Minnie's Soup Kitchen

For the sake of keeping this blog alive I am making notes on some of my activities in 2015. Edmund de Waal's The White Road: A Pilgrimage of Sorts appears to be a collection of notes made as he strove to uncover the origins of porcelain while at the same time exploring the creative process. Not that I am claiming to uncover the origins of soup-making. 2015 was not a year for breaking soup-making records. I made six soups from The Soup Book : wild salmon chowder (3rd January), brandied lobster chowder (17th January), beef chilli (31st August), soupe de poissons (3rd October), chunky turkey (26th December) and minted pea and ham (28th December).  Baking Log I continued to bake frequently for fetes and other fund-raising events, baking being an activity that soothes me and the results of which bring pleasure to others.  From Martha Day's Baking :  Cherry marmalade muffins (15th January)  Orange cake (14th February) Toffee bars (16th March, 28th March and ...

Mussel and Fennel Soup  Yesterday was a pleasant day. It didn't rain, the spouse brought me breakfast in bed (despite his having been out on a "mini-tear" the night before) and we weren't in a rush to get anything done. After I observed last Wednesday that I hadn't made much progress through the fish section of The Soup Book , I decided to have another go. I checked with the two offspring that they would both eat mussels and asked the spouse to see if his favourite fish shop had any while he was out doing the shopping. Obviously, they had otherwise I'd be writing about a completely different soup today. So, the ingredients for my forty-ninth soup included mussels, dry white wine (I used Sancerre), tomatoes, leek, parsley, thyme, a bay leaf, fennel, orange peel, potato and saffron. The advice from the fish monger (not the same as the one I spoke to earlier in the week) was to put the mussels in a bowl and cover them with a plate. I did this and before putti...

Büsumer Fish Soup Büsumer (or Büsumer Deichhausen ) is situated on the North Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany and is apparently the source of today's soup. I haven't made very many of the fish soups in The Soup Book , mainly because I haven't felt sure that I would be able to get the necessary ingredients. There are thirty-two fish soup recipes and so far I have made just five; Büsumer fish soup is my sixth. The listed ingredients include carrots, potato, onions, vegetable stock, a bay leaf, haddock or pollock, lemon juice, prawns, chestnut or button mushrooms, and fresh dill. I bought the fish in a recently opened fish shop. I was agreeably surprised that the fish monger had both haddock and pollock on display. I asked him what the difference was between the two. He said that pollock was "meatier," more like cod. When I told him I was following a soup recipe, he immediately urged me to buy the pollock. He also shelled the prawns for me. I used some v...