Creamy Sweetcorn Soup

There's an age-old debate in soup-making circles - where is the line between Soup and Stew? It is fought over as much as 'What constitutes a proper pie?*' and 'How do you pronounce Scone/Chorizo**'

The debate mostly seems to centre around the ration of solids to liquids in the soup/stew.  As I've been researching South American soups, a lot of them strike me as being much more stew than soup (For instance, check out the Aijaco Soup from Colombia I made a while ago.  There's barely any liquid in there at all, but who am I to argue with Colombia eh? If they say it's a soup then it is most assuredly a soup.  Of course, if you are really worried about where to drag this line, just do what I did with this recipe, which is to blend the heck out of it until it is smooth and silky.

Now I don't recommend doing this with every soup, too often it just reduces the whole thing to a homogeneous mess with less character than when it started (Can you imagine a Minestrone being improved by being blitzed?), but some soups, usually ones with milk/cream/potatoes in often work so much better when they are creamed, and passed through a sieve just to make sure they are smooth.

And that is definitely the case with this soup, which was inspired by my dabbling with South American soup recipes (Indeed, you could just not blend it and it would be pretty similar to many recipes from that continent) but as it is really cold at Soup Labs today I thought it would make the whole thing just that little bit more comforting.  I think I made the right choice, but feel free to leave yours chunky.  I wont judge you. Much

Also, another great thing about this soup is it's another great cupboard soup - I bet you have everything for this soup in your cupboard / freezer right now. Apart from the cream, which you could substitute milk for if you really wanted.

* Anything with something else on top of it can be a pie - Shepard's/Fish/Steak and Kidney included, but a double crust pie is one with something completely encased in pastry.
** S-kone and Cho-rit-zo

Ingredients
400g Frozen Sweetcorn
200g Potatoes
20g Butter
2 Stalks Celery
1 Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
1/2tsp Red Chilli Flakes
1l Chicken Stock
75ml Double Cream
2 Tomatoes
Spring Onions
Salt and Black Pepper

Method
1. Peel and chop the onion and potato.  Thinly slice the celery stalks.  In your soup pan, gently heat the butter and then cook the vegetables until they start to soften

2. Add the garlic and chilli flakes, then the sweetcorn and stock.  Bring the soup to a simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked and soft.  Remove the soup from the heat and allow to cool.

3. Put the tomatoes in boiled water, leave for 10 minutes, then peel and de-seed them, keep for garnishing the soup.

4.  Blend the soup until smooth, pass through a sieve to remove all the bits amd then return to the pan.  Add the double cream and re heat.  Adjust seasoning to taste and serve.  Garnish with the chopped tomatoes and thinly sliced spring onions.  Enjoy!

Chupe de Maní - Ecuadorian Peanut Soup

 Waaaay back last year, when everyone was talking about ball kicking tournaments, I was part of a small group of dedicated bloggers who took part in the World Cup Food Challenge.  This (I'm sure you remember) was a blog based challenge to cook between us, dishes from every country involved in said real-life-subbuteo competition.

In this challenge, I made a number of dishes (and some soups) from South American countries, and I fell in love with the cuisine of that continent.  Fast forward to Christmas, and as I tore open my presents from under the tree, I found that Santa had brought me not one but two recipe books on South America (along with 5 more on other things.  I'm so easy to buy for at Christmas - either cook books or Star Wars merchandise*) 

So I thought that I would do a few South American soups on the blog.  Starting with this one, from Ecuador.  You could use peanut butter for this recipe instead of grinding up your own peanuts, but I think the flavour is more intense doing it this way.  It's thick and creamy and satisfying and a great start to my South American soup adventure.  Let's see if my prediction made last summer - that South American cuisine would be the next big thing - comes true this year.  It totally should if this soup is anything to go by...

* Incidentally, I will be making at least on Star Wars inspired soup recipe in the run up to The Force Awakens being released, but that's not until December, so I have plenty of time. And yes, I am aware this exists... and I probably won't be making Bloodsoup, as I'm not a Sith Lord.  Until I do get round to making my own Star Wars soup, why not try this recipe for Bantha Steak Soup that I found

Cube 1 thick bantha steak; trim fat, pat dry. Saute meat in bantha butter until brown. Core, seed, and chop 2 large ootoowergs, 3 ripe dropes, 1 small koba if available. Add vegetables to cooked meat, cook til heated through. Put all in pot of boiling water. Cover, simmer at low heat for 3 days. Add roosha to taste. Serve 1-2.

Now, where can I get some ootoowergs from? I'm thinking Lidl? 

And for anyone else wanting to try Star Wars soups, here is a list of some that exist in the Star Wars universe, courtesy of the ever-helpful Wookiepedia. Although sadly Gungan bouillabaisse is made *by* Gungans, not *of* them. Mmmm, Cream of Jar Jar soup...

