Pistou Soup

So here we are, still waiting for summer to start.  As I write this, the sky is black, there have been hail and rain storms and enough wind to erm, do something windy.  Not what you would expect from May weather, it has to be said.  But enough of me fulifilling the stereotype of being an Englisman who moans about the weather all the time and on with today's soup...

After running this blog for, oooh, ages now, it's getting harder to find new recipes.  Sometimes, the planning process goes something like this... "I have some carrots and some leeks in the veg rack... Hmm.... I know, carrot and leek soup.  That's a thing, isn't it?  It is now..." But somehow that feels like cheating.  Really, I enjoy making recipes that have a name and a history, like Waterzooi, or Minestrone, or Ezo The Bride.  Some of these are well known, and others are obscure, but tasty.  Today's soup is somewhere inbetween.  Essentially it's a bean and vegetable soup with pesto on top.

However, that's not to say it isn't delicious and tasty, and whilst the summer might now be living up to it's early promise, this soup is like a burst of sunshine in a bowl, which is just what I need as a rainy bank holdiay weekend stretches out before me (at the time of writing anyway, not perpetually, although that would be brilliant too...)

Also, on a 'not sure if it's cheating on not' note, the croutons pictured above were those ones that come out of  packet, rather than the home made variety.  Sometimes, life is just too short...

Ingredients

For the soup
1 Onion
2 Leeks
2 Potatoes
2 Courgettes
1 Tin Cannelini Beans
1 Tin Borlotti Beans
1 Tin Tomatoes
1l Vegetable Stock

For the pistou
4 Cloves of Garlic
1 Large Handful Fresh Basil
50g Parmesan
2tbsp Olive oil
Salt

Method
1. Grind the Garlic, basil, grated Parmesan, oil and salt using a pestle and mortar until the form a paste.  Put this in the fridge for later.

2.  Peels and slice the onion and leek, cut the potato into small cube and dice the courgette.

3.  Heat some olive oil in your soup pan and gently fry the onion, leek and potatoes until they go soft, then add the courgette and cook for another 3-5 minutes.

4.  Add the stock, tomatoes and beans, bring the soup to the boil, cover and simmer for 25 minutes.

5.  Season to taste and then serve.  Spoon some of the pistou onto each bowl and then garnish with some croutons.  Enjoy

Stocafi and Barbajuans - Olympic Food Challenge : Monaco

This is it, the last ever Olympic Food Challenge entry, I promise.  Now the challenge is over, the Olympics and Paralympics are over and done with, I can give up thinking about sport until Brazil 2016!  But not cooking...

Monaco!  The name conjures up images of glamour and riches - Grace Kelly playing contract bridge with Oman Sharif on a yacht whilst a Grand Prix happens in the background.  

When researching the dishes for this entry, I came across a website that had descriptions of Monaco's cuisine  and found this brilliant entry...

  "CHAMPAGNE:- This is the national drink enjoyed by the people of Monaco."

If that doesn't sum up Monaco, then I don't know what does!  Anyway, we present two dishes today to go with your champagne.  The first is Stocafi, which I apologise in advance for as I couldn't find an actual recipe, just a description, so I based the dish a little bit on Stoccaffiso and Bacalau.  I'm using Salt Cod for this recipe, not Stockfish, which is much more dessicated and needs quite a bit more cooking than the Salt Cod.  Bare that in mind if you attempt this dish at home...

Also tonight, we made Babajuans, lovely little deep fried canapes that we washed down with champagne (erm, well cheap cava anyway, but I did pretend I was chatting to Donald Trump about off-shore investments as I ate them, instead of watching Doctor Who...)

Also, Monaco set 6 competitors to London 2012, but they failed to win any medals - presumably because they were all having affairs with models on yachts whilst drinking fancy cocktails.  Also, has anybody ever been to Monaco and can they confirm if my vision of it as a sybaritic paradise?)

Ingredients

Stocafi
Stockfish / Salt Cod
6 Large Tomatoes
3 Cloves of Garlic
1 tbsp Capers
1 tbsp Black Olives
1 Red Chili
1 Bay Leaf
120ml White Wine 

Method
 1. Place the stockfish in a bowl and cover with cold water.  Leave to soak for 24 hours.

2.  Remove the stockfish from the water, give it a rinse and pat dry with kitchen towel, then cut the fish into 5cm squares

3.  Fill a pan with water, bring to the boil and then blanche the tomatoes for 1 minute.  Then skin, de-seed and chop the tomatoes

4. Pot some olive into a pan and then add the chopped garlic cloves and chili, let cook for 1-2 minutes, then add the tomatoes, wine and bay leaf.  Let this cook for 10 minutes, until the tomato starts to break down and make a nice rich sauce.  

5.  Add the black olives, capers and fish and cook for 7-10 minutes more, checking the seasoning and adding a bit more salt and pepper as you see fit.  

