African Chicken and Peanut Soup

Here's a little known and rather sad fact.  Mr Ed, the talking horse (of course) was often said to have been made to talk by having peanut butter smeared on his teeth.  As the horse attempted to lick it off, it looked like his mouth was moving in speech.  The truth of the matter is that the horse had wires attached to his mouth, but the animal trainer thought that the peanut butter story was more charming, child-friendly and less likely to have those pesky animal rights busy-bodies interfering. Nowadays of course, Mr Ed would be made to talk via the wonders of computer animation (and probably voiced by Eddie Murphy - which would be a good thing...)

Another little known fact is that peanut is actually a bean.

A third (and final) fact is that peanut butter is my father's least liked food in the entire world.

At least two of these facts were brought to you with the aid of Wikipedia, see if you can guess which one wasn't...

The reason, of course, for these nut-based facts was that today's soup has peanut butter as an ingredient.  I love peanut butter on toast from my breakfast, but for some reason, I'd never gotten round to using it as an ingredient in cooking before.  I now feel that I have been remiss for all this time, as it added so much to this soup.  Indeed, if anyone has any other recipes which use peanut butter, feel free to point me in their direction in the comments section below!

On the question of crunchy vs smooth, however, I leave the choice entirely up to you!

Also, I used left-over chicken from a Sunday Roast (Again) but there's no reason on that you couldn't use chicken thighs or breast if you wanted.  This is a lovely, hearty and a little bit spicy soup

Ingredients
450g Cooked Chicken
1 Onion
1 Small Squash
2 Red Peppers
1 Tin Chopped Tomatoes
3 Cloves of Garlic
3tbsp Peanut Butter
2tbsp Sesame Oil
1 Small Piece of Ginger
1tsp Chili Flakes
2tsp Curry Powder
1l Chicken stock

Method
1. Peel and de-seed the squash then cut into cubes.  Finely chop the onion and garlic.

2. Heat some olive oil in your soup pan, then cook the onions until the soften.  Add the garlic and grated ginger, then cook of 3 minutes over a low heat.

3.  Add the squash, chopped pepper chili flakes as curry powder and cook for a further 5 minutes.  Then add the tomatoes, stock and sesame oil.  Finally add the cooked chicken

4.  Bring the soup to the boil and then simmer, covered, for 20 minutes, before adjusting seasoning and serve.  Enjoy!

Beetroot Soup with Goats Cheese

By my count, this is the third soup that I've made involving Beetroot, and that's what I'm enjoying so much about writing this blog.  Even after 2 years, there are still so many soups left un-made, so many ingredients yet to so soupified and so many classics yet to be tried.

Speaking of which, I'll hopefully have a new challenge coming up in the next few weeks - along the lines of the Olympic Food Challenge, but less stressful as I'll be doing it on my own and won't have anyone else cracking the whip at me to get posts done on time, but nevertheless, should open the door to many new and interesting soup recipes - watch this space for details

All soup and no play makes Dan a dull boy...

I love beetroot, although it always looks like someone has been murdered in my kitchen, especially if there is a food blender lid malfunction, as happened today.  On the other hand, I now have free Halloween decorations in the flat - it's a scene from The Shining...

Although I started this post by saying that this is the third different soup I've made with beetroot, this could be seen as a variation of Borscht.  I'm assuming though, that Borscht has to have cabbage and/or ham in it to be proper Borscht.  If that is true, then this is a completely different soup, of not, then this is just a variation on a theme.

The vodka and horseradish give it a bit of a cheeky kick, and the sharpness of the goat's cheese is the perfect complement to the earthy sweetness of the beetroot.

Ingredients
750g Beetroot
800ml Beef Stock
1 Tin Chopped Tomatoes
1tsp Fresh Thyme
1tbsp Horseradish
3tbsp Vodka
1 Large Onion
2 Cloves Garlic
Olive Oil
Salt
Black Pepper

Method
1.  Top and tail the beetroot, the scrub them under cold water, like you would new potatoes.

