Cheerful Chervil

Minnie's chervil three weeks after planting

Vegetable and Chervil Soup

This recipe from The Soup Book is by Raymond Blanc and in order to make it I had to plant chervil specially! You'll see how it's grown in the last three weeks (see my blog of 11th May). The vegetables needed were onion, carrots, celery, leeks, courgette and tomatoes (yes, I know: technically a fruit). I peeled and chopped as necessary then went off for a rest. I also needed "a scant ounce" of chervil. By the time I'd obtained this, there was very little left of my plant! The photo to the right shows it before I'd stripped it nearly bare.

When it was time to start cooking, I set to, pleased with myself at having everything ready. The first step involved sweating the onion, garlic, carrots, celery and leeks in melted butter. After this in went boiling water, the carrots and tomatoes for a five-minute fast boil. Finally, I added a little more butter and the finely chopped chervil. I ladled the soup out and left the spouse and younger offspring to top their portions with creme fraiche. The verdict: a very healthy and tasty soup. Not having tasted chervil before, I was surprised by how aniseed-y it was. A good soup, easy to make but the jury is out on whether it was worth growing chervil for.

Bee-keeping tools

Bee is for Bloom

The spouse and I cycled over to the Phoenix Park for the Bloom festival. Beautiful flowers in some perhaps not quite so beautiful gardens. We visited the FIBKA stand where they were displaying live bees but I couldn't get close enough to photograph the display case. I had to make do with a photo of the tools display!

From a floristry display at Bloom

That's it for now. I'm off to enjoy the rest of the bank holiday weekend.

Minnie

Comments

Lovage Soup

Lovage Soup Today I made lovage soup, the second recipe by Sophie Grigson in The Soup Book that I have used in the last four days. She introduces the recipe with these remarks: "If you don't grow this old-fashioned herb yourself, ask around among your gardening friends or head down to the nearest garden centre to see if they sell it. " As I mentioned in my last blog entry (18th May), lovage now features among the herbs in my front garden. As the spouse left the camera at home, I took some photographs. Parsley, sorrel and lovage in Minnie's garden. Rosemary, parsley and lovage in Minnie's garden. I had hoped to add chervil to my collection of herbs - there's a recipe for vegetable and chervil soup in The Soup Book - but "Young Stephen" wasn't able to source any for me. At least he tried. Just while I'm mentioning Stephen, I have to reveal that the spouse and the older offspring claim that he has been mention...

2019: Another year over ...

I was very busy last month as I prepared for Christmas. My cooking ventures included making three soups from The Soup Book : zuppa di verdure, Brussels sprout soup and kichidi, which I first made in January 2013, December 2010 and November 2011 respectively. I'm not sure what happened to the kichidi when I made it two days ago, but pouring out the water in which I simmered the lentils, rice and ginger was probably not a good idea. Jamie Oliver's Christmas rocky road I spread the Christmas love by making Nigella 's and Jamie Oliver 's Christmas rocky road. Nigella uses amaretti biscuits, Brazil nuts and glace cherries while Jamie uses popcorn, coconut and stem ginger syrup. Cut and put into bags left over from the older offspring's wedding, both types of rocky road were well received as gifts. A large cake tin full of Nigella's was put to good use at my sister T's house over Christmas. Nigella's Christmas rocky road One of my colleagues p...

North Sea Fish Soup

Shaun Hill is the author of today's soup, North Sea fish soup, and he advises that as the seafood must be "just cooked", dense fish should be cut into small pieces or added earlier. It was a simple soup to make as there was no frying or whizzing. The only panicked moment or ten that I experienced was when I couldn't find the cod loins the spouse had bought. I am terrible when it comes to finding things and can usually rely on the spouse to find whatever it is I'm looking for. It's the main reason I married him. But even he was almost as useless as I was. I could remember riffing on the topic of cod loins earlier in the day. The older offspring had asked: "Why cod loins? Do cod have loins? Do they walk?" Fair point. I remembered asking was it a spelling mistake? Had the packager meant to write "cod lions", and so it continued.All very silly. North Sea fish soup: final addition of the tomato and parsley Ready to eat The ingredient...

Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Search This Blog