Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Fortieth Soup: Brussels Sprouts Well, it is the 30th December 2010 and just over a year since I first followed a recipe from The Soup Book . I have now made forty different soups! The recipe for Brussels sprouts soup is by Sophie Grigson and calls for onions, thyme, chicken or vegetable stock and a garnishing of soured cream, creme fraiche or yogurt with paprika or cayenne pepper.  I do not particularly like the taste of sprouts but was determined to get this soup over and done with. Yesterday I called down to "Young Stephen's" green grocery, expecting to be able to buy loose sprouts, but no, they were pre-packed. Young Stephen and I swapped tales of cats' less desirable habits then bade each other a happy new year. Back to the soup. I sweated the sliced onions, added sugar, and eventually put in the sprouts, thyme and stock. Once the sprouts were just tender and the mixture had cooled a little, I got out the liquidiser and finished the soup. As a non-sprout eater,...

Pheasant and Apple Soup  The recipe for pheasant and apple soup in The Soup Book is by Carolyn Humphries , who provided the recipe for the Italian wedding soup I cooked in September. It wasn't one I was planning to make when browsing through the book last weekend, but during the week I alighted upon it and thought it would fit the Christmas bill of fare . The ingredients include a small pheasant, onion, sweet potato, a cooking apple, cider, chicken stock, cinnamon, a bay leaf and cream.  Carolyn suggests using other game birds, such as pigeon or partridge, if pheasant cannot be found, but the spouse located a pheasant in a local speciality butcher's shop around the corner from where we live.  We put it in our spare fridge out in the garage so it wouldn't pollute our main indoor fridge. The spouse claims he could smell it in the garage, but I didn't notice anything too horrible.  I brought it indoors this morning and we had a look at it. The spouse made the first in...

Pre-Christmas Soup Break It's the Sunday before Christmas and I've opted to have a break from soups. Yesterday I was very busy, what with chauffeuring the spouse (who had come home "by railing" from a night out) to the shops and hunting more elusive ingredients and baking and cooking.  Later today the mother-in-law is coming for lunch. It will be something of an expedition, the cold and ice having played havoc with her travel arrangements and the logistics for the entire day.  The plan at present is for the spouse to go and collect her. As I write, he's preparing the vegetables for our lunch. We're having some sort of smoked salmon and smoked mackerel roulade to start, followed by roast beef and various vegetables (I'll be making Yorkshire pudding). I spent a lot of time yesterday preparing the pudding for today: compote of figs in port and prune ice cream using Delia Smith's Christmas recipe book (our copy was given to the spouse by one of my sibl...

Henningsvaer Fish Soup  According to Sophie Grigson, Henningsvaer is "a picturesque little port right up north in Norway's Lofoten Islands" and this soup (my thirty-eighth) is "the speciality of a small restaurant there." Searching briefly on the internet for Henningsvaer has confirmed in me my desire to visit those more remote parts of the Nordic countries (we holidayed in the Baltic earlier this year and I really liked what I saw of Finland). Back to the fish soup, which I made yesterday evening, the ingredients include fish stock, cod fillet, butter, onion, carrot, leek, caster sugar, white wine vinegar and creme fraiche.  I prepared the vegetables in advance, then started cooking around 5pm. It was fairly straightforward and we were ready to go just before 6pm. The creme fraiche and the fish (the fish is cooked separately) were the last ingredients to be added. The soup was really delicious and is on my notional list of recipes to be used again. Last wee...

Pichelsteiner   Last Sunday I spent some time making a list of all the recipes in The Soup Book after someone asked me how many more recipes did I have to get through. I counted 199 soup recipes and ten bread recipes, and I have made thirty-seven soups, including the most recent. So I still have some way to go. At this rate, it could take me five years! So, Pichelsteiner. What is it? The Soup Book lists it as a German soup containing lamb, but suggests that it is "versatile enough to work with pork or beef instead of lamb." On looking it up on the internet (including German language descriptions), I discovered that Pichelsteiner (from Buechelstein, a mountain in Bavaria) is a mixed meat stew or Eintopf (one pot). Other recipes use a combination of beef, pork and veal, but not lamb; the common vegetables are onions and cabbage. The Soup Book's ingredients include lamb (shoulder or neck), onions, dried marjoram, dried lovage or thyme, vegetable stock, carrots, leek...

