Budae Jjigae (Army Base Soup) - Korean Spam and Kimchi Soup

Here it is.  The pinnacle of my soup making career to date!  If you could create a recipe that combines my love of soups of the world with my love of unloved ingredients, combine something I've never tried before and sprinkle a bit of military history on top (yes, I'm a history geek as well as a soup geek) it would look something like this unholy but delicious dish.

The story behind this soup goes as follows... A few weeks ago, I got a craving for Spam - I have no idea where it came from except that when I was a kid, every Friday in the summertime we had a salad that featured either Spam or Pek pork, nestled alonside limp lettuce, pickled beetroot and sliced boiled eggs.  Maybe I was feeling nostalgic for those days, or maybe I'd just been watching Monty Python, but regardless, my recipe seeking brain went in search of things to make and do with Spam, and it eventually lead me to South Asia...

East Meets West.  It's like an episode of M*A*S*H in tinned form

After the Second World War (and the Korean War too) food in Japan, Korea and the Pacific Islands - recently devastated by a harrowing but highly cinematic conflict - was in short supply.  Indeed, the only regular supply of it was often to be begged, borrowed or stolen from the American GIs  who were still around.  And one thing they had plenty of was Spam. And since then it has become something of a delicacy in the region, even appearing as Spam Musubi (a form of sushi featuring Spam)

This soup (or stew) is made entirely of ingredients that could be scrounged from GIs, hence the name Army Base Soup, but its the sort of thing I would have eaten as a student, if I'd had access to kimchi.  It might now exactly be fine dining, but I'm guessing it's as authentic as any recipe from any cook book on your shelves, and doesn't it deserve some look as much as the pulled porks, confit potatoes, cronuts and quinoa stuffed, organically sourced alpaca steaks of this world?

If you can get Korean hot pepper paste, that is more accurate than the chilli powder that I used, and the instant noodles should be added without their soup powder mix!

Ingredients
200g Spam
4 Hot Dog Sausages
100g Mushrooms
100g Kimchi
1 Small Tin Baked Beans
1 Large Onion
Spring Onions
Red Chilli Pepper
1 Packet Instant Noodles
1tsp Sesame Oil
1tbsp Minced Garlic
1tbsp Rice Wine
1tsp Chilli Powder
1tsp Fish Sauce
900ml Chicken Stock

Method
1. Bring the stock to the boil, add the sesame oil, garlic, rice wine, chilli powder and fish sauce. Simmer for 5 minutes and then remove from the heat and set aside for later

2. Cut the hot dog sausages into small pieces, slice the spam, wash and halve the button mushrooms, peel and finely slice the onion.  Place the ingredients in a pan, along with the baked beans and then add the stock.  Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 minute.

3. Add the instant noodles and simmer for another 5 minutes, until the noodles are soft.

4. Garnish the soup with thinly sliced spring onions and red chillies.  Enjoy!

Duck, Ginger and Orange Soup

 

Oh the joys of moving house - boxes everywhere, days spent packing and unpacking, trying to squeeze everything you own into the smallest space possible and then realising you accidentally packed the cat at the bottom of the box...

Yes I'm moving house, and one task that I have had to do is to empty the freezer in order that it can have it's once a decade defrosting before the move it.  It has turned up all sorts of fun things, like random bags of unidentified frozen herbs, Tupperware full of goodness-knows-what and the remains of a duck.

It was this bird that prompted today's soup.  The rest of the duck was eaten as part of Mrs Soup's birthday celebration - regular readers will remember I roasted it upside down - but as we never knowingly waste food, the rest of it was frozen for later.

Now, as I'm very un-organised, I forgot to defrost the duck in enough time, so to speed up the process, I hacked the frozen carcass into chunks.  When I had thawed them and put them in the pan, I noticed that the knife I had used to cut it up with had broken, and a tiny but pointy shard of steel had come off and was, presumably, in the soup somewhere, just waiting to shred someones insides like a Jagged Metal Krusty-O (Simpsons reference).  I was pretty sure that, having sieved the stock and shredded the meat with my fingers, the knife fragment hadn't had it to the bowls I served, but it still made for an interesting dining experience...

Anyway, on with the soup...

Ingredients
1 Duck
1 Orange
60ml Sherry
6 Large Cabbage leaves
Large Piece Fresh Finger
2 Star Anise
1tbsp Dried Mushrooms
1 Large Carrot
1 Large Onion
10 Pepper Corns
2 Bay Leaves

Method
1.  Roast your duck.  I found that Hugh FW had all the answers when it came to doing this, so I'll leave you in his capable hands (But remember not to roast it upside down)

2.  Let the roast cool down then strip off the meat and save for later.

3.  Place the carcass, and the drippings form the roasting tray in a large pot, with a roughly chopped carrot, onion, the pepper corns and bay leaves, then add 2 litres of water.  Bring the pan to a boil and then simmer for 3 hours.