Ingredients
200g Potatoes
150g Peanuts
2 Large Tomatoes
2 Stalks Celery
1 Onion
1 Red Chilli
Fresh Coriander
1tsp Cumin
1.2l Beef Stock

Method.
1.  Heat to oven to 160ºc.  Spread the peanuts out on a baking tray. Put them in the oven and roast them for 10 minutes.  Remove and allow to cool.  Put them in a food processor and blend into a fine powder

2.  Peel and chop the onion and potato then slice the celery.  Heat some oil in your soup pan and gently cook the vegetables for a few minutes until they start to soften.

3.  Roughly chop the tomatoes and add them to the pan, along with the cumin, chilli and stock.  Then add the peanuts, bring the soup to a simmer, cover and cook for 25 minutes.  Remove from the head and allow to cool.

4. Blend the soup until smooth, adjust seasoning to taste, reheat and serve. Garnish with more crushed peanuts, fresh coriander and thinly sliced red chillies.  Enjoy!

Indian Lambs Liver Soup

I love offal.  Two of my favourite meals of all time are Steak and Kidney Pie and Liver & Onions (Is this the diet of an old man?).  If I'm in a restaurant and there's a dish containing any form of offal at all, I'm all over it.  Of course, I'm aware that I'm in a minority in this love, but there it is.

For me, the question isn't 'why would you eat that?' but rather 'Why WOULDN"T you eat that'?  Offal - and all those other overlooked bits like tongue and cheek - are tasty, unusual and cheap.  In a world where people are going crazy over such boring fare as pulled pork and gourmet burgers, I'd rather have a bit of Lamb's Liver or Ox Heart Ragu any day.  In fact, could there be a market for an offal-based fast food outlet on every high street? I'd eat there, for sure.  Although I may be one of the only ones.

What am I, chopped liver?

Despite this love of all things offal, I haven't done too many soup recipes that show this off - there was Menudo, a tripe soup, that I blogged a while ago, and while I've had quite a few in my to-soup list for a while, I haven't gotten round to making them.  Until I found this little gem of an Indian soup recipe.  Like the Beetroot Rasam that I blogged recently, it should be cooked in a pressure cooker, but as I still haven't extended the kitchen, I made this in a pan.  Many of the recipes I found for this soup used just water, not stock, but I found that just a little bland, and if there's one thing I can't abide it's a bland soup...

If anyone has any other suggestions for soup recipes containing offal of any kind, I'd love to hear them, and maybe put them on the blog for the rest of the world to enjoy.  Also, if you think you don't like offal, dig out a cool sounding recipe and give it another go, you might be surprised!

Ingredients
350g Lambs Liver
2 Onions
4 Tomatoes
1.2l Stock
2tsp Ground Cumin
2tsp Ground Coriander
1tsp Ground Black Pepper
1tsp Turmeric Powder
1tsp Red Chilli Flakes
2tsp Garlic Purée
1tsp Ginger Purée
1/2tsp Garam Masala
Coriander Leaves

Method
1. Place the tomatoes in boiling water for 5 minutes, then remove the skins, de-seed and finely chop them

2.  Heat some oil in your soup pan.  Peel and finely chop the onions.  Gently fry them for 5 minutes, until they start to colour.

3.  Wash and thinly slice the lamb's liver.

4.  Add the chopped tomatoes, liver, garlic and ginger puree and fry for another 5 minutes

5.  Add the stock, bring the soup to a boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, until the liver is soft

6. Taste and adjust seasoning.  Serve garnished with some chopped coriander leaves.  Enjoy

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup

Eagle-eyed readers will note this is a hill, not some soup

I'd like to start this post with an apology...

Regular readers will have noticed that there haven't been any new soups for a while.  For this I can only apologise.  Lets pretend I've been on my holidays (which I have - a lovely trip to the Lakes, where I climbed the beautifully named Crinkle Crags (850m above sea-level at the top) on the hottest day of the year), got a cat (which I have - her name is Princess Kitteh Bitey-Face Death-Claw Katzenjammer Fantastico III and she is a bundle of claws and teeth wrapped up in fur) and that it's been so hot that any attempt to make soup would have been futile (which it has been, although I've still making soup every Tuesday, although many of these have been curiously un-inspired)

When I see that cute look, I just know she's getting ready to bite or scratch me

So here we are again, back with a new soup and my soup-mojo fully restored...

Real, actual, hair.  Not 'shopped...

When I was a teenager, I was a full time mosher (although the word 'mosher' hadn't been invented then, we were just 'smelly long-haired hippies') and could often be seen in darkened record shops clutching vinyl bearing such lovely names as 'Death Angel', 'Slayer' or 'Lawnmower Deth', wearing black skinny jeans, huge white trainers and t-shirts with skulls and demons on them.  I also had such beautiful long hair (where did it all go?)

