Locro da Papa - Ecuadorian Potato and Cheese Soup

Once you get into a serious cookery habit, you very quickly start to accumulate 'stuff'.  At last count I had 7 varieties of vinegar, 9 types of rice and 5 kinds of lentils. My spice cupboard gets even more full with each passing trip to the shops and every cuisine I dabble in. Some ingredients are pretty easy to get hold of these days - every supermarket has a pretty good selection of herbs and spices these days, and Asian and Chinese supermarkets will furnish the inquisitive cook with pretty much everything else you will need.  Same goes for Eastern European and Caribbean cuisine.

However, some areas of the culinary globe are (in my neck of the woods anyway) a little harder to reach.  And this throws up a dilemma for anyone attempting to make dishes in an authentic a way as possible.

For example, this South American recipe.  Now, unless I'm blind, I haven't seen an Ecuadorian supermarket in my neighbourhood. And this recipe, done authentically, needs some ingredients that it's almost impossible to get without a lot of searching  - achiote powder and queso fresco.  My version, after some research, swaps the achiote for paprika and the queso fresco for ricotta.  Which, after 7 and a half minutes of interweb research appear to be about as good a substitution as I could find.  But it still bugs me that I'm not making a 'proper' version of this soup.

Am I worrying too much? Can anyone recommend a good source of South American ingredients? Does this stuff bother anyone else? Have you found a good supplier for edible Piranhas? Let me know...

Ingredients
600g Potatoes
250g Ricotta Cheese
25g Butter
1 Large Onion
1tbsp Minced Garlic
2tsp Cumin
1tsp Sweet Paprika
900ml Water
150ml Milk
Fresh Coriander

Method
1. In your soup pan, heat the butter. Add the finely chopped onion and cook for a few minutes, until it starts to soften.

2.  Add the minced garlic, cumin and paprika and cook for another 2 minutes.

3.  Add the peeled and cubed potato.  Cook for another 5 minutes, until the potatoes start to soften slightly and everything is covered in the spices

4. Add the water, bring the soup to a simmer and cover. Cook until the potatoes start to break up.  Remove from the heat

5. Once the soup has cooled, either blend the sou until smooth or use a potato masher to break up the potatoes.  Add the milk and crumbled up cheese, adjust seasoning to taste and reheat.

6.  Serve with fresh coriander, grated cheddar cheese and thinly sliced spring onions. Enjoy!

Quibebe - Brazilian Squash Soup

Sometimes when I'm looking for soups to make, the most childish things attract me.  For instance, when I was researching South American soups (you'll remember that I'm a little excited by them right now) I was drawn to this recipe simply by its name Quibebe.  Say it out loud.  It's impossible not to smile at that word.  It's also impossible not to smile when you taste this soup.  Its creamy, a little bit spicy and amazing.  Perfect for a winter's evening when there is snow on the ground and the nights are short.

Snow. It's pretty, isn't it?

In fact, pretty much nothing like what I imagine the weather is like in Brazil, where this recipe comes from.  Although I imagine it gets pretty chilly in the Andes.  (And yes, I did make a reference to the Andes without a) doing a Chilly/Chile pun, b) an Andes/Hands pun or c) referencing the movie Alive. I must be ill)

Other things that attract me to soup recipes are weird and wonderful ingredients, and whilst this soup contains nothing that you wouldn't find in your local corner shop, I did unearth a recipe for Piranha Soup.

Where does one acquire Piranhas from? Allegedly, the soup has aphrodisiac qualities (presumably derived from the fact it's made from Piranha, much the same way as idiots think Tiger Testicles are an aphrodisiac too) so I'm not sure substituting for any other fish would have the same effect.

So if your local Aldi does sell Piranha on their fish counter, do let me know and Ill be all over it

(And whilst we are on the subject of puns, should I do a 'In Brazil the soup eats you' gag here?)