4.  Let the pan cool and then strain the liquid, removing all the bits of duck carcass and the vegetables.  At this point, you should try to skim off as much of the fat from the top of the stock, or even leave it in the fridge overnight, so the fat sets and can be removed easily (Don't throw it away as duck fat is amazing and can be used to make roast potatoes even more tasty...)

5. Heat up the stock, and add the sherry, dried mushrooms, star anise and the juice and zest of the orange.  Simmer the soup for 45 minutes.

6. Shred the duck meat - how much you want to put in is up to you.  A good sized duck should have enough meat for the soup and something else as well - and the cabbage leaves and stir them in about 5 minutes before serving.  Enjoy!

Pheasant Bombe and Marmalade Duck. A Week of Meals 005/6

It's been a while since I did one of these 'what I've been eating' posts.  For this delay you have my unreserved apologies, but between preparing to move house, assorted birthdays and trips to darkest Hull, things have been getting on top of me a bit.  Indeed, all I have to remind me of what I've been eating are a load of pictures from my digital camera, which I just spent half an hour trying to figure out what dishes they were actually of.

Anyway, in the spirit of CSI : Soup Kitchen, I think I managed to figure it out, so here we go

Pheasant Bombe

This is an Italian recipe from a book of 'celebration dishes' and it was meant to be pigeon, but we couldn't get hold of any of that particular bird on a trip to the butchers, so we decided to substitute pheasant instead.  It was baked in a sort of risotto, in a dish, and kind of resembles a steak and kidney pudding, but with a game surprise inside.  It got us thinking about what other fillings we could include in further bombes - rabbit seems like a good choice.

Asian Mushroom Risotto

Risotto using rice is my enemy, as I may have mentioned before.  However, using pearl barley it is a dream, easy to cook, tasty and with a really nice texture (also, none of the swearing that accompanies me trying to get the rice cooked perfectly)  I spent quite a bit on various exotic mushrooms, including straw, enoki, shitake, oyster and king oyster but it was worth it as they had such a rich, almost meaty flavour.  It's almost (But not quite) enough to make a boy turn vegetarian...

Fennel and Leek Gratin with Roasted Squash and Sage

This was a veg box meal, as I have started calling them, using up lots of vegetables.  I often think that vegetable dishes feel like side dishes in search of a steak and this was no exception, apart from combining two of them with some couscous made for a perfectly satisfactory meal

Duck with Marmalade

It was Mrs Soup's birthday and as is the time-honoured tradition in our house,  she got to pick what dish she would eat on her special day.  She is a big fan of duck, which was combined with some home made marmalade and then just roasted.  Which would all be fine, I was regularly basting to make sure the meat didn't dry out and it was looking amazing, smelling even better, when I realised that I WAS COOKING THE DUCK UPSIDE DOWN!!! How did I even do that?  I have no idea, but I spent two hours making sure the bird was perfect, only to has wasted my time as the breasts hadn't been basted at all...

All was not lost however, as it was perfectly tasty, but the swearing I had avoided whilst cooking the risotto returned with a vengeance after realising my mistake with the duck...

Mushroom Stroganoff

 

It seems to have been a weekend of rich foods and many meats, with Cheese club on Thursday, where I consumed my own body weight in cheeses (I ate 14 different kinds...) then exciting meats over the next few days (including Goat, which is a first for me, and some amazing pork pies - one with black pudding (hurrah) in it - from Leeds Market) so I thought that I would do something more or less vegetarian tonight by way of giving my body a bit of a rest.

Whilst in Leeds market at the weekend, we got a huge bag of mushrooms (but no canned hominy - if anyone knows where I can get some, feel free to let me know, although the recipe I needed it for will be coming tomorrow, so be quick!) so I decided to have a go at mushroom stroganoff.

I love this stuff - although a confirmed meat eater I can't get enough of mushroom dishes, they can often taste as meaty as actual meat dishes, and this dish is so quick and easy to put together, why don't you give it a try!

Ingredients
400g Mushrooms
2 Onions
3 Cloves Garlic
100ml White Wine
150ml Chicken Stock
75ml Sour Cream
2tsp Paprika
1tsp Worcestershire Sauce
Chopped Parsley 

Method
1. Heat some oil in a large pan.  Slice the onions and fry them for about 5 minutes, until they start to turn a nice golden brown colour.

2.  Add the chopped garlic and paprika and cook for another minute

3.  Add the chopped mushrooms, turn up the heat and cook for 5 minutes, trying to keep the lid on the pan as much as possible, until the mushrooms start to soften

4.  Add the stock, wine, salt and pepper and bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes, until the liquid has reduced a bit.