Pea and Sausage Soup  Yesterday (Saturday 27th November) I made pea and sausage soup for our dinner. The spouse was in a hurry to get out early to do the shopping because we needed to be in Dublin city centre on time for the protest march against the forthcoming austerity measures (figures for the numbers attending vary from 50,000 to 100,000 ). I had to think quickly: we would want something substantial and warming. One of the handy features of The Soup Book is the recipe chooser section which lists the recipes under these headings: Vegetarian , Chilled , Hearty , Healthy , Spicy , Main Meals , and Quick . Pea and sausage soup is listed under Hearty , Main Meals and Quick , so it seemed like an apt choice for three people who would return home cold (and one of whom would be cooking) and for a fourth who would be returning from a rugby match. The ingredients for pea and sausage soup include carrot, leek, celery, potato, parsley, dry white wine, chicken stock, Toulouse sausage...

Onion and Almond Soup This weekend I made my thirty-fifth soup from The Soup Book - onion and almond.  It caught my eye several months ago, but I was put off by one of the listed ingredients, namely nigella seeds (Nigella sativa).  I didn't know what they were and I hadn't seen them any where in the course of my shopping, but eventually I looked them up. They are also known as black cumin, onion seed or nigella and are used in curries.  A suggested substitute is mustard seeds and that's what I used.  The recipe is by Roopa Gulati and listed among its ingredients are onions, almonds, chicken stock, red chilli, muscovado sugar, balsamic vinegar and cream. The preparation takes a little time and that's just the garnish. Preparation consists of finely slicing an onion, sprinkling it with sea salt and setting it aside for at least two hours before deep-frying it. We don't possess a deep fat fryer, so I had to use a small frying pan with about half an inch of oil. Late...

Oxtail Soup  At long last I have made the oxtail soup I pledged to make last month! The ingredients are relatively straight forward - oxtail (obviously), onion, carrots, celery, tomatoes (out of a can), parsley, a bay leaf, fresh thyme, flour, butter and dry sherry - but it required some effort to track down oxtails and the soup takes a long time to prepare. You need  to simmer the tails and onion for four hours, then add the other vegetables and herbs before simmering for a further thirty minutes. Eventually the stock is strained and chilled for at least an hour before finishing. Just as well I started cooking before midday in time to have it ready for the evening meal.  After four hours of simmering (during which time I prepared apple dumplings), I removed the herbs and meat. The meat is taken off the bones and then blended with the vegetables. I used the liquidiser part of my food processor and by the time I'd finished, smoke was rising from that hard-working machine...

Pumpkin and Apple Soup   It's Hallowe'en weekend and so pumpkin is on the menu.  There are two soup recipes in The Soup Book involving pumpkins: Monty Don 's pumpkin soup (which includes potatoes and tomatoes) and Jeanette Orrey 's pumpkin and apple soup. I was going to make both, but then changed my mind, having decided to make fudge (more on this later). I asked the spouse to choose between the two recipes and he opted for the latter. He does the shopping, so he deserves the power of choice. Sometimes. He headed off to the shopping centre and after a while he phoned to say there were no pumpkins left and that I should call down to "Young Stephen" (our local green grocer). So out the door with me in my new faux fur leopard print coat on the trail of pumpkins. I arrived down at Young Stephen's place of business to find one big pumpkin and lots of little ones. (When did little pumpkins come into vogue?) I bought the big one and when I got home decided ...

Portuguese Haddock Soup   Today finds me in the middle of a cooking blitz and it's not all going to plan.  Last week I thought I'd make oxtail soup. The spouse and I had the tails freezing in preparation for two recipes ( The Soup Book's oxtail soup and oxtail braise from Nigel Slater's Appetite ) but as I was browsing through The Soup Book I noticed that I haven't made too many fish soups; in fact, I've made only three out of the thirty-two in the Fish and Shellfish section. So I decided to make a fish soup and the Portuguese haddock caught my eye. Its ingredients include cavolo nero/kale/Savoy cabbage, onion, garlic, potato, milk and smoked haddock fillet. The spouse duly did the shopping, coming home with a Savoy cabbage and haddock fillet, the latter bought at Feeney's Fish (see blog of 14th August). Because there was plenty of cabbage and twice the weight of haddock needed, I decided to make double the quantity. The plan was to freeze the soup that ...

Sausage and Bean Soup I started writing this entry yesterday evening (Saturday 9th October) after I finished making sausage and bean soup from the Poultry, Game and Meat section of The Soup Book . It was for the two sons' dinner - the spouse and I were going out to dine.  The recipe is suggested by Eric Treuille of Books for Cooks (I have to admit I haven't heard of him before). The main ingredient is, of course, sausage meat. The other ingredients are cherry tomatoes, garlic, chilli flakes, cannellini beans, stock, balsamic vinegar and parsley or basil.  It didn't take too long, but it did involve roasting the tomatoes before starting the saucepan work, and liquidising a cupful of the beans and tomatoes for the final stage of cooking. There were a number of options for this sausage and bean soup. In his introduction, Eric Treuille writes, "We use chicken, honey and herb sausages in this dish, but other types work just as well." Then the ingredients state: ...