To get all this morbid paraphernalia (strangely, not a band I listened to) I had to venture into Leeds Market.  It was awful.  Full of grotty stalls and the smell was so rank we dubbed the whole place the Dead Rat Emporium. But it did have a stall that sold Megadeth and Anthrax t-shirts  Fast forward 24 years, and I returned to my home town after years in exile in Hull with much less hair, a wardrobe that has more (but not many more) colours in it than black, and an enthusiasm for soups, meats and the rest of the culinary spectrum.  Where is a boy to get his fix of tasty treats?  Leeds Market?  Are you sure - isn't that place awful?

Well, no is the short answer.  The longer answer is it's a treasure trove of fine butchers, amazing fish mongers and cheap and plentiful veg stalls.  It also features a shop that sells nothing but eggs (an ovi-mongers?) and a tripe shop!  Yes, a TRIPE SHOP!!!!

The reason I'm mentioning this should be patiently obvious by now (and no points for guessing 'Is it because you're turning 40 soon and prone to flights of nostalgic waffling'?) On our last trip to Leeds Market, out haul included a huge bag of red peppers for £1.00.  Try getting them for that price in a supermarket (Along with this, we also got a huge joint of super-cheap lamb, tuna steaks, many many other fruit and veg bargains).  The moral of this story is to support your local market, as wonders and bargains lay within.

Oh, and Reign in Blood stands up surprisingly well after all these year...

So this recipe is an easy, simple and very very tasty way to show off those cheap red peppers (almost the name of a band I used to listen to).  With all those tomatoes it makes for an almost summery soup too, perfect for this time of year.

Blood red soup...

Ingredients
5 Red Peppers
600g Tomatoes
3 Red Onions
900ml Chicken Stock
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
6 Garlic Cloves
Fresh Rosemary
Sal and Pepper

Method
1.  De-seed and roughly slice the red peppers, peel and slice the onions and cut the tomatoes into quarters.

2.  Heat the oven to 200ºc

3.  Place the vegetables in a large roasting tin, along with the garlic cloves.  Drizzle with a good covering of olive oil and the balsamic vinegar and rosemary and toss to make sure all the veg are covered in oil.  Add seasoning and then put the baking tray in the preheated oven.

4.  Cook the veg for 40 minutes, or until the edges of the peppers and tomatoes are starting to blacken slightly.

5.  Heat the stock in your soup pan, then add the roasted vegetables.  Bring the soup to the boil and then simmer for 15 minutes.  Remove the pan from the heat.

6.  Using a stick blender, blend the soup until smooth.  Feel free, as always, to pass the soup through a sieve before returning it to the pan (I did this and fished out most of the tomato seeds and skins - so much easier than peeling them after roasting!(

7.  Adjust seasoning to taste and the reheat, serve with crusty bread.  Enjoy!

Celeriac and Chard Soup

We are all about the vegetables over at Soup Towers this month.  For reasons that are now shrouded in the mists of time, it seemed like a good idea to go meat free for a month, so the next few soup recipes will all be veggie.  When I told my Mum I was dropping the meat, there was an amazing look of horror and disbelief on her face, and a I half expect her to come round with a care package of bacon and black puddings before the month is out.

But the truth is, like a lot of people these days, it's actually not that much of a shift to go vegetarian as about half of the meals I cook are meat-free anyway, and a quick glance down the recent blog posts here show that the vegetable soup recipes are at least as many as ones with bits of dead animal floating in them.

So after a weekend that was a veritable orgy of meat (at least one huge mixed grill, a chunky gammon steak and a hilariously long hot-dog smothered in chili) I commenced, starting with this soup.

After the last recipe, which was made entirely of items found in anyone's cupboard, this soup is a riot of fresh veg, and rather brilliant for it - in fact it used up about half of our veg box for this week - and it's also a lot like Ribollita, but without the bread to thicken it, and chard instead of cavolo nero.  However, you could pretty much chuck in whatever vegetables you have to hand and it would still be amazing...

Ingredients
1 Large Onion
1 Celeriac
2 Stalks Celery
1 Large Carrot
Chard
1 Can Haricot Beans
1 Tin Chopped Tomatoes
900ml Stock
4 Cloves Garlic
1tsp Thyme
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Salt and Pepper
Butter

Method
1. Peel the celeriac and cut into 1cm cubes.  Peel and chop the carrot and onion, slice the celery thinly.

2.  Heat some butter in your soup pan and  then gently cook the vegetables for about 5 minutes, until they start to soften.  Add the finely chopped garlic and cook for another 2 minutes.