5.  Remove from the heat and stir in the sour cream, garnish with parsley and serve with rice, potatoes or chips! Enjoy

Boerewors Stuffed Mushrooms

I don't know if you noticed, but we had a Jubilee celebration this week. And rather sadly, the street party we were scheduled to attend was, in true Great British style, rained off...  Rather than be deterred by this sad turn of events, we staged an impromptu BBQ in our living room. 

As at least one of Team Soup is a colonial type, we thought that it would be a good idea to celebrate the Jubilee with a bit of meat from South Africa (being as that's where Mrs Soup calls home) so one trip to the rather brilliant Leeds market later, we had procured some boerewors, which a) I can never pronounce properly, and b) is rather tasty. 

So as we sat in our living room, eating boerewors in buns with tomato sauce (and being told that British BBQs are no where near as good as a proper South African braai) I tried to think of something to to with the left over boerewors sauage.  And this is what I came up with, as a sort of Jubilee celebration of meat and mushroom.

Ingredients
4 Large Open Mushrooms
250g Boerewors (or any other sausage that you can find...)
1 Large Onion
1 Slice of Brown Bread
20g Butter
Olive Oil
White Wine
Fresh Thyme
Fresh Rosemary
Cheddar Cheese

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180ºc

2. Place the Mushrooms in large over proof dish or baking tray.

3.  In each one, pour 1/2 tbsp of olive oil, a splash of white wine and a knob of butter, then spinkle each with fresh thyme leave

4.  Put the mushrooms in the oven and cook for 20 minutes

5.  Heat some oil in a frying pan.  Gently fry the onion, finely chopped for 3-5 minutes, until it starts to colour

6.  Remove the sausage meat from its skin and then add this to the frying pan, breaking up the meat as it gently cooks.

7.  Put the onions and sausage meat in a mixing bowl.  In a food processor, turn the bread into breadcrumbs

8.  Chop the rosemary.  Add this and the breadcrumbs to the onions and sausage meat.  Mix thoroughly with a fork, and season to taste.

9.  Spoon this mixture into the mushrooms, and top with grated cheese.

 10.  Return to the oven and cook for 30 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and browning slightly, then serve!

Creamy Turkey, Mushroom and Sage Soup

So Easter came and went, and was declared by all and sundry to be a bit of a damp squib, but life goes on and so does the soup making.  And here is a bit of a cracker - more of a winter soup than a light, summery thing, but once you've tasted it, I think you will forgive me.  Oh, and the way the wether is at the moment, it will go down a treat!

You could use left-over turkey for this one, especially if you've had one for Sunday roast (I'll have to remind everyone of this soup come December when people are moaning about what to do with surplus xmas dinner - not me, however, I love turkey and I'm always a little bit sad when it's all gone...)

Also in this soup, I've used red rice, which has a really nice nutty flavour, but if you can't get that, just use brown rice instead (I think I own way to may types of rice.  At present, we have Arborio, Paella, Thai Jasmine, Brown, Red, Black, Long grain, Pudding, Sushi and Basmati.  Is that too much rice?)

250g Turkey Breast
250g Chestnut Mushrooms
75g Red Rice
20 Sage Leaves
1 Onion
1 Leek
1.2l Chicken or Turkey Stock
250ml White Wine
200ml Double Cream
3tbsp Plain Flour
Butter
Oil
Salt and Pepper

1. If you are using fresh turkey instead of left overs, dice the turkey and fry in a little oil until it starts to colour slightly.  Drain and set aside.

2.  Finely chop the onion and leek, then finely slice the sage leaves.

3.  Heat some more oil in your soup pan and fry the onion, leeks and sage leaves until the onions start to soften.  Add the flour and cook for another minute or two, stirring constantly

4.  Slowly add 200ml of stock and the white wine, stirring all the time, making sure no bits get  caught on the bottom of the pan and burn.  This should start to thicken nicely

5.  Add the rest of the stock, season to taste and then add the rice.  Bring the soup to the boil and then simmer for 30 minutes, until the rice is cooked through.

6.  Slice the mushrooms.  In another pan, heat some butter and fry the mushrooms gently until they start to brown on the edges.

7.  Add the mushrooms and cream to the soup, along with the turkey, and simmer for a further 10 minutes. Check the seasoning one more time

8.  Serve and garnish with fresh sage leaves.  Enjoy!

Miso Soup With Prawn Wontons

We went to the local Chinese supermarket the other day and I have to admit, I was like a child in a sweet shop, especially when I got to the sweet section.  Although I really wanted to try some of the weird and wonderful esoteric ingredients, I feel that the world is not yet ready for my Duck's Tongue and Pig Intestine Soup.