Ingredients
500g Butternut Squash
100g Potatoes
20g Butter
2 Tomatoes
2 Stalks Celery
2 Cloves Garlic
1 Onion
1tsp Dried Chilli Flakes
1/4tsp Light Brown Sugar
1.2l Beef Stock 
Salt and Pepper

 
Method
1. Peel and de-seed the squash and cut into cubes of about 1cm.  Peel the potato and roughly chop that too.  Thinly slice the onion and celery.  Put the tomatoes in boiling water and leave to soak, then remove the skin, seeds and cut into small bits.

2. In your soup pan, heat the butter and then gently cook the onion, celery, garlic and chili flakes until the vegetables are soft but not coloured.  Add the squash and potato, stir everything round and cook for a few more minutes, before adding the stock and sugar.

3.  Bring the soup to a simmer, cover and cook for 25 minutes, until the squash and potatoes are very soft and starting to break up.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

4.  Blend the soup until smooth, then return to the pan, adjust seasoning to taste and reheat.  Serve and garnish with parmesan and croutons. Enjoy!

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!

Green Bean and Almond Soup

The inspiration for this soup came from nothing more than "I have green beans, I don't need them for anything else.  Can I turn them into soup?" From there my mind went to 'green beans and... erm... what goes with green beans?'  Then I remembered green beans with almonds, which in my mind was always a side dish to a Thanksgiving dinner in America, possibly alongside a weird salad that has marshmallows in it.  I have to admit that I have absolutely no idea where this assumption comes from, apart from that I possibly saw it in an episode of Friends (The one where Joey gets the Turkey stuck on his head I assume...)

And then I googled Green Bean and Almond soup, and lo and behold, it is a thing.  When does a soup become 'a thing'? As in an accepted soup variety? Does it ever?  Is that the beauty of soup, that it can have literally any combination of meat, vegetables, herbs and spices and still be an acceptable thing? This is just another reason why I love the stuff...

Anyway, this is a tasty and sweet soup, thickened by the ground almonds, and although you don't have to put the white wine in, it will improve the flavour of the soup by 237% if you do...

Ingredients
400g Green Beans
2 Carrots
1 Onion
75g Ground Almonds
25g Butter
3 Cloves of Garlic
Slivered Almonds
900ml Stock
200ml White Wine
Salt and Pepper

Method.
1. Peel and roughly chop the carrot, garlic and onion.  Heat the butter in your soup pan and then gently fry the vegetables until they start to soften

2. Cut the ends off the green beans and then slice the remaining beans in half.  To the onions and carrot add the beans, stock, wine and ground almonds.  Bring the soup to a simmer, cover and cook for 25 minutes.  Remove the pan from the heat, allow to cool and then blend until smooth.

3.  Adjust seasoning to taste and then reheat.  Serve and garnish with slivers of almond.  Enjoy!

Roasted Red Pepper and Carrot Soup

I just realised that all the soups I've blogged so far this year have been vegetarian recipes (assuming you use veggie stock, although I sometimes cheat and use chicken just to give it that extra bit of flavour)  This wasn't an intentional thing, so far this year I've made soups based purely on what is lurking in the vegetable drawer of the fridge.  Although I'm *still* not sure what that green slimy stuff is - possibly lettuce left over from last summer.  Best not dwell on that too much hey?

Today's soup is a variation on one of the ll time classics - carrot and coriander.  Although we are dropping the coriander and adding some red peppers.  When these bits are roasted in a bit of oil, they are transformed from a vaguely uninspiring bunch of brightly coloured veggies into a fragrant, tasty, sweet and delicious sensation.  Yes, the humble carrot, that thing you are bound to have a few of lurking in your kitchen right now, looking forlorn and lonely.  So my advice to you would be to grab a few, get some peppers in and start making this soup right now! You won't regret it...

Ingredients
350g Carrots
3 Red Peppers
2 Onions
1 Chilli Pepper
2 Garlic Cloves
900ml Vegetable Stock
Oil
Salt and Pepper

Method.
1.  Heat the over to 200ºc.  Peel and roughly chop the carrots.  De-seed the peppers and cut into strips then peel and slice the onion.