2.  Heat a large pan of water, bringing to the boil and then put the beetroot in, simmer and cook for 30 minutes.  When they are cooked through, remove from the heat, drain and allow the beetroot to cool.  Cut into cubes.

3.  Chop the onion and garlic.  Heat some olive oil in the soup pan and then fry off the onion and garlic.

4.  Add the beetroot, stock, tomatoes, thyme, horseradish and vodka to the pan, bring to the boil and then simmer.  Cover and cook for 15 minutes.

5.  Once the soup is cooked through, let it cool and then use a stick blender to make it nice and smooth.  Return to the pan and heat through.  Adjust seasoning and then serve.  Crumble some goats cheese on top of each bowl to garnish -  lots of goats cheese, as it tastes brilliant.  Enjoy!

Cabbage and Caraway Soup

 I was planning this soup as a nice winter warmer, but now it's unseasonably warm...  Anyhoo - this week I was away at a wedding, and no, I didn't cry, but I did get rather drunk and sing and dance until I felt creaky the next morning.  So I resolved to get more healthy (which, on reading some old posts I seem to do a lot, yet I'm still not healthy.  Maybe it's a problem of willpower not diet?)

In the veg box this week was some lovely cabbage, which seemed to be ideal for forming the basis of a healthy soup.  Now cabbage soup always seems to get a bad reputation, either as the basis for another fad diet, or as a symbol of poverty (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has a lot to answer for there...) or as a symbol of perceived Eastern European austerity.

Not pictured - 3 caterpillars that crawled out of the cabbage...

When I was thinking about cabbage, two things came into mind, one was bacon, which always livens up a dull vegetable (or anything else to be honest...) and caraway.  I have recently fallen in love with the humble caraway seed, after getting into bread making a bit (well, with the help of a bread making machine - it's not cheating is it?) and caraway seeds make fresh bread even tastier.  I love the aniseed-y flavour, so I thought, why not throw it all together and see what it comes out like.

As it happens, the soup was rich and filling and the caraway smelled so nice when the soup was cooking I was drooling all afternoon.

So think cabbage soup is boring?  Give this a whirl and see if it doesn't change your mind...

Recipe after the jump

Venison Soup with Bilberry Relish

Everything seems upside down this week - after a long spell at work with irregular breaks, I don't know what day it is - I'm assuming it's a Tuesday because I'm making soup.  Also, it really feels like autumn is just around the corner - where has the summer gone?  As such, I'm making a sort of autumnal game soup this week.  It also features a tangy and fruity bilberry relish, but you could use red or black currants if you don't have bilberries.

The ingredients for this soup came from a variety of sources.  The venison mince came from a stall at Kirkstall Deli Market, the Bilberries were picked on The Chevin, shallots from a friend's garden, onions, celery and carrots from a veg box and the stock from Essential Cuisine (okay - they sent me a few trial pots after reading the blog, which are rather brilliant and you can get you hands on them from their website)

As a measure of how my brain has seemingly stopped functioning, I had made some stock from scratch to use in this soup before a) I remembered the stock I was sent, and b) I made chicken stock when this soup needed Beef stock...  Maybe I should just go back to bed and wake up when my head is back to normal eh?

Recipe after the jump...

Beef, Beer and Black Pudding Soup

Sometimes, I feel like a food criminal, and suffer the guilt that goes along with it.  Why is that, I hear you ask.  Well, for the last 10 or so years, it seems that words like 'locally sourced' and 'organic' have gone from being trendy buzzwords to a way of life for food lovers.  Except...  bank balances, busy lives and other distractions seem to have gotten in the way of me getting on the bandwagon.  Now I know that people like Hugh F-W have made a career of making people like me feel guilty for not going the extra mile, and I know that I should be supporting local producers but sometimes real life gets in the way.

Then I started writing a blog about soup.  And I started thinking a little bit more about where the food I eat came from, how good it tasted and how much it cost, and (along with my current efforts to get a bit more healthy) I thought 'maybe I could try  little bit harder'.