Rosemary's bean soup with Italian cheese chips Today I made my thirtieth soup! Before I start writing about this soup, I'll tell you a little bit more about the contents of The Soup Book . It's divided into these sections: Techniques ; Recipe Choosers ; Summer Vegetables ; Winter Vegetables ; Pulses and Nuts ; Fish and Shellfish ; Poultry, Game and Meat ; Fruit ; Cheese ; and Breads . Techniques covers making stock, preparing vegetables, herbs, spices and pulses, pureeing, thickening, enriching, rescuing, garnishing, storecupboard essentials, and making use of leftovers.  The other sections contain just what their titles indicate! I have made eleven summer vegetable soups, five winter vegetable soups, five from Pulses and Nuts , three from Fish and Shellfish , four from Poultry, Game and Meat , and two from Cheese . It's obviously going to take me a while to get through The Soup Book . I have no idea why this soup is called Rosemary's bean soup. It contains ros...

Italian Wedding Soup   Avid readers of Minnie's Soup Kitchen will recall that on the 4th September I considered making Italian wedding soup because the older offspring had expressed an interest in a meaty soup.  He's just back from a week away in Scotland and no doubt has missed his parents' home cooking, so he deserves some spoiling. Yesterday I baked him a rich chocolate almond cake with orange and lemon, using a recipe from a favourite book, Chocolate by Gill MacLennan. For chocolate lovers everywhere I will list the ingredients: white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, grated orange and lemon peel, eggs, butter, caster sugar, ground almonds, white breadcrumbs and cocoa powder. Now wipe all the drool away from around your mouths and pay attention to the soup. Cake batter in progress Chocolate by Gill MacLennan Ingredients for chocolate almond cake A slice of chocolate cake Italian wedding soup - the raw ingredients As I write, the meat ingr...

Well , I did the course Getting the Bees Ready for Winter in Capparoe near Scarriff and I wore a bee suit!  The spouse and I headed down to Co Clare last Saturday afternoon (18th September) and stayed in a B&B with the kitschest website I've ever seen. The next morning we were well fed by our host - delicious smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. After checking out we drove along beside Lough Derg and on to Scarriff. Irish Seed Savers is signposted and - as with many Irish roads - the signpost for the exact road is right on the corner instead of several yards ahead of it and brakes have to be slammed on, teeth have to be gritted as you skid past the turn, and gears have to be changed! The road to Capparoe is just one lane wide, so you need to be watching out for cars coming from the opposite direction.The spouse dropped me off in the carpark before heading off to Ballyvaughan (he had a good seafood chowder there, by the way) and the Cliffs of Moher.  Wellingtons on, Marigol...

If anyone out there wondered where I was last weekend and why I wasn't making soup, I have to confess I was otherwise occupied with the younger offspring's birthday party preparations (he was eleven last week).  We had to go into town on Saturday morning to do some shopping. I tried to get past the shoe shop that stocks my size, but I felt my feet turning of their own accord. "I'll just take a quick look," I tried to promise the offspring. My lips spoke but my heart lied. One pair of shoes later, we went to splurge on the sister-in-law's birthday present. "Suggestions," I texted imperiously. "Surprise me," she texted back, out-imperiousing me. Just in case she's reading this, all I'll say is there is a lot of pink involved in her surprise. Sorted! A tad more shopping was done before the offspring and I rendez-vous-ed with his friend who was to stay the night with us before the next day's party. Back home and...

Roast Potato Soup  Today's soup - selected this morning before the spouse went shopping - is roast potato. The weather has been lovely just lately and today promised more of the same. Suddenly, at around 8 o'clock, thunder rolled and then the rain fell, stopping again shortly afterwards. But back to the potatoes. This soup contains floury potatoes, which are roasted separately, before putting into a pan with shallots, garlic, parsnip and vegetable stock (prepared by the spouse recently). I am not a fan of parsnips, but hoped that the yet to be added cream, bacon and onions would help to disguise the taste. The bacon and onions are fried separately and served as a topping. This week I was the only one not too keen on the soup. The younger offspring joined his father and brother in voting it a good soup. All three would like to have it again. The older offspring asked about having a beef soup - he missed the Hungarian goulash back in June - so I checked the index ...