2.  Place the vegetables in a roasting dish, toss in vegetable oil until they are covered, then place in the oven.  Roast the vegetables for 45 minutes.  They should be starting to go golden and brown on the edges.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool

3.  Put the vegetables in your soup pan, add the garlic and chilli - both finely chopped - and the stock.  Bring the soup to the boil, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

4.  Blend the soup until smooth, reheat, adjust seasoning to taste and serve with a swirl of fresh yoghurt.  Enjoy!

Leek, Potato and Blue Cheese Soup

Cheese. It's a serious business. And we here at Soup Manors eat more cheese at Christmas than at any other time of the year.  Mainly because we do nothing but sit around watching all 6 Lord of the Rings movies, drinking enormous quantities of red wine and eating biscuits.  And nothing accompanies those things better than a nice bit of cheese (I think any hobbits reading this would agree wholeheartedly)

And this year, much to my surprise, when the hangovers cleared and Frodo had sailed to the Grey Havens, I found that we still had a big hunk of blue cheese left which needed something doing with (as we had decided to get all healthy and didn't really want to be sitting around in our hobbit holes when there was a whole outside world to be getting exercise in) so what better fate for a cheese than to be turned into a soup.  And what better soup to use said cheese in than a Leek, Potato and Cheese soup?

Because I'm being super (soup-er? Geddit?) organised this year I actually got round to making this soup a whole day before I got round to consuming it, so I thought I'd try something that I heard a while ago, which is soup made a day in advance, especially a milky/cheesy soup has its flavour intensified by being kept in the fridge for a day beforehand.  And what do you know, it really works - the soup had a much richer, deeper flavour than other sups of this kind I've made before.  So if you have the time, I highly recommend making your soup in advance.  Its ace...

Ingredients
2 Leeks
300g Potatoes
1 Onion
4 Cloves Garlic
100g Cambazola Cheese
30g Butter
1 Bay Leaf
600ml Vegetable Stock
400ml Milk
Salt and Pepper

Method
1. Peel and chop the potato, leek, onion and garlic. Heat the butter in your soup pan.  Add the garlic, onion and leek and cook for a few minutes with the lid on until everything is soft.  Add the potato and cook for a few more minutes.

2.  Add the stock, bay leaf and thyme.  Bring the soup to a simmer, cover and cook for 15 minutes, until the potatoes are soft and just starting to break up.

3.  Crumble up the blue cheese and add to the soup, along with the milk.  Cook over a gentle heat until everything has cooked through and the cheese has melted into the soup.  Adjust seasoning to taste and serve.  Enjoy!

Roasted Beetroot, Garlic and Goats Cheese Soup

Beetroot.  You can just tell that anything that brightly coloured has GOT to be packed full of goodness, vitamins and E numbers.  No wait, I'm pretty sure that one of those isn't true*

*Actually, Betanin, or E162 is an red glycosidic food dye extracted from beetroot. So there. Don't say you don't learn anything from this blog. Other beetroot facts are* :

Beetroot is an excellent source of folate and a good source of manganese,^[9] and contains betaines which may function to reduce the concentration of homocysteine,^[10] a homolog of the naturally occurring amino acid cysteine. High circulating levels of homocysteine may be harmful to blood vessels and thus contribute to the development of heart disease, stroke, or peripheral vascular disease.^[11] This hypothesis is controversial as it has not yet been established whether homocysteine itself is harmful or is just an indicator of increased risk for heart disease.^[11][12]
The red colour compound betanin is not broken down in the body, and in higher concentrations may temporarily cause urine and stool to assume a reddish colour; in the case of urine this is called beeturia.^[13] This effect may cause distress and concern due to the visual similarity to hematuria (blood in the urine) or blood in the stool, but is completely harmless and will subside once the food is out of the system.