6.  Once the fish is cooked through, it is ready to serve.  Boiled potatoes with a bit of butter and some freshly chopped chives make a good accompaniment.  Enjoy!

Ingredients
Babajuans
2 Tbsp onion (chopped finely)
2 Tbsp leek (chopped finely)
Tbsp olive oil
Handful spinach (finely shredded)
A couple of leaves swiss chard/cabbage (we had Cavolo Nero,finely shredded)
2 1/2 Tbsp ricotta
1 Tbsp parmesan (grated)
1 egg white, beaten to soft peaks
salt and pepper to season
wonton/dumpling wrappers (I know it's a cheat, but we had some in the freezer that needed using!)

Method
1. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan.  Add the onion, leek then gently sweat for 5 minutes or so, until everything is nice and soft, then add the spinach and chard and cook for another 3 minutes

2.  Put the vegetables into a bowl and add the ricotta, parmesan and beaten egg white, then mix all together, season to taste and leave to cool for a bit.

3.  Put  a teaspoon full in the middle of each dumpling wrapper (or make some dough and cut out 6cm rounds instead) and then fold over to make semi-circles and press down the edges.

4.  Heat some cooking oil in a pan and then deep fry the barbajuans in batches of 4 or 5 so they don't stick together in the pan.  This should take 3-5 minutes, until they are golden brown

5.  Serve hot or cold, preferably with Champagne.  Enjoy!

Sopa Paraguaya and Bori Bori Soup -Olympic Food Challenge : Paraguay

Aaaaand... they are off! Both the women's football teams and the small army of insane food bloggers who signed up the the Olympic Food Challenge (We have our own hashtag for you twitter users (I refuse to say 'tweeps') which is #olympicfoodchallenge)

This is the first of the 19 dishes over 19 days that we will be blogging as part of the Olympic Food Challenge, and as we are Soup Tuesday, the first dish is from Paraguay and is, yes, you've guessed it, a soup... and something that sounds like a soup, but isn't...

Paraguay have a grand total of 8 Olympians competing in 6 sports, and have won a grand total of 1 medal in their Olympic history to date (A silver in the football in 2004, fact fans...)

You can keep an eye on Paraguay's progress here, and you can keep an eye on us as we attempt to cook our dishes without losing our minds here, don't forget to check back soon and see what we've been up to!

Butternut Gnocchi with Sage Butter and Bacon

 After last week, I have found out that I'm addicted to gnocchi!  Having talked to a few people about it, some have told me that they sound the texture a little bit slimy, so I thought I'd experiment with different ways of cooking them, and here is the first one!

As usual, I had to cram some meat into this dish somehow, but it would work perfectly well without the bacon!  I think my addiction to gnocchi was started by my love of dumplings, they are my gateway drug, as I have been experimenting with dim-sum as well, but I could give it up at any time, I could...

Ingredients
For the Gnocchi
1 Butternut Squash
450g Waxy Potatoes
250g Parmesan 
1 Egg
Plain Flour


For the Sage Butter
1tbsp Fresh Sage
300g Butter
100g Bacon Lardons


To Serve
Fresh Rocket, spinach or other salad leaves
Parmesan Shavings


Method

1. Heat the oven to 200ºc.  Cut the butternut in half, lengthways and de-seed, then brush with olive oil, place in an oven tray and then put in the over.  Cook for 90 minutes, and then allow the squash to cool. Once it is cool, use a spoon to remove the flesh, and using a food blender, puree it.

2.  Heat a large pan of water and cook the potatoes for 20 minutes, until they soften.  Drain and allow to cook

3.  Pass the potato through a ricer, or mash very well, then put into a mixing bowl.  To this add the puree'd squash, the beaten egg, grated parmesan, salt and pepper.  Start adding plain flour, slowly mixing until you have a firm but not too dry dough.

4.  Roll the dough our on a floured surface into a sausage about 2 / 3 cm thick, and cut into 3 cm long chunks.  Put this on sheets of greaseproof paper, cover and chill for an hour or so.

5.  Heat a large pan of salted water and bring to the boil.  Add the gnocchi to the pan and cook for 12 to 15 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon, allow to drain.  You might have to do this in two batches depending on the size of your pan.

6.  In a large frying pan, heat some of the butter and cook the bacon until it starts to go crispy on the edges.  Set this aside for serving

7.  Add the rest of the butter and the sage, then cook the gnocchi for 7-8 minutes, until it starts to go golden. 

8.  Serve on a bed of leaves, with parmesan and bacon.  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!

Seafood and Fennel Soup

 This soup recipe has a wonderful combination of flavours, from the tomato and orange, and the fennel complimenting the fish perfectly.  It makes a great starter for dinner parties, and goes great with crunchy croutons - the instructions for which I've also included below.