Which brings us to today's soup.  I'm a Yorkshire Lad (apart from the sojourn to Hull, which is kinda, sorta still in Yorkshire if you squint) and this soup celebrates Yorkshire and lots of local things.  The beef was from a local butchers (just across the road from our local supermarket, so not out of my way at all), the Yorkshire Black Pudding (which is brilliant and would win a fight with black pudding from anywhere else in the country) was bought from a local food fair at Kirkstall Abbey, which as well as being a good place to buy interesting things (Water Buffalo Burgers! Venison Liver! Koeksisters!) was a fun afternoon out, the Thyme, I know is locally produced as it's growing on my window ledge, and the Bilberry Jam was made with my own fair hands after being picked on Yorkshire Day last year, and finally the beer was from the Black Sheep Brewery (in North Yorkshire!)

So that's a lot of locally produced stuff in this soup, and for not much (if any) extra effort.  The result is a brilliant, tasty soup which is a cross between a casserole and a thick gravy, and perfect for this wintery summer we seem to be having at the moment.

Incidentally, if you aren't currently in Yorkshire and didn't make any Bilberry jam, Red Currant jelly works just as well, and any black pudding can be used, although you can order Yorkshire Black Pudding from here

Ingredients
300g Beef Skirt
2 Small Onions
1 Large Carrot
3tbsp Mashed Potato
2 Bay Leaves
1tsp Fresh Thyme
250g Yorkshire Black Pudding
500ml Beer
800ml Beef Stock
2tbsp Bilberry Jam
125g Button Mushrooms
Puff Pastry

Method

1. Slice the beef into thin strips and then fry until brown.  I used beef dripping for this as it gives that extra bit of meaty flavour, but feel free to use oil if you want. Set the beef to one side

2.  Thinly slice the onions and fry them in the same pan, until golden.

3. Cut the carrots into small cubes.  Put them in a slow cooker with the onions, beef thyme and bay leaves.  Top up the slow cooker with the beer and stock and then add the bilberry jam and black pudding cubes.  Finally, add the mashed potato.  This is a good way of thickening things cooked in a slow cooker.  However, you could just use cornflour instead. Turn the slow cooker on and leave to cook for 4 hours


4.  Fry the button mushrooms in butter for 5 minutes, until they start to colour.

5.  Heat the oven and cook your puff-pastry (I used pre-prepared stuff form the shop for this, rolled onto a baking tray and cut into squares of about 3 cm)

6.  Serve the soup into dishes and then garnish with the mushrooms and puff pastry squares.  Enjoy!

Chicken and Tarragon Soup With Ravioli

This week I've been trying to get fit. I know, don't faint with shock from the news but it's true.  After years of abusing my body with every substance I could lay my hands on (well, just beer, mainly) and leading what one could definitely call a sedentary lifestyle, I decided that something needed to change - possibly as I'm nearing a significant landmark birthday (hint : It isn't 21) and developing a decidedly hypochondria's perspective on life...

So I started running.  Yes, for the first time since doing PE at school, I intentionally set out to run somewhere (as opposed to chasing a bus or that time I got attacked by angry bees) and guess what? I'm still (just about) alive to tell the tale!

So what does this have to do with soup?  Well, I'm one of those people for whom calories seem like witchcraft, fat and sugar content are mysteries on par with the fate of Atlantis.  Whereas some people can pick up food and make an informed decision about their health and diet suitability, I'm left scratching my head and thinking "60% fat, well that's not too bad, is it?"

So I thought I'd have a go at producing a vaguely healthy soup this week, and also using my new found enthusiasm for the pasta maker. And having now made fresh pasta and then turned it into ravioli, I believe I could give Michelle Roux Jr a run for his money in the culinary stakes...