Last year, I abandoned 2 blog posts as, after making the soups, I looked back through the blog and realised that I'd already written the same or very similar soups before.  I really should plan my posts better.  Regular readers (you know who you are! Hello Mum!) will probably know that I've done at least 3 beetroot soups before, but I thought, why the heck not do another one.  This one is slighly different, and who has the time to wade through old blog posts anyway.  This is 2015 dammit, we're all in a hurry, we want our soups right now...

Although this soup *will* take a bit of time, as you need to roast the beetroot first to release all those sugars and other goodies that make the little purple blighters taste even better, and make that addition of lemon juice a nice counterpoint.  I also used hard goats cheese, as it melts and goes all gooey when you put it in the bowl, covered in soup. Which is perfect at this time of year, when it's cold and you want tasty comforting foods.

*Isn't Wikipedia amazing...

Ingredients
350g Beetroot
2 Stalks Celery
1 Onion
6 Cloves Garlic
900ml Vegetable Stock
30g Butter
1 Lemon
1tsp Thyme
100g Hard Goats Cheese

Method
1.  Heat the oven to 180ºc.  Peel the beetroot with a potato peeler.   Wrap them up in some kitchen foil, with some salt and a splash of olive oil.  Then place in the oven, leaving them to roast for 45 minutes.  Set them aside to cool.

2.  In your soup pan, heat the butter.  Finely chop the onion, garlic and celery then fry them for a few minutes until everything starts to soften.

3.  Cut the roasted beetroot up into smaller pieces, then add to the pan, along with the stock, thyme and lemon juice.  Bring to the boil then cover and simmer for 30 minutes.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

4.  Blend the soup until smooth and then reheat.  Adhust seasoning to taste then serve.  Garnish with some cubed bits of hard goats cheese.  Enjoy!

Sopa de Ajo

Inspiration for soups comes from many places.  For this one it was as simple as Mrs Soup telling me that she fancied a soup with eggs poached in it.  So off I went to the interwebs to do a bit of research and that's where I came across this amazingly tasty and simple little number.  I've always been taken with the idea of roasting whole bulbs of garlic, as it smells and tastes wonderful - a flavour that I've never experienced with anything you can buy in the shops.  And rather brilliantly, roasting the garlic until it's caramelized takes away the garlic-y smell and the harshness of raw garlic flavour, leaving a deep and savoury taste that's perfect in soups.

Add to the garlic flavour some poached eggs - I used a chef's ring to stop the egg from spreading everywhere and it came out just perfectly - and some chorizo and I found this soup to be one of the tastiest that I've blogged for a good while.

And whilst we are on the subject of chorizo, do you pronounce it 'cho-ritz-oh' or 'chore-ee-tho'? For some reason the latter makes any non-spanish person sound like a pretentious hipster.  And before you start telling me off for pronouncing foreign words incorrectly, bare in mind that English people still can't settle on a correct pronunciation of the word 'scone' (It rhymes with bone, not gone as any fool knows)  So, if any actual Spanish people care to weigh in, I'll totally respect their decision, but still pronounce it my 'chor-itz-oh' when no-one's listening.

Also, is it pronounced 'see-a-bata' or 'chee-a-bata'?

Also, this has totally reminded me of Moss from the IT Crowd - "It's pronounced tay-pass"

Anyway, on to the soup...

Ingredients
3 Bulbs of Garlic
70g Chorizo
1l Chicken Stock
100ml Dry Sherry
2 Ciabatta Rolls
4 Eggs
1tbsp Sweet Paprika
1/2tbsp Smoked Paprika
1tsp Fresh Thyme
Salt and Pepper

Method
1.  Heat the oven to 200ºc.  Peel the outer layers of the garlic bulbs and then slice the top off, so you can see the tops of all the individual cloves.  Place the bulbs in an oven proof dish and pour a glug of olive oil over the top.

