Minnie's Soup Kitchen

A Sliver of Silvia Silvia cake My first bake of February was the Silvia cake from Hygge and Fika . Buttery batter and coconut topping: it had to be good. I was rather disappointed by the cake's blandness. I've checked a couple of other recipes for this cake, none of which stand out as making it more interesting or flavoursome. Spinach and Spice Loaf Spinach and spice loaf This is more like it. Spinach, chilli, cumin, garlic and pinenuts provide rich flavours and texture. Definitely to be made again.  Rabbitting On A new recipe from an old book was Dorset rabbit from Doreen Fulleylove's Country Fare . Our butcher had a couple of rabbits for less than €10, so why not have a go? Jointed and covered with a layer of breadcrumbs and suet, this was a tasty meal.  All Square  Hazelnut squares One weekend I made raspberry squares from Hygge and Fika and hazelnut squares from Martha Day's Baking . I've had my eye on the hazelnut s...

Two Soups Celeriac and Bramley apple soup ingredients Last Saturday (27th February) I made celeriac and Bramley apple soup using Tom Kerridge's recipe in his book Proper Pub Food . I should have ended up with enough soup for 4-6 people but I was lucky to get two bowls. Because I'd used too much celeriac, once I had processed the cooked mixture, the resulting soup looked liked stodgy porridge. I strained as much as I could and it was very tasty indeed, especially with the crumbled Roquefort and chopped walnuts. Celeriac and Bramley apple soup with walnuts and Roquefort cheese Ingredients for butternutsquash soup and tomato salsa The next day I made roasted garlic and butternut squash soup with tomato salsa from Complete Comfort Food (edited by Bridget Jones). Lots of nice ingredients: whole garlic bulbs to be roasted, thyme, squash and ground coriander in the soup; tomatoes, red pepper and red chilli in the salsa. Much to my surprise, I have just found a ve...

I've made two soups from The Soup Book so far this month: creamy kidney bean by Roopa Gulati (7th December) and brandied lobster chowder by Carolyn Humphries (yesterday - 21st December). Creamy kidney bean soup The kidney bean soup was the 166th from The Soup Book and the first soup from the Pulses and Nuts section in six months. With ingredients such as fresh root ginger, green chillies and lime juice to counteract the kidney beans and tomatoes, I expected my tastebuds to be tingling with delight. Unfortunately, they weren't. As Eamon Dunphy might have said, it was a good soup but not a great soup. The older son was the food critic on that occasion and I think he was a little disappointed. I brought the remainder into work for my lunch the following Monday and thought it had improved slightly. It's not on my "make again" list. Brandied lobster chowder   Now this is my sort of soup! Lobster , white wine , shallots, brandy , tomato, anchovy essence ...

Roast Squash Soup Soup number 164 from The Soup Book was made from butternut squash roasted with tomatoes, garlic, rosemary, thyme and red onion. They smelt deliciously rich as they roasted away until ready to be whizzed in the blender with some hot stock. Sophie Grigson suggests that winter squash such as onion squash, red kuri, crown prince or pumpkin can be used for this recipe. I knew that I would be lucky to find any of those so I plumped for butternut. Nothing wrong with that. Having blended the soup, I made the rouille to be spread on croutes. This rouille was made from saffron soaked in warm water, garlic, a red chilli, egg yolk, red wine vinegar, and olive and sunflower oils beaten together. Not all together at the one time, just a little at a time. I prepared the croutes, re-heated the soup and set the table. Then I called whichever male persons were still in the house, ie, the spouse and the younger offspring. I ladled the soup into warmed bowls and left everyone t...

Mango and Curry Leaf Soup Yesterday was a sunny Saturday afternoon - our second hint of summer in six days. I had spent the previous evening baking Ottolenghi's marzipan muffins  (adapted - I didn't make the plum compote) and making fudge and  Nigella's rocky road  for a parish  fête . My teeth were on edge from checking that everything was up to standard and I had spent yesterday afternoon manning (personning?) a stall. But, I still wanted to make soup. I hadn't made anything from the fruit section of The Soup Book for a long time - since the 15th March 2012, in fact.  The recipe for mango and curry leaf soup is by Roopa Gulati , of whom I usually expect great things. I gathered together the ingredients: Alfonso mangoes  (I'm not sure that mine were Alfonso), black mustard seeds, curry leaves, red chilli, dark muscovado sugar, turmeric, coconut milk, lime juice and coriander. Roopa gave the preparation time as fifteen minutes: a huge un...

