Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Potage St Germain What would I make this weekend, I wondered. I hadn't made a soup from the Pulses and Nuts section of The Soup Book since early May, and I'm trying to get at least seventy per cent of each different type of soup made by the end of the year. I've made all four of the cheese soups, and as of last week I've made seventy-two per cent of the summer vegetable soups. The winter vegetable and fish soups are the laggards. Potage St Germain: lettuce and peas added to the stock Potage St Germain is a kind of pea soup, in case you're wondering, and the recipe is by Marie-Pierre Moine .  The ingredients include butter, large spring onions, split green peas, peas (I used frozen ones), lettuce, egg yolk, creme fraiche, and Madeira or port. Much to my surprise, it took me two hours yesterday to prepare the soup, forty-five minutes longer than I expected. I should be used that by now. Anyway, I started by lining up the ingredients and then I used blades ...

Gazpacho We've been enjoying unexpectedly warm and sunny weather lately, so I thought a chilled soup would be apt. Flicking through The Soup Book  I came across Geetie Singh 's recipe for gazpacho . After a busy week and a busy Saturday spent preparing dinner for guests last night (actually, the spouse was busy preparing dinner), I was delighted to see that the preparation for the gazpacho was limited to peeling and chopping. Even having to get the food processor out didn't pose too much of a challenge. Tough decision-making was the theme of this recipe, starting with the options for certain ingredients: spring onions or red onion thyme, marjoram, parsley, mint or basil fresh chilli or cayenne pepper. I have underlined the choices I made. Gazpacho Breaking free from the constraints of the ingredients list, I used an orange pepper rather than the red indicated in the recipe. Other ingredients included garlic, cucumber, tomatoes, stale bread, red wine vineg...

Keralan Prawn Soup I have been longing to make this Keralan prawn soup by Roopa Gulati! It needed a special occasion and the occasion was the older offspring's last home-cooked dinner before returning across the water. In her introduction to the recipe Roopa writes: "This fragrant soup takes the best ingredients from a cottage garden in the southern Indian state of Kerala." I'm not sure that you'd find king prawns or coconut (milk and cream) in your Keralan cottage garden, but perhaps you would find mustard seeds, coriander (seeds and leaves), fenugreek seeds, red chillies, garlic, root ginger, curry leaves, onions and lime. For everything else, go to your Keralan shops. Keralan prawn soup This was one of those recipes where most of the effort goes into the preparation. I had to roast then grind peppercorns with the three different types of seeds. After that I chopped and processed the red chillies, garlic and ginger. Then the real cooking began: the cur...

Chicken and Pork Gumbo Chicken, pork and lardons simmering in stock It's been almost a month since I last made a soup from The Soup Book . It's a bank holiday weekend here in Dublin and the older offspring is home, so I thought I'd make a meaty soup for his delectation. Chicken and pork gumbo would be the very thing, I thought. The recipe is by Carolyn Humphries , whose Cuban black bean soup I made in March. The ingredients include chicken leg and thigh portions (Carolyn suggests substituting duck), smoked lardons or pancetta, belly pork, chicken stock, a bay leaf, red peppers, onion, garlic, celery, beefsteak tomatoes, green beans, okra, thyme, paprika (two types - sweet and smoked), Tabasco sauce and cooked rice. Vegetables simmering in stock The spouse kindly went shopping and bought most of the ingredients. All we needed was the okra (or ladies' fingers as I called them when I was growing up). We were going into town to take part in the Dublin Zombie Wa...