2.  Put the garlic bulbs in the oven and cook for 30 minutes, until they are golden brown and caramelized on the top.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool.  Squeeze the cooked garlic from its skins into a dish.  This can get pretty messy...

3.  In your soup pan, heat some more olive oil.  Cut the chorizo up into small chunks and gently fry for 3-5 minutes, then add the garlic puree, paprika and thyme. Cook for another 2 minutes and then add the sherry.  Allow the liquid to reduce slightly, then add the chicken stock.  Bring the pan to a simmer, cover and cook for 25 minutes

4.  Cut the ciabatta into slices and toast until golden, then place a few slices in each soup bowl

5.  Poach the eggs gently in the soup for 4 minutes, then place one in each soup bowl, then ladle the soup over the top.  Serve and enjoy!

Kale Soup

After my last blogpost I had a few comments about my maligning of kale (although it's funny, people seem quite happy to cast disparaging words against offal and few raise their voices to come to its aid...) so I thought that I'd have a go at making a kale soup recipe to come to terms with my dislike of said vegetable.

Before we start, I should point out that I have nothing really against kale itself, but just that it seems to be the poster vegetable for the whole healthier-than-thou/no-fun strain of diets and recipes, and it really does look like swamp water when it's blended to make a soup or (ugh) smoothie (why? why would you do that to yourself?) 

Veg, fruit, steak, eggs and buns!

Every few weeks we here at Soup Labs get a rather brilliant veg box, delivered to our door (along with amazing steaks and cream buns) by the wonderful Market Delivered* and it nearly always has a bunch of kale in it.  As Mother Soup didn't bring me up to waste food (or be late for anything. Ever) I keep trying to find fun things to do with it.  This soup recipe is one of the fruits of my labours.  It turned out pretty nice actually, athough the addition of some bacon or maybe blue cheese/cream would have tipped it towards brilliance.  It still looks like something from the Planet Dagobah though...

*Check their website to see if they deliver to your neighbourhood - especially if you're in Leeds.  Cream buns! Steaks! Delivered to your door, from local shops! Brilliant! Running out of exclamation marks!!!!

Ingredients
150g Kale
150g Potatoes
1 Onion
3 Cloves Garlic
25g Butter
900ml Chicken Stock
200ml Milk
150ml White Wine

Method
1. Peel the onion and potato, then cut into small chunks.

2.  Heat the butter in your soup pan.  Cook the vegetables until they start to soften.  Add the finely chopped garlic cloves and cook for another couple of minutes

3.  Add the stock and wine, bring the soup to a simmer.  Remove the tough stalks from the kale and shred the leaves.  Add these to the soup and cover, cooking for 20 minutes. 

4.  Once the soup is cooked, remove from the heat and allow to cool, then purée using a stick blender.

5.  Reheat the soup, add the milk and adjust seasoning to taste.  Serve and 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

Beetroot Rasam

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with beetroot.  On one hand, beetroot risotto is one of the greatest things ever, on the other is that lingering taste that can only be described as earthy.  Or to be less charitable, I made a beetroot and chocolate cake, and despite using half a tonne of chocolate and cream, it still tasted of soil.

It is the kind of vegetable that, to my mind, is healthy but dull - the twin of kale in being a joyless thing that healthy eating advocates bang on about, but I really can't stand,  Or at least it takes a fair bit of effort to make it palatable. Of course, it's entirely possible that beetroot has the same effect on me that sprouts have on others - a chemical that renders if awful tasting to me whilst others don't suffer. (Scientists are telling me that this theory could be what they describe as 'utter tripe')

And yet, and yet, here I am, attempting the fourth soup recipe involving beetroot (and reading the old entries, I see I have rather belaboured the point about beetroot's eccentricities, so I won't malign the poor purple vegetable any more) but suffice to say that this Indian soup recipe, through some subtle alchemy of spices tastes amazing, and not a hint of the evil 'soil taste'*

So here at Soup HQ we have a rather small kitchen, mostly consisting of jars of spices of one kind or another, and it's a huge decision every time we think about investing in another kitchen gadget.  "There's no room!" goes the cry.  Which is why I still don't have a deep fat fryer despite recently discovering the joys of making my own chips.  Another gadget that I still crave is a pressure cooker.  If you have one, it would be prefect for this recipe, as it would cook the lentils and beetroot amazingly, but alas, until I open the West Wing of my kitchen and have room for more gadgets, I'll have to do this the old fashioned way - just boiling the heck out of the beetroot.