3.  Add the stock, tomatoes, beans, thyme and balsamic vinegar and then bring the soup to the boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

4.  Wash the chard, remove any tough stalks and then shred.

5.  Add the chard to the soup, adjust seasoning to taste and then cook until the chard has wilted.

6.  Serve with grated Parmesan and fresh bread.  Enjoy!

Ezogelin / Ezo The Bride Soup

A break this week from the Postcrossing adventure, but still an exotic soup.  The reason this one has popped up today is due to a number of factors.  Firstly Mrs Soup got sent some bulgur wheat as part of a Foodie Pen Pals package.  After staring at the package for some time, I realised that I'd never cooked with that, so away I went to Google and found a curiously named soup - Ezo The Bride Soup.

Now I'm a sucker for foodstuffs with odd names - hence Snert last week, and many others scattered around the blog - after all, it's a good a reason as any for trying something new and it appeals to my childish nature.

Ezo The Bride soup is a Turkish recipe, which apparently is given to Brides on the night before their wedding, and is named for a woman who apparently was married several times, kidnapped, had 9 children and died of Typhus.  I can only assume that this is a cautionary tale told to would-be brides to make their own impending nuptuals seem more enjoyable by comparison.  If any Turkish readers can enlighten me further then I'd be glad to hear the story - the wikipedia page contains scanty details, although apparently there was a film made of the story!

Also, due to the weather this week (you may have noticed a dusting of snow) this soup is brilliant as it's solid, warming and hearty, whether you are getting married or not...

Ingredients
1 Large Carrot
1 Large Onion
3 Cloves Garlic
3 Tomatoes
100g Red Lentils
75g Bulgur Wheat
50g Wholegrain Rice
1.5l Vegetable Stock
1tbsp Paprika
2tbsp Dried Mint
1tsp Cumin Seeds
1/2tsp Cayenne Pepper
A Pinch of Chili Flakes
Fresh Mint and Lemon Slices
 

Method
1.  Finely chop the onion and carrot.  Heat some oil in your soup pan, then cook the vegetables over a medium heat for 5 minutes, to soften them

2.  Chop the tomatoes and garlic finely, and add them to the pan, along with the paprika, chili flakes, paprika and cumin seeds.  Still them in and let them cook for another 3 minutes

3.  Add the lentils, rice and bulgur wheat, stir them into the vegetables and spices, and then add the stock, dried mint and some seasoning.  Bring the soup to the boil and then cover.  Simmer for 40 minutes, until all the grains are soft and cooked through.

4.  Transfer half of the soup to a food blender and blitz until it's smooth, then return to the pan

5.  Serve with fresh mint as a garnish and slices of lemon to squeeze over the soup.  Enjoy

Carrot and Coriander Soup

Ahhhhhh!  That was the sound of panic when the doorbell rang this morning at 7.15.  Not because I was still in bed and there was someone at the door, but because the person at the door was our lovely veg box man.  Don't mis-understand me - there was nothing actually wrong with the veg box, nor the hour of its arrival (although a more fashionably late hour would suit me better)

No, the cause of my outburst was that there was meant to be parsnips in the box this week, which were going to form the basis for this weeks soup, Curried Parsnip.  Only, now bereft of parsnip, what is a boy to do?  Well, what is that I spied in the veg box, nestled under some cabbage and next to the potatoes?  Carrots?  Still covered in mud you say?  Well that gives me an idea...

I told you all a while ago about the first ever soup I made, minestrone as part of a home economics class when I was 12? Well today I'm going to tell you about the first soup I ever cooked to impress a girl...  Carrot and coriander soup.  This soup seems to be a bit of a student classic, probably because it's cheap and easy to make, healthy and quick, and there are hundreds of ways to do it.

Some people add lentils, some tomatoes, cream, sour cream, coconut milk.  It is, in a nutshell, what is brilliant about soup - it's tasty and it's very hard to mess it up.  So I thought it would be perfect for impressing a girl that I invited to come round for a meal.  It was the first time I'd ever cooked to impress, so needless to say, I was worried.

The soup simmered away, with vegetable stock as she was a vegetarian, not too much chili as she didn't like her food too spicy. The ginger and lemon a sharp counterpoint to the earthy carrots sweet tomatoes and spices.  It was perfect...

She turned up, the lights were low, the music was soft, the chat was small, and then I dished up the soup and... she loved it, was very impressed - in fact, it was the best carrot and coriander soup she'd ever tasted - even better than her friend who worked in a vegan cafe made (which was previously the pinnacle of soupy perfection for her)

I could hardly believe my luck.  Maybe there was something in this cooking malarkey after all.  And then I served the main dish - tandoori salmon, choked on a fish bone and spent the next three hours retching and coughing like a cat coughing up a hair-ball...  The girl left rather quickly after that...