Pause for Thought A month has passed since I last made a soup from The Soup Book but it seems like many more. Christmas and the associated festivities, preparations, socialising and recuperation have all intervened, all requiring their own investment of time and effort. The preceding months had been emotionally fraught as my family dealt with a serious health issue. Other events of significance included the younger offspring's initiation into the business of secondary school, a family wedding and adapting to the demands of a new role at work. And all the while I was trying to keep up with my self-imposed soup-making schedule. So this year calls for a new approach: less frequent soup-making and more experimentation with other recipe books. The spouse and I have a lot of cookery books, a few of which were my parents' and date from the 1970s. I flicked through one of these yesterday: Alison Burt's The Gourmet's Guide to French Cooking , first published in 1973. Its r...

Soup Review Mixed mushrooms Since my last post on 13th November I have made three soups: mushroom soup (on the 17th), Thai chicken soup (18th November) and garbure (25th November). All that activity has meant I've now completed 149 soups since I started working my way through the recipes in The Soup Book back in December 2009. Nearly three years after I made spinach and rosemary soup I can hardly believe I'm three quarters of the way through the book. I am not sure that I will get through all the recipes and so will change my approach to making soup. I may make it less frequently and try out soup recipes from other cookery books that the spouse and I own. We'll see. Mixed mushrooms: chopped and cooking The spouse and I now have a new favourite vegetable shop . It's not cheap nor is it especially convenient to get to from where we live, but the selection of fresh fruit and vegetables and other produce is impressive. The spouse has been talking about this p...

Harissa and Chickpea Soup A couple of week's ago the spouse expressed an interest in making this soup from The Soup Book . Well, it's my blog and I make the soups. That said, I let him make the harissa that's needed to flavour the soup I made last Saturday (10th November). The recipe is by Roopa Gulati so I expected spice and richness. We weren't disappointed. The spouse is becoming a collector of harissa pastes and enjoyed making this one, which called for a red pepper, olive oil, seeds (coriander, cumin and caraway), tomato puree, garlic, red chillies, smoked paprika and lemon juice. I don't know how this was made as the spouse was the boss of the harissa. I needed only a couple of tablespoons for the soup, but we can use the rest with couscous (a favourite with the younger offspring). By the way, we now have three jars of smoked paprika due to inadequacies in our spice filing system. I hope that binding them together with a rubber band will help prevent any m...

Hot and Sour Chicken Broth Open a book, any book. Ready? Is it a cookery book? Is it a book with soup recipes? Is it The Soup Book ? Now, open it and find a recipe, one you haven't made before and one that won't require too much effort to find the ingredients. It's getting trickier, isn't it? Let's look in the Poulty, Game and Meat section. Aah! There's one and it's by Roopa Gulati , so there's a good chance we'll all enjoy the finished product. I looked at the ingredients: ginger or galangal, lime leaves, garlic, coriander (the stems!!!), lemon grass, chicken breasts, bird's eye chillies, shallots, lime juice, fish sauce, sweet chilli sauce, pak choi and bean sprouts. Yes, I could get anything I didn't already have at home. Off to the shops and then home. I spent yesterday afternoon (20th October) baking for a cake sale: apple and fig cake, lemon and ginger cake, banana, coconut and walnut cake, and fudge. Phew! I was exhausted. An...

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...

Whipped Yogurt Soup with Sauteed Courgette Two days ago I was a little disappointed with Roopa Gulati . Today her reputation is being rehabilitated. I had a day off work and was in the mood for making soup. I've had my eye on this yogurt soup recipe for a while. And now that I have tamarind pulp and curry leaves, I was good to go. The other ingredients include dried red chillies, fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds, gram flour, turmeric, Greek yogurt, coriander leaves, onion, courgette and a green chilli. So I lined up my spices, diced the onion and courgette, and finely chopped the green chilli. Then it was time to start cooking. When the oil was hot I threw in the chillies and mustard seed. Next in were the fenugreek, cumin and curry leaves. I remembered reading somewhere that curry leaves will spit when thrown into hot oil: I was not disappointed by the miniature firework display in my wok. Next in was some gram flour followed by turmeric. The next stage was tricky because I did...