Also, be careful when blending the soup.  It went everywhere when I deployed my stick blender and made the kitchen look like Halloween had arrived early...

Also, beware the side effects of eating too many beets...

*Some of you may be wondering, if I have such strong feelings about beetroot, why am I eating it?  Well the simple answer is that we got some as part of our veg box delivery and I'll be damned if I'm going to let any vegetables go to waste.  Apart from Kale...

Ingredients
500g Beetroot
100g Yellow Lentils
50g Tamarind Paste
4 Cloves Garlic
1tsp Dried Red Chili Flakes
1tsp Coriander Seeds
1tsp Cumin Seeds
1tsp Fenugreek Seeds
1tsp Mustard Seeds
Pinch of Asafoetida
Salt
Oil
 
Method.
1. Soak the lentils in water for 30 minutes.  Roughly chop the Tamarind and put ina small bowl, cover with boiling water and leave to soak for 30 minutes too

2. Heat some oil in your soup pan.  Add the Coriander Fenugreek and Cumin Seeds and Chili flakes, and fry gently for a minute or so, until they flavour the oil.

3.  Wash and strain the soaked lentils and add these to the pan, along with the peeled and chopped beetroot and the peeled garlic cloves.

4.  Remove the pulp from the tamarind and add the flavoured water to the pan

5. Add 1.2 litres of water, bring the soup to the boil and simmer on a high heat, covered, for 30 minutes, until the beetroot is cooked and softened.  Remove the pan from the heat

6.  Blend the soup until smooth.  Return to the pan, reheat gently and adjust seasoning to taste

7.  In another pan, heat 3tbsp of oil.  Add the Asafoetida and mustard seeds and heat until the seeds start to pop.  Stir the flaovoured oil into the soup and serve.  Enjoy!

Parsnip and Sweet Potato Soup

It's October!  Where did the summer go? Still, now it's time to pack up your shorts and pull out those woolly jumpers, that can only mean one thing - it's soup season again (aka The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year)

I was in two minds  about starting up the soup blog again; after all, there must be a finite number of soups a man can cook, right? So yesterday, I was opening a carton of soup for my lunch and two things struck me - firstly that I feel guilty every time I buy soup rather than making it, especially as cooking soup is as easy as falling off a log, but less painful, and secondly, that most shop bought soups are usually hugely disappointing. As if to prove my point, the Goan Spicy Lentil and Chicken soup that I eat was slightly bitter tasting, had woody vegetables and left me feeling sad rather than being a hug in a bowl, like all good soups should be

To ease myself back into blogging (and soup making) I set myself the challenge of opening up the vegetable drawer of the fridge, grabbing the first few things that I could lay my hands on and tuning them into a tasty soup.  Just to get myself back into the swing of things.

The first things I pulled out were a can of beer, a bottle of vodka and a lime.  Which would make an awesomely demented cocktail, but not really good for soup.  The next dive into the fridge yielded sweet potatoes and parsnips.  This, I thought to myself, I can work with...

So some quick thinking, a look in the spice cupboard and viola,  a simple, rich and tasty soup that took about 5 minutes to make, 30 minutes to simmer and then was ready for lunch.

Can't say easier than that, can you?  So shut up and make some soup...