Ingredients
500g Carrots
10 Medium Tomatoes
3 Cloves of Garlic
1 Lemon (Juice Only)
750ml Chicken Stock
1 Tin Coconut Milk
1tsp Grated Ginger
1tbsp Coriander Seeds
1tsp Cumin Seeds
1tsp Chili Flakes Oregano


Balsamic Vinegar
Bunch of fresh Coriander
Olive Oil
Salt and Black Pepper

Method

1.  Heat the oven to 200ºc.  Cut the tomatoes in half and de-seed.  Put them in an oven dish and drizzle with olive oil.  Sprinkle on a pinch of dried oregano and a splash of balsamic vinegar, then a pinch of salt and pepper.  Put the dish in the oven and roast the tomatoes for 35-40 minutes, until they have started to brown.  Remove from the oven and set aside.

2.  In a dry frying pan, heat the coriander and cumin seeds over a moderate heat for 2 minutes, until the seeds start to pop.  Transfer them to a mortar and grind.

3.  Slice the onion and fry gently in a little oil.  Add the  garlic and ginger and fry for another 2 minutes, then add the ground cumin and coriander seeds, as well as the chili flakes and stir until everything is coated in the spices

4.  Add the tomatoes, stock and peeled sliced carrots.  Bring the soup to the boil and then cover, simmering and cooking for 30 minutes, until the carrots are cooked through

5.  Blend the soup until it's smooth and then return to the pan.  Gently heat through.

6.  Stir in the coconut milk, chopped fresh coriander and the juice of a lemon.

7.  Garnish with a few coriander leaves.  Serve and enjoy!

Tuscan Chicken Soup With Orzo

I remember the first soup I ever learned to make, when I was about 12 in Home Economics lessons at school.  The teacher didn't actually teach us how to make it, but let us all cook one thing that we ate at home.

Pretty much every Friday thoughout the winter months, dinner was either Macaroni Cheese or Minestrone - made from scratch by my mother, and I did love the minestrone soup, so that was the dish that I decided to cook in school.  I badgered my mum for the recipe and then got all the ingredients, turnied up in the classroom and started to cook.  And suddenly, lo-and-behold, there was soup!  I felt like an alchemist, I had combined vegetables, pasta and meat, and with the judicious application of fire, the end result was soup, and it even tasted pretty good!

And from then on, I realised I could cook (although I didn't actually cook much for another six or seven years when I went away to University)   and I loved the buzz I got from being able to do that.. It's something that hasn't ever gone away.

Which brings us, in a very round about way to today's soup.  Although I'm not making Minestrone (and I still pronounce it Mine Strone in my head...) this soup is very similar, using as it does lots of vegetables, a bit of meat and a rich tomato-y stock.  And it also uses Orzo, which I love - it's pasta that thinks it is rice!  Crazy!

If you can't get orzo, any small pasta shells will do - I was over-joyed when I first found it in a small corner shop, and immediately bought some for Mrs Soup, as she had never been able to find it in this country before, for which I won brownie points, and gained a nice ingredient for soups, stews and casseroles.

Ingredients
3 Chicken Thighs
1 Large Onion
3 Carrots
2 Stalks of Celery
1 Medium Potato
4 Cloves of Garlic
1 Tin Tomatoes
1.2l Chicken Stock
75g Orzo (Pasta Rice)
Fresh Basil
Fresh Thyme
Salt and Pepper

Method
1.  Heat some oil in your soup pan. Fry the chicken thighs until they are golden and cooked through.  Remove the chicken and set aside to cool.

2. Finely chop the onion and garlic.  In the same oil that you fried the chicken in, soften and brown the onions and garlic (add some more oil if there isn't enough left)

3.  Add the chopped carrot, potato and celery and let them soften over a low heat for 3-5 minutes, then add the stock, cooked chicken and tomatoes.  To this add the thyme, salt and pepper, simmer and cover, then let cook for 25 minutes.

4.  Add the orzo to the soup and let simmer for another 10 minute, until the pasta is cooked through.  Check seasoning and then serve, garnished with fresh basil.  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!

Soupe Djiboutienne - Olympic Food Challenge : Djibouti

Just when I thought it was all over, they pulled me back in... It seems that not all the countries allocated to the various bloggers as part of the Olympic Food Challenge got completed, so there were some going spare.  I put my name in the hat and got two further countries to have a crack at.  The first is Djibouti and because this is a soup blog, I'm making a soup! (Well, I say soup, but this dish is more stew than soup.  It's delicious whatever you want to call it though)

Djibouti (and every time I type that I'm thinking 'shake djibouti' for some reason) sent 5 athletes to compete at London 2012, but sadly failed to win any medals to add to their grand total of 1 Bronze, won in Seoul in 1988.

A lot like the soup I made for Tajikistan, this is a no-frills affair.  No spices, no frying of ingredients or browning meat, not even any stock, just throw everything in the pan and cook it for ages.  When I find a recipe like this, I'm always caught between following the recipe as is, or adding, changing and generally tinkering, but when it came to the Olympic Food Challenge, I decided to try to keep as much as possible to the original recipes, as adding too much myself seemed to be going against the spirit of the thing.

