Scotch Broth

Another cold day, another warming soup for you!  This one involves the left-overs from a rather lovely Sunday lunch (well, the meaty / gravy parts anyway) and is an old favourite of mine.  If you don't have any left over lamb, you could just get a lamb chop and use the meat from that, it will work just as well.

This is a slight adaptation of Scotch Broth, with the mint and balsamic vinegar being my own additions, as I think both flavours go particularly well with lamb, and help to cut through the fatty taste that you can sometimes get with that meat.  If you want to be more traditional, leave those two ingredients out (and don't write me emails saying I got the recipe wrong, please...)

Also included in this recipe is some pearl barley, which I think in another brilliant but under-rated ingredient, although it does show up quite a bit in Scottish recipes.  It makes a brilliant risotto instead of rice, and can be used in countless stews and soups - indeed, I suspect that as the nights grow darker, more and more people will be reaching for the pearl barley as well as their favourite stew recipes.

Ingredients
2 Large Carrots
1 Small Turnip
1 Large Onion
1 Small Leek
1 Medium Potato
50g Pearl Barley
250g Lamb
2l Stock
3 Cloves Garlic
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Handful fresh chopped mint leaves

Method
1. Cut the carrot, turnip, potato and lamb into small cubes. Finely chop the onion, leek and garlic.

2.  Heat your stock in a soup pan.  Throw in any left-over gravy from Sunday lunch at this point too, and add the balsamic vinegar.

3.  Bring the stock to the boil, put in the vegetables and lamb then cover and bring to a simmer.  Cook the soup for 2-3 hours on a low heat.

4.  30 Minutes before serving, add the pearl barley.

5.  Check seasoning, adding plenty of black pepper before serving and garnish with a handful of chopped fresh mint leaves.  Enjoy!

Turnip Soup with Bacon and Rosemary

Way back in the mists of time that was 2010, I was spurred on to write this blog by a few things.  One of them was a desire to have my name up in lights on t'interwebs (still waiting for that to happen...) and the other was two soups I made in the cold depths of winter that made me think 'Hey, soup is awesome, but it's not sexy like cupcakes, thai food or bacon, it needs someone the be it's champion.

So, like some kind of brothy St George, I vowed to take up the cause, riding off into the jaws of the internet armed only with a wooden spoon and a desire to spread the good word about soups, broths and (maybe) consommes.  I was looking through the blog, reminiscing about the good old days, when I realise that the two soup recipes that had provided the catalyst  for Soup Tuesday never even got written up, consumed, as I was, by the desire to find newer, more amazing soup recipes and add balck pudding to them...

So here is a version of one of those soups (the other shall remain shrouded in mystery until nearer Christmas, when I shall unleash it upon you in all it's cruciferous goodness....)

Turnip is a sadly under-rated vegetable, along with it's yellow cousin the swede.  Lo and behold, one turned up in this week's veg box, so I thought I'd make it into soup, like I did all those months ago pre-blog.  I also dragged the bread maker out to make some crusty bread to go with it - one day I shall graduate to making 'proper' bread, but to be honest today I just couldn't be bothered.

Anyway - turnip soup, made much more exciting by the presence of bacon (is there anything it can't do?) and some home grown rosemary, plus a cheeky splash of white wine, all adds up to lift this soup way beyond what you would expect from a soup made out of turnips...

Ingredients
450g Turnip
1 Onion
3 Cloves Garlic
200ml White wine
150 Smoked Bacon
1l Chicken Stock
30g Butter
2 Sprigs of Rosemary
1 Bay Leaf
Salt and Pepper
Grated Parmesan cheese

Method
1.  Finely chop the onion and garlic.  Heat the butter in your soup pan and fry gently until the onion is starting to brown.

2.  Add the wine and stock, rosemary stalks and bay leaf, season and bring to the boil.

3. Add the chopped turnip and bring the pan to a simmer.  Cover and leave to cook for 30 minutes, until the turnip is good and soft.  Take off the heat and leave to cool

4.  Remove the bay leaf and rosemary.  Blend the soup until smooth (pass through a sieve to remove lumps if you want to soup to be nice and creamy)

5.   Cut the bacon into small cubes or strips and fry until they are nice and crispy..  Meanwhile, reheat the soup, checking and adjusting seasoning as you see fit

6.  Serve in warm bowls and sprinkle the bacon cubes and Parmesan on top.  Enjoy!

Haggis Soup

So, there was lots of snow when we went away.  Please look at this lovely picture of a church and then we will never mention snow again...

It's time to talk about something serious - something some of you might find disturbing, but nonetheless, I think it's time we addressed this thing.

OFFAL

A word that  can often strike fear into the hardiest of souls.  But I come to praise offal, not to bury it.  I am an addict.  Liver and onions is one of my favourite dishes, the kidney in a steak and kidney pie is the bit I eat first.  On a recent trip to a Chinese restaurant, my starter was tongue, tripe and heart in a chili and peanut sauce.  I get stared by the women behind the checkouts in the supermarket for buying things their Grandfather probably ate.