Ingredients
2 Onions
2 Parsnips
2 Sweet Potatoes
2 Cloves of Garlic
2tsp Finely chopped Ginger
1tbsp Lemon Juice
1tsp Turmeric
1tsp Cumin
1tsp Dried Chili Flakes
1tsp Salt
1.2l Stock
Yoghurt
Fresh Coriander

Method
1. Chop the onions and fry fry gently until golden

2.  Peel and chop the sweet potato and parsnip.  Add these to the onions and sweat gently for a few minutes until the start to soften

3.  Add the stock, ginger, garlic and spices.  Bring the soup to the boil then cover and simmer for 30 minute, or until all the vegetables have softened

4.  Using a stick blender, purée the soup until smooth.  Adjust seasoning to taste.

5.  Garnish each bowl of soup with yoghurt and fresh coriander.  Enjoy!

Avgolemono -WCFC2014 : Greece

The second country that made it through to round 2 from Group C is Greece (Not The Ivory Coast, which is both a shame - as I'd bought the ingredients for an Ivorian soup as it looked like they would get through and I'd done my research, and a blessing as it was a gaspacho soup style made with avocados, and as we all know from yesterday, I really don't like avocados) and as this is the Soup Round, we're having a Greek soup.

A while ago, I made a Turkish dish - it's name escapes me right now - but it was basically lamb meatballs in lemony custard.  This soup is very similar and I would say it's kind of an acquired taste. It's a standard chicken soup but it's thickened with an egg and lemon mixture that resembles a custard as it's cooked.  It was, ummm, interesting, but worth a try as it was also quite a summery taste

Also, if you can't get orzo (rice pasta) you could just use ordinary white rice, and cook it for a little longer than you would pasta

Ingredients
4 Chicken Breasts
2 Carrots
2 Celery Stalks
1 Onion
60g Orzo Pasta
3 Eggs
Zest of 1 Lemon
Juice of 2 Lemons
Bay Leaf
Salt and Black Pepper

Method
1. Put 1.5 litres of water into a large pan, then add the chicken, finely chopped carrot, onion and celery.  Bring the water to the boil and cook for 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked.  Remove any foam that forms on top of the pan.

2.  Remove the meat and vegetables, shred the chicken and set aside.

3.  Add the orzo pasta to the stock and simmer for 10 minute, until the pasta is cooked.

4.  While this is cooking, in a separate bowl, whisk the eggs until they are fluffy, and then add the juice and zest of the lemon, mixing thoroughly.

5. Take about 2 cups of the stock and slowly add them to the egg and lemon mixture, whisking constantly to stop the eggs from curdling or separating

6.  Return the egg mixture to the pan, along with the vegetables and chicken, taste and adjust seasoning as you like, then simmer over a low heat, stirring constantly for 5 minutes

7.  Garnish with some fresh parsley and then serve.  Enjoy!

Ajiaco - WCFC2014 : Colombia

And so Team Soup head into the second round with our heads held high, unlike *some* teams I could mention, where the two qualifying teams get a second crack of the whip.  And because we are Team Soup, this 2nd round will henceforth be known as The Soup Round, where, you guessed it, I'll be making soups from the Group C qualifying countries.

First on the list is Colombia.  Much like the huge Colombian fry-up that I made for round 1, this soup is an 'everything and the kitchen sink' type of soup, which skirts closely to being a stew (but remember, it's not a stew unless it has dumplings in it, and even then that distinction is blurred) Many versions of this recipe call for not two, but three types of potato, but that seems like it might be over-egging the pudding (over potato-ing the soup doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?)

Also, it's been ironic that pretty much every Colombian dish I've looked at involves avocado in some way, either as a main ingredient or as a garnish, when it's just about the only fruit that I don't really like.  I find its texture unpleasant, and the taste vaguely awful too, yet here I am, manfully preparing dishes and then eating them, piled high with avocado.  The life of a food blogger isn't as easy as you think it is, I suffer for my 'art' sometimes too...