Pineapple Broth with Cod Perhaps recent enthusing about  Roopa Gulati 's recipes has tempted fate. Today's recipe was ... well ... a little disappointing. Her introduction to the recipe in The Soup Book states that this combination of South Indian and South-East Asian flavours is "a marvellous match" for any firm-fleshed fish or seafood. Those flavours are derived from onion, peanuts, coconut, ginger, coriander, sesame, cumin, poppy seeds, tamarind, turmeric, chilli, pineapple, lime and mint. Add caption I started by preparing the paste: chopped onion, peanuts, desiccated coconut, ginger and four different seeds (coriander, sesame, cumin and poppy) heated until the coconut darkened. When cooled, I put the mixture into my processor, but didn't have much luck creating a coarse paste. So I got out the stick blender and had a go with that. I then added the tamarind paste, turmeric and chilli powder, but the blender was no match for the tamarind paste. It ret...

Pork Vindaloo Broth Making Roopa Gulati's pork vindaloo broth from The Soup Book has been a two-day event. It began yesterday morning with my ruling out recipes because I didn't know where to get curry leaves or kaffir lime leaves . Eventually I decided upon pork vindaloo broth because I knew where I'd be able to obtain the necessary  tamarind pulp  if it wasn't available at the supermarket we use most frequently. The spouse was working outside Dublin so I had to take up the supermarket shopping slack. And what did I find in the spice section? Only dried curry leaves and kaffir lime leaves! Later on I had to accompany the younger offspring to a party in town and I planned to call into the Asian shops near the city centre in search of tamarind pulp or paste. I bought the tamarind on Drury Street before heading off to Lower Clanbrassil Street to see if I could buy fresh curry leaves or kaffir lime leaves. First I stopped into an Indian sweet shop the spouse had told ...

Curried Parsnip Soup I do not like parsnips . There. It's out in the open. I don't like them boiled and mashed with or without carrots, nor do I like them coated in Parmesan cheese and roasted. Just in case you missed it the first time, I don't like parsnips. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when twenty years ago I reluctantly ate curried parsnip soup served as the first course of a wedding meal and I liked it. So I had great expectations of yesterday's soup. According to Sophie Grigson 's introduction to it in The Soup Book , Jane Grigson created the recipe in the 1970s and it was deemed "radical at the time". The ingredients include coriander seeds, cumin seeds, chilli flakes, ground turmeric, ground fenugreek, an onion, garlic, parsnips, stock and cream, with either chives or parsley to garnish. I ground up the spices in my pestle and mortar before peeling and chopping the onion, garlic and parsnips. Then I cooked the vegetables in butter, adding t...

Creamy Pistachio Soup I have yet to be disappointed by any of Roopa Gulati 's recipes in The Soup Book  and today's effort was no exception. It's been an erratic day weather-wise on this May bank holiday - heavy rain interspersed with lovely sunshine. We had most of the ingredients in the house: pistachio nuts, cardamon pods, mace, coriander seeds and leaves, garlic, spring onions, root ginger, garam masala, vegetable stock and cream. All I had to do was dash out between showers to buy a green chilli from Young Stephen. This was not a soup to be hurried as there was a lot of preparation involved. I got the younger offspring to to shell the nuts for me - he only really got into when I handed him the meat tenderiser so that he could bash open the more reticent shells. I then cooked the shelled pistachios in boiling water for a couple of minutes and then spent more time than anticipated removing the skins. Sensing fiddliness, the spouse volunteered his skinning skills. Th...

Allotment Soup  The recipe for allotment soup by Thane Prince is the first in The Soup Book and in the summer vegetables section. I made it last Wednesday (11th April) in advance of visitors coming the next day, one of whom (a friend of the younger offspring) is a vegetarian. The listed ingredients include dried haricot beans (I used canned cannellini beans), leek, turnip (I don't think I've ever cooked white turnip before), carrots, courgette, celery, potato, tomatoes, garlic and green beans. I increased the quantities stated in The Soup Book , just in case there wasn't enough to go around: I wanted a lot of allotment soup. The most labour-intensive part of the preparation was dicing the vegetables and I'm glad I avoided soaking dried beans. The only things I had to do to finish the soup for my guests on Thursday were to reheat the soup and add in the fresh green beans and cannellini beans. Five of us sat down to eat and there was far too much soup. My guest...