Lamb Chektyrma - Olympic Food Challenge : Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan was a bit of a challenge.  But then It's not called the Olympic Food CHALLENGE for nothing, I guess!  As with so many other places on the globe, country boundaries seem to be rather arbitary lines that don't represent the cultures that they are meant to define.  As such, whole areas claim very similar dishes as their own.  This seems to be very much the case with Turkmenistan which shares cusines with many of it's surrounding countries.

Is this a traditional Turkmenian dish?  I hope so, but if there happens to be any Turkmenians reading, you will let me know, won't you?

Anyway, this soup was rather amazing, light and summery, which was a surprise as cooking it involved no finesse, just boiling the hell out of some lamb until it surrendered...

Chicken Lap Lap - Olympic Food Challenge : Cook Islands

Today's dish is Chicken Lap Lap, which involved a few new experiences and ingredients for me.  Not least amongst these was using Taro.  Not even knowing what it actually looked like, we were quickly educated by a lovely man in Leeds Market and left with one huge vegetable.

The same trip also provided us with banana leaves , which again, I'd never used.  This was in some small way a voyage of discovery - which is appropriate in a number of ways, not least that the Cook Islands are named for Captain Cook, who planted a flag there and named them, erm, The Hervey Islands...

Anyway, the Cook Islands are kinda special to me as the aforementioned Capn' is my Dad's hero, and also, the starting point of his historic journey was, of course, Whitby, which is the informal spiritual home of the Soup family (in that we went there on holiday every year when I was a sproglet)

Anyway, without further rambling - Chicken Lap Lap

Takusa Mutton Stew - Olympic Food Challenge : Niger

Wow, day 3 already, and the first day proper of the Olympics. And with the temperature outside actually summer-y, it's time for a stew, with dumplings... I really wasn't thinking when I planned these things was I? (Actually, I knew perfectly well what I was doing, because there is NEVER a wrong time to eat dumplings)

Today our journey round the world of Olympic cuisine brings us to Niger.  They have only won one medal in their Olympic history - a bronze in boxing at the 1972 Munich Olympics, so lets hope they have plenty of success this year, where they have 6 competitors in 5 sports (including boxing, judo, rowing and swimming) You can keep track of their progress here

Takusa (Mutton Stew) With Dumplings

Today's recipe is Takusa, or mutton stew with dumplings.  It's the first time I've ever cooked with mutton, and it did find a bit hard to get a hold of, but as ever, Leeds Market was my friend.  We also had some proper cinnamon, which I had been dying to use, and this dish gave me a perfect opportunity.  As always, I'm a sucker for a good stew and yes, I did make too many dumplings...

Lucy's Italian Bean Soup

For the next few weeks, I'll be in my top secret soup laboratory (In a hollowed out volcano, obviously) working on a very special project, which I'm sure I will bore you all senseless with in good time, but to fill the gap, I have some lovely guest posts lined up.  Please say nice things about them and also you can follow them on twitter.

First up we have Lucy who you can find on twitter as @LucyNeuburger, but we will let her introduce herself...

Hello, my name is Lucy and I am a 23-year-old Masters student currently residing in small but lively city of Leeds.  Anytime I am not devoting to ‘bettering myself’ (yes Dad, I do listen to you) I can be found reading cookbooks, cooking blogs, and cooking websites…. I am an avid follower of anything and everything food related and my dream job would be anything involving food writing.  I am first and foremost a baker, but I also like to cook all manner of other dishes for friends and myself.  At my age, I should probably be out partying, but I would far rather have you round for dinner and a bottle of wine (maybe 2).

Soup is a word that most students associate with a garishly orange, thick liquid that empties out of a tin marked ‘HEINZ’.  Most of the time this is because they go through body numbingly cold winters in damp, unheated houses blissfully unaware of how simple (and rewarding) it is to make your own.  I am fortunate enough to come from a family where my Mum always encouraged me to cook and eat well.   I have often forgone nights out in order to afford better food…. Yes that may make me a terrible student, but after four years, I have yet to contract scurvy and my liver still feels like it is part of my body!  I must be on to something….

The recipe I would like to share with you is one passed on to me from my Mum, which she often makes it for me when I go home.   We will sit with a bowl each, and by the time we are finished, the world has been put to rights and sometimes, it has even stopped raining!  The association with home is probably why I like it so much…. That and the fact it is a meal in itself and can be freely adapted as well according to what you have in the cupboard.  It is also excellent in providing a use for those onions that have started sprouting green shoots!  A bowl of this soup I believe has the power to melt away your stress, cure the common cold and pretty much anything in between.   It has seen me through many difficult times in many barely habitable houses…. Fellow unwashed, tired, stressed students, this one is for you via my Mum! Enjoy!