Ingredients
3 Chicken Breasts
2 Ears of Corn
400g Red Potatoes
400g White Potatoes
1 Large Carrot
1 Onion
3 Cloves Garlic
Chicken Stock Cube

3 Spring Onions
1 Tomato
2 Red Chillies
3Tbsp White Wine Vinegar

Sour Cream
Avocado
Capers
Coriander

Method
1. Cut the corn in half, peel and cube the potatoes, slice the carrot and onion and chop the garlic

2. Put 1.2l of water in a pan and add the chicken, veg and stock cube, then bring to a simmer and cook for 30-40 minutes, until the potatoes are just starting to break up.

3.  Put the spring onions, tomato, chilies and vinegar in an blender and puree until smooth

4.  Once the soup is cooked, shred the meat and then put into a bowl, put some of the purée over the top and garnish with sour cream, avocados, capers and freshly chopped coriander.  Enjoy!

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!

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!

Potato and Caraway Soup

Wow!  This is my 200th post! Who knew I'd still be doing this thing (oh, wait, I said this all when I did my 100th soup recipe didn't I? Anyway, thanks for sticking with me, and there are still so many exciting soups to come, I promise...) 

Due to circumstances beyond my control I couldn't make the polish soup I'd planned this week (again) and I needed to throw together a quick 'cupboard' soup.  I can't think of any other kind of food where you can just throw random things into a pot and out comes a tasty result - that's why soups are so brilliant, but I wanted to also have something that had a bit of character, not just a random veggie thing.

I had a look in the cupboards where vegetables lurk and found a few things that would go well together, then added some caraway (I'm still addicted to the stuff in a way that's probably unhealthy) and some sausage to add a little meaty savoury taste to the whole thing, and voilà - a tasty soup was born...

Ingredients
600g Potatoes
1 Leek
1 Large Onion
2 Stalks Celery
40g Butter
3 Cloves Garlic
2tsp Caraway Seeds
1tsp Marjoram
1.2l Chicken Stock
2 Polish Sausages

Method
1. Finely chop the leek, garlic, celery and onion, Heat the butter in your soup pan then gently fry the vegetables until the start to soften

2. Peel and cube the potatoes, then add them to the pan, letting them soften slightly too.

3. Add the stock, marjoram and caraway seed, then bring the soup to the boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and let cook for 25-30 minutes, until the potatoes are just starting to break up.

4.  Transfer half the soup to a blender and puree it, then return it to the pan (or alternatively, just use a potato masher - this soup works best with a few lumps in it)

5.  Slice the sausage and then fry it in a little oil

6. Serve the soup with slices of sausage as a garnish.  Enjoy

Zupa Koperkowa - Polish Dill Soup

I had some friends who went on holiday to various East European countries, and when they returned, the brought back tales of culinary horror.  Not only was it nigh-on impossible to get a decent vegetarian meal in Latvia, but in Poland - horror of horrors - they put dill on EVERYTHING.  And my friends REALLY couldn't stand dill. Now I can't vouch for the veracity of these stories, but I'm pretty sure my friends would hate this soup...

This is a really simple soup that is really all about the dill, although it is really filling and creamy and would be good as a winter warmer, or as a summer soup.  Of course, the recipe I really wanted to do this week was a Polish Tripe soup, but the supermarket seems to have stopped stocking cow's stomach linings, so I will have to take a trip to Leeds Market to procure some.  You have been warned...

Ingredients
1 Carrot
1 Potato
2 Parsnips
250ml Sour Cream
150g White Rice
1.5l Chicken Stock
1 Bunch of Fresh Dill
2 Bay Leaves
Salt and Pepper

Method
1. In a large pan, heat your chicken stock.  Add the bay leaves and the carrot, potato and parsnip, all peeled and cubed.  Bring to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes

2. After 20 Minutes, add the rice and continue to simmer for another 15 minutes, until the rice is cooked and the vegetables are soft.

3.  Finely chop the dill and add to the pan, along with the sour cream. Heat through

4.  Adjust seasoning to taste and serve with some extra dill for garnish.  Enjoy!