ingredient in a lot of cooking.  It has a much more mild flavour than cloves of garlic, so shouldn't be overwhelmed by other ingredients.