Ingredients

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 onion (finely chopped)
1 carrot (finely chopped)
1 stick of celery (finely chopped)
2 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
50g pancetta (if you wish to splash out, but normal bacon/lardons are absolutely fine!)
1 tin of cannellini beans (or borlotti beans or butter beans or go wild and add several different sorts of bean…. At pence per tin, you have no reason not to try some different ones!)
1 tin of tomatoes
1 vegetable or chicken stock cube
1 squeeze tomato puree (not essential)
1 large pinch of dried chilies (this can also be omitted but I find adds warmth and slight kick!)

To serve:

Chopped basil/parsley
Grated Parmesan/cheddar
Black pepper
Crusty bread

Method:

    •    In a pan, fry off the pancetta until crispy and put to one side.
    •    In the same pan, add the olive oil, onions, garlic, carrot and celery and sweat until the onion starts to appear translucent – transfer to a pot or large saucepan.
    •    Re introduce the pancetta and add the tin of tomatoes, tomato puree and chilies (if using) and stir well.
    •    In a jug, add half a litre of boiling water to a stock cube and stir until the stock cube dissolves.
    •    Add the liquid to the saucepan and bring to the boil before reducing the heat so the soup is just simmering – simmer for 20 minutes to give flavours a chance to combine.
    •    Before serving the soup, add your chosen beans, stir and allow to cook through for a couple of minutes.
    •     Serve in big bowls with chopped herbs, some grated cheese and as much black pepper as you can handle!

Gnocchi with Tomato and Black Pudding

I love my Sunday Roast, as I think I mentioned before.  There is no finer meal in a week and the care and devotion I put into the gravy and roast potatoes borders on obsessional. However, the downside to a roast dinner is it seems to take ages to make and is devoured in minutes (although that may just be due to my terrible lack of manners...)

So this week I thought that instead of roasting something, I'd try a completely different tack and do something I've never had before.  Whilst investigating soups (and in particular Nettle and Snail soup - which may just appear on the blog at some point in the future) I hit upon the idea of adding potato gnocchi to the soup.  Now I may have also mentioned before that I am a sucker for foods with beautiful sounding names, and also dumplings (which I can eat until I burst) and potato gnocchi seemed to combine both of those things in one cute little package, so how could I resist.

And also, because I'm obsessed with black pudding (this must be the sixth or seventh recipe with the stuff in it) I thought I'd chuck some of that in too, because, well, why the heck not...

Ingredients

For the gnocchi
500g Waxy Potatoes
150g Plain Flour
Handful of finely chopped Fresh Basil
Salt
Pepper


For the Sauce
1 Tin Chopped Tomatoes
250g Black Pudding
1 Onion
75ml Red Wine
1tsp Balsamic Vinegar
1tsp Finely chopped fresh rosemary
2 Cloves Finely Chopped Garlic

1.  Peel the potatoes, chop into cubes and put into a pan of boiling salted water for 15 minutes, until the potatoes are soft.  Drain them and allow to cool

2.  Mash the potatoes.   I used a potato ricer for this because you want the mash to be as smooth as possible.

3. Put the mashed potatoes into a mixing bowl, then add the flour, chopped basil, salt and pepper.  Combine the mixture like you would if you were making a dough, then kneed gently for 2-3 minutes until the dough is nice and smooth.

4.  Spead some flour on a worktop and then roll the dough out into a roll thats about 1-1 and a half cm thick, then cut into 1-2cm pieces.  Set these aside for now.

5.  Fry the finely chopped onion and garlic in some oil until the onion is just starting to colour.  Then add the red wine, vinegar, rosemary and some black pepper.  Bring this to a simmer and cover.

6.  Cut the black pudding into 1cm cubes.  Ina frying pan, heat some oil and yhen fry the black pudding until it starts to brown.  Then transfer to the sauce.

6.  In a very large pan. bring some water to the boil, then put the gnocchi in, cooking for about 2 minutes, until they start to float to the surface.  Drain them well then put onto a heated plate and serve with the sauce and a grating of fresh parmesan.  Enjoy!

Albondiga Soup

 Sometimes, there is a little bit of serendipity (but not that awful film with Kate Beckinsale in) at work in the Soup Tuesday recipe lab.  For instance, a trail that started with a desire to make meatballs (and don't we all get that desire sometimes) coupled with an obsession with chorizo that is second only to my all-consuming black pudding mania, plus a wish to make something sunny and fresh to combat the wettest April since the dinosaurs pulled their wellies on, led to this soup

And then I realised that it's also almost Cinco de Mayo, which I am given to understand is an excuse to drink as many margaritas as humanly possible, like St Paddy's day with Guinness (possibly it has another meaning which you can find out about here.

Also, Mexico's flag kicks ass! Some sort of bird vs snake battle going on!

So we are making albondigas. Say that word out loud Albondiga.  Can you say it without smiling?  If you can, maybe once you have tasted this soup, you will have a slight grin on your face anyway!

