Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Soupe de Poissons This morning I opened The Soup Book and decided to make soupe de poissons by Marie-Pierre Moine. It contains onions, leeks, mixed fish and seafood, dried fennel stalk, tomatoes, garlic (lots of it), flat-leaf parsley, bay leaves, dried orange peel, tomato puree and saffron.  The suggested accompaniment is croutes rubbed with garlic and spread with rouille (a spicy garlic sauce) or topped with Gruyere cheese.  Getting the ingredients together required some effort. I cheated by using frozen prawns from the freezer, fresh fennel, fresh orange peel and curly-leaf parsley (from the garden - the slugs haven't eaten it all!).  The spouse had told me about a new fish shop on Upper Rathmines Rd and I was intending to go there on my way home from town this afternoon, but on my way into town I spotted a fish shop near Portobello Bridge. There and then, while sitting near - but not in - my favourite seats on the bus I resolved to call in on the way home.  S...

Maple-roasted carrot and ginger soup   Well, I'm back in the kitchen making soup after the Baltic holiday. Unfortunately, I didn't get to try any authentic Baltic soups - it was far too hot - but I hope to go back again one winter.Today in Dublin has been very strange in terms of the weather - overcast this morning, then lashing rain, now it seems to be warm and sunny.  I digress. Today I have made maple-roasted carrot and ginger soup.  It contains carrots (lots of them) cut into "roughly little-finger-sized pieces". I like this sort of measurement, even though it requires the standardisation of little fingers. The other ingredients are onions, stem ginger "cut into matchsticks", garlic, sunflower oil, maple syrup, chicken or vegetable stock, optional squeezes of lemon juice, salt and pepper, and lovage.  Sophie Grigson advises that if you can't find lovage (and I don't recall ever seeing it anywhere), use chopped chives to finish.  Having just ha...