But whilst we were stocking up on huge bottles of Soy Sauce, Sweet Chili Sauce and Shrimp Crackers, I also picked up the ingredients for a few other things, including Pot Stickers, and with the left over wonton wrappers I decided to make this tasty little number.  It also has quite a few other bits and pieces that  you might have to visit an Asian supermarket, but my advice would be to go for it, pick something up you've never tried before and go for it.

Duck's tongues, I have since found out, have bones in them. 

Ingredients
The Soup
25g Dashi Power
1.2l Water
3tbsp Miso Paste
1tbsp Mirin
1tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
6 Bok Choi
2 Cloves Garlic
75g Shiitake Mushrooms

The Wontons
20 Wonton Wrappers
75g Prawns
5 Water Chestnut
2tsp Sesame Oil
2tsp Dark Soy Sauce
1tsp Minced Ginger 

1. Peel the water chestnuts, then chop finely.  Do the same with the prawns, and then mix in a bowl with the rest of the wonton filling ingredients.

2. Put 1 tsp of the mixture in the middle of each wonton wrapper.  With a pastry brush, wet the edges of the wonton wrapper, then gather the edges up to make little parcels

3.  Put the water in a large pan with the Dashi, Miso paste, Mirin, Soy Sauce and minced garlic, then bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.

4.  Chop the mushrooms and bok choi.  Add these to the soup.

5.  Put the wontons in the soup carefully and cook for a further 2 minutes and then serve.  Be careful not to burst the wontons putting the in or taking them out!  Enjoy

Mushroom Soup

I was telling someone I that I was thinking about putting up a mushroom soup recipe on the blog, and they said that you couldn't beat a tin of Mushroom soup with white sliced bread.  That got me thinking about comfort food - the best kind of food in my opinion - and I have to admit that tinned soup is always something that I fall back on when its raining outside and I want something to cheer me up.

I think that this goes back to when I was a kid and I always had soup for lunch - either mushroom, chicken or cream of celery.  My mother, not being one to tolerate fussy eating always told my brother - a budding fussy eater - that the mushroom and celery soup that he refused to eat was chocolate or seaweed respectively, and for some reason, he found these flavours much more acceptable, and he ate the soup.  And now every time I think of tinned mushroom soup I can't help but think of it as chocolate soup.

The reason I mention this is that as much as tinned soup is a comfort food, once I tasted this recipe I don't think I can ever go back.  I'd love to know what other people's comfort foods are and wether you prefer to make them from scratch or use the tinned / shop bought versions (I love making home-made baked beans, but can't stand the tinned ones...)

You can use any mushrooms you want, but chestnut, oyster or anything like that are much better than just plain white mushrooms.  I managed to get hold of some king oyster and black trompette varieties to go with my chestnut and oyster mushrooms.

It goes without saying that be very careful if you use freshly picked wild mushrooms, and always check anything you aren't 100% sure about!

Ingredients
600g Mushrooms
25g Dried Mixed Mushrooms
10g Butter
1tbsp Olive Oil
1 Leek
1 Onion
3 Garlic Cloves
2tsp Fresh Rosemary
2tbsp Tomato Ketchup
1.5l Stock
75ml Sherry
100g Pearl Barley

Method
First open the dried mushrooms and soak them in 250ml of hot water for 20-25 minutes.

Finely chop the leek, onion, rosemary and garlic.  In a large pan, heat the butter and olive oil, then add the vegetables, and sweat for 5 minutes, until the onion and leek start to soften.

Remove the soaked dried mushrooms from the liquid and chop finely, remembering to save the rich brown mushroom liquid for later.  Also chop all the other mushrooms and add them to the pan, letting them sweat down for 10-15 minutes, until they are soft and the juices start to flow from the mushrooms.

Now add the stock, sherry, barley tomato ketchup and the liquid that came from the dried mushroom,  season to taste and cook over a low heat for 30 minutes.  When it's cooked through, if you want a smoother soup, transfer half of it into a blender and blend until smooth, then return to the pan.

Serve with home made bread

The soup is now ready to serve. The smell of this soup is wonderful, but not half as wonderful as the rich mushroomy taste - a perfect soup now the winter nights are drawing in, and much better than cream of mushroom soup of of a can, I think you will agree!

You can garnish with parmesan, chopped fresh parsley or a swirl of double cream.  Enjoy

 

Hot and Sour Chicken Soup

I first had Hot and Sour soup in a restaurant and was a bit wary, due to my dislike of Sweet and Sour Sauce served in Chinese Take-aways (you know, that radioactive red/orange stuff that they all serve.  Where does it come from anyway? )  But anyway, I was persuaded to try the Hot and Sour soup and needless to say, found it rather lovely.

This recipe seems to be an American version of a Szechan style soup, on account of the egg and cornflour in it, which makes it a lot thicker.  There are a number of variations, for instance Tofu makes a good chicken substitute, or you could go the other way entirely and add pig's blood to flavour it! Or at least use pork as the meat