To start this recipe, I made my own version of chorizo, which, before you write in and complain, I know is not really what albondigas are made with, but I thought it sounded like a great combination of flavours.  Maybe in the future I'll get a sausage making machine, but for now this is just the filling of a chorizo, which makes it easier to roll into the albondigas (I'm smiling even as I type that word...)

Ingredients
For the Chorizo
500g Minced Pork
20g Paprika
2g Cayenne Pepper
3g Fennel Seeds
2g Salt
2 Cloves of Garlic


For the Albondigas
1tbsp Chopped Flat Leaf Parsley
1tbsp Chopped Mint Leaves
1 Egg (Beaten)


For the Soup
1 Onion
1 Carrot
1 Can Chopped Tomatoes
1 Courgette
2 Cloves Garlic
100g Sugar Snap Peas
1tsp Dried Oregano
1tbsp Chopped Coriander
1.2l Chicken Stock

1.  To make the chorizo mix, put the pork and spices in a large bowl and mix them together thoroughly, then put in a sealed container and refrigerate, at least overnight.

2. In a large bowl, combine the chorizo mix, chopped parsley and mint and mix together.  Then roll them out into meatballs, about 3cm across (you should make around 20 with this recipe) then set aside

3. Finely chop the onion and carrot.  Heat some oil in a large pan and add the onion and carrot, then cook for 5 minutes, until the vegetables start to soften.

4. Add the tin of tomatoes, chopped garlic cloves, oregano and bring to the boil.

5.  Add the stock and bring to a simmer before adding the chopped courgette and sugar snap peas.  Check seasoning and adjust to taste.

6.  Add the meatballs, carefully placing them into the pan one at a time, then simmer for 30 minutes.  Try not to stir the soup too much when the meatballs are cooking as this might cause them to break up in the pan

7.  Serve into warm bowls and garnish with fresh chopped corriander leaves and for a little bit of a zing, some tabasco.  Enjoy

Borscht

Today's post is dedicated to food that is unnaturally coloured (even if it contains no artificial colourings).  As the second beetroot based recipe on the blog, I've already talked at length about the amazing colour of the vegetable and the love/hate relationship I have with the flavour (see here)

When I was taking the photos for today's post it looked like someone had committed bloody murder in the kitchen.  As a strange co-incidence, for some reason the shower started running by itself at the same time I was snapping away, scaring the bejesus out of me. Perhaps the flat is haunted by the ghosts of all the beetroot I have brutally slain over the years - their purple juice is on my hands...

Anyway, that got me thinking about all the foods I've eaten that have unnaturally strong colours, and how most of these rank on my list of most-hated foodstuffs. These include -

Piccalilli - like radioactive snot.  Sandwich fillings shouldn't glow in the dark

Semolina with Strawberry Jam mixed into it - turns the colour of a melted My Little Pony.  Not any old semolina pudding, I should point out, just the wallpaper paste consistency mess I was served as part of school dinners at Primary School in the 70'2

Sweet'n'sour sauce - specifically the gloopy orange stuff that comes from bad take-aways, sends shivers down my spine thinking about it - like the blood of an alien the Jon Pertwee incarnation of Doctor Who might have fought

And beetroot was also amongst the list, until recently, when I learnt to love the taste, and the colour too. I guess it's all part of growing as a person (why does that sound like the trite moral of a corny American sitcom episode?)

Which brings us to today's soup - a creamy and wonderful dish of pink heaven, set off perfectly by the hint of vinegar and sour cream.  Your mouth will never forget it, or your best white tablecloth...

Ingredients
300g Beetroot
100g White Cabbage
75g Smoky Back Bacon
1 Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
2 Stalks of Celery
1.2l Stock
1tsp Thyme
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Bay Leaf
Oil
Salt and Pepper 
Sour cream
Parsley

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200ºc

2. Peel and dice the beetroot (about 1cm square cubes should be okay), then peel and roughly slice the onion

3.  Put some oil in a roasting tray, then toss in the beetroot, onion, thyme and some salt.  Put the tray in the over for 45 minutes to roast the vegetables until they are golden and soft

4. Roughly chop the cabbage and celery.  Crush the garlic cloves. Cut the bacon into small slices

5.  In your soup pan, heat some more oil, then toss in cabbage, celery, garlic and bacon.  Sweat these in the pan for 5 minutes until they become so, but not colour too much.

6. Add the stock to the pan, then add the beetroot and onions. Finally, add the bay leaf and balsamic vinegar.

7. Bring the soup to a simmer, cover and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

8.  Using a hand blender, liquidise the soup until it's smooth, and at this point, feel free to pass it through a sieve, pressing down with a wooden spoon to get all the lumpy bits out and make the soup silky smooth

9.  Heat through just before serving, and garnish with sour cream and parsley.  Serve with fresh bread and enjoy!