And I think you should embrace the offal too!  It's cheap, it's tasty and it's a bit unusual (plus it appeals to the same part of my brain that made me giggle like a child when the fishmonger chap at my local Morrison's asked me if I wanted the tentacles with my squid (yes please!) so banish your memories of tough, overcooked liver for school meals, and explore the exciting world of innards!

Probably the most accessible of the offal based meats is haggis.  Pay no attention to the fact it is heart, liver and lungs wrapped up in a sheeps' stomach - just think of it as super tasty mince and you should be okay) And it's not just for Burns' Night either.  I've made lasagna and Shepards' Pie with haggis instead of minced beef and both were delicious.

So give it a go (and I'm sorry that today being Valentine's Day I didn't make a soup with heart in it, which would have been much more appropriate, don't you think?) This is another wintry warmer type of soup - very rich and great for this time of year.  Try and get good quality haggis for that extra special taste!

 Ingredients
2 Red Onions
2 Turnips
2 Cloves Garlic
450g Haggis
1 Leek
1tbsp Oil
1.5l Chicken Stock
100g Pearl Barley
Salt and Pepper

 

Method
1. Finely chop the onion, garlic and turnip - about 1cm sized cubs should be okay for the turnip

2.  Heat the oil in your soup pan.  Then add the onion, garlic and turnip and gently sweat for 5 - 10 minutes until they are soft.

3. Slice half of the leek and add that to the pan as well.  Save the rest for garnish

4.  Cut your haggis into chunks - this will help it break up in the soup.

5.  Add the haggis, stock and pearl barley to the pan. Bring up the heat and stir, breaking up the haggis even more.

6.  Simmer the soup for 35-40 minutes, until the haggis and barley are thoroughly cooked. Remember to stir regularly, so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan.  Check the seasoning at this point, and add more salt or pepper to taste.

7.  Cut the remaining leek into thin strips.  Place them in a pan of boiling water for about 1 minute, then remove.

8.  Serve the soup and then dress with the strips of leek

 Enjoy!

Beef Stew

It's Autumn. I know this because it is 6p.m. and it's dark.  It's also raining.  And Strictly is back on the telly. All signs point to the Vernal Equinox being in full effect.  This can only be described as A Good Thing as far as I'm concerned.  And why is this?  Why should the time of year when the nights close in and the mercury and leaves start to drop be a time for celebration?

One word -

Dumplings

I am a dumpling addict.  There, I said it.  I would eat dumplings until my stomach exploded and would consider it a fine and proper demise, and the best way to eat dumplings is to drop them into a fine beef stew.  And this recipe is the finest beef stew that I have ever made.  Better than my Nana's stew, which was cooked for around 3 days in a huge vat and the consistency of wallpaper paste.  Better than the Irish stew that the pub across from my old office used to make, and I ate for lunch every day, loving how the flavor increased the closer to the weekend we got - obviously another huge vat that was kept on the stove all week.

After making stew for pretty much all of my adult life, I have come to a few conclusions -
1. Shin Beef is better than Stewing Beef
2. Turnips beat Swede every day of the week
3. Dumplings should NEVER have a crust on them
4. Red wine makes better gravy than Stout

Please note, these are just my opinions, and you should feel free to disregard them if you wish to have inferior stew.


Ingredients
700g Shin Beef
3 Onions
2 Stalks Celery
3 Carrots
2 Turnips
500ml Beef stock
500ml Red Wine
2 Bay Leaves
4 Sprigs Thyme
Beef Dripping
2tsp Worcestershire Sause


For the dumplings
100g PlainFlour
50g Beef Suet
1tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt

Method

Cut the beef into about inch cubes, removing any tendons and extra fatty bits, then coat them in seasoned flour.

In a large frying pan, brown the meat in hot dripping (or oil if you want), but only do it a few chunks at a time or they will boil rather than brown.  Remove the beef and set aside for now

Next cut up the onions and fry them in the same pan as the beef, but dont let them colour too much.  Remove them from the pan and set them aside.  Now use some of the stock to de-glaze the pan, then pour the stock into your large stew pan, add the meat and onions, red wine, worcestershire sauce, thyme and bay leaves and bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, add the carrots, celery and turnips and simmer for another hour.

To make the dumplings, mix the flour and suet, baking powder and salt, then add just enough water to bind it all together in a dough, then separate into 6 balls and add to the stew, cover and simmer for another 15 minutes until the dumplings are cooked.  Then the stew is ready to serve.  Enjoy!

Also, you could try putting other things in the dumplings to make them more interesting - these could include horseradish, rosemary, thyme or creme fraiche.  Feel free to experiment, but a word of warning - don't eat too many, they are addictive!