Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Courgette and Potato Soup   I've had a cooking fest this Easter weekend. It began in anticipation of the older offspring's arrival home last Thursday. One of his favourite cakes is banana gingerbread which I make to a recipe by Paul Flynn  cut out of The Irish Times many years ago. I baked the gingerbread the night before he was due home and offered the batter bowl to the younger offspring to lick out. "No, thanks," he replied. "I only like to lick it when [my big brother] is here." When the older offspring arrived home, he complained about not getting mentioned as often as his younger brother in this blog. Sibling rivalry and psychological button-pressing is alive and well chez Minnie. We were having guests for Easter lunch (Juno, Mervyn and Steed) and our menu was to be a shellfish starter, roast beef and trimmings for the main course, and a choice of plum and almond tart and simnel cake for dessert. The spouse took charge of the starter and main co...

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...

German Chicken Broth According to the introductory lines in The Soup Book , this recipe is "based on a Thuringian vegetable soup" and "requires a good-quality, well-flavoured chicken stock, so make your own for best results." The last batch of chicken stock made in this house had pork chop bones added to it, so that's the stock I've used. The other ingredients are green beans, carrots, kohlrabi and mangetout or sugar snap peas: the finished broth is garnished with cream and finely chopped chervil. Kohlrabi is also known as German turnip ( rassica oleracea L. Gongylodes group). Of course, when I'm not looking for them, I see them in the shops but on the day when I want to buy some, I can't find them. So I substituted ordinary (white) turnips. They might even be just what I wanted. I bought them at the green grocer's cum garden centre (tiny) cum bistro (more below). The broth is cooked. The recipe is ver...