This soup is so light and tasty, and I've never really cooked with tarragon before, but I love the taste, although I'm given to understand that there is a global tarragon shortage at the moment, although no-one seems to have told my local supermarket... And you can use some left over chicken from the Sunday roast for the filling of the ravioli as well

Ingredients
For the Broth
1.5l Chicken Stock
1 1/2 tbsp Finely Chopped Fresh Tarragon
250ml White Wine


For the Pasta
250g plain flour / pasta flour
1tsp Salt
1 Egg and 3 more egg yolks, lightly beaten
1tbsp Olive Oil
1 Egg White

For the Filling
200g Cooked Chicken
Zest of 1/2 Lemon
1tbsp Chopped Tarragon
1tbsp Chopped Flat leaf Parsley
60ml Double Cream

1.  Make the pasta. I used pasta flour, which is finer than plain flour, but if you can't get it, then plain will do just fine.  Sieve the flour and salt into a pile on a clean surface, then make a well in the middle.  Pour in the beaten eggs and oil and start to bring the mixture together with your finger tips.

After a while, the mixture will start to come together, but if it's too dry, add some water, sparingly as you don't want to make it too wet.  Once it forms a ball, need for about 5 minutes, until the dough becomes smooth and a bit elastic.  Then wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Run the pasta maker to make sheets, then cover them is a sprinkling of flour and set aside for the moment.

 2.  Next prepare the filling for the ravioli.  Put the chicken, herbs and zest in a food processor, with some salt and pepper, then pulse the blender to finely chop the ingredients, but not puree them.  Take the mixture out of the blender, put into a bowl and stir in the cream.  Set this aside to chill for 10 minutes.

3.  Cut the pasta sheets into pieces about 6cm by 12cm and lay them out flat.  Into each one, spoon a ball of the filling about 3 or 4cm in diameter, leaving enough space to fold and seal the ravioli, then moisten the edges of the pasta with lightly beaten egg white, before folding it over and sealing it around the edges, first with your fingers, then trim the ravioli to neaten it and finally press the edges down with a fork.  Put the finished ravioli in the fridge to chill for an hour at least before cooking them.

 If you make too much pasta (and I did!) separate the sheets with greaseproof paper, put them in a sealed bag and put them in the freezer for later use...

4. Heat the stock in your soup pan, then add the wine, tarragon and season to taste. Let this cook for about 10-15 minutes, so the stock infuses with the taste of the tarragon/

5.  Heat a large pan of salted water.  Once it's come to the boil, cook your ravioli for 10 minutes.  You may have to do this in batches if you're making a lot of ravioli.  I just about got away with 10 ravioli in one pan!

6.  Drain the ravioli and then transfer them to the stock, cook for another 5 minutes and you are ready to serve/

7.  Garnish with some freshly chopped tarragon.  Enjoy!

Peking Duck Soup With Pancakes

Last Tuesday it was pancake day, and someone on twitter asked me why I wasn't making pancake soup.  A few thoughts went through my mind - the first of which was Wow, what an awesome idea, closely followed by Pancake Soup? That sounds awful, surely.  This was then followed by a quick Google search which revealed that yes, pancake soups do exist and yes, they seem very nice.


At about the same time, Mrs Soup returned from the market with a duck (Why does this sound like it is turning into a fairy tale?  Perhaps I should have checked to see if the duck laid golden eggs before I cooked it...) and several things clicked into place.  Duck... pancake... duck and pancake soup!

So after Sunday Lunch, where the majority of the duck was consumed, I set about making duck stock in preparation for the soup

Ingredients
For the stock
1 Duck Carcass
1 Onion
2 Carrots
2 Stalks Celery
2 Bay Leaves
1tsp Black Peppercorns
2 Cloves
4 Egg Whites

To make the stock, simply put all the bits in a large pan. Don't worry about chopping the vegetables too neatly, just rough bits will do.  Then add 2l of water, bring the pan to the boil, cover and leave for 3 hours.  This will make your whole house smell wonderful - I did it before I went to bed and ended up having dreams about this very soup!

Let the stock cool and then strain all the bits out.  You can skim off the fat at this point, or let the stock cool completely, when it turns into a jelly.  Then the fat can be collected and used, either for the soup recipe, or for making rather wonderful roast potatoes to go with your Sunday Roast.

To clarify the stock, you will need the four egg whites, whisked and then stirred into the COLD stock, otherwise they just cook straight away and you end up with a horrible mess.  Stir the egg whites into the stock and then slowly bring the pan to a boil.  Don't stir it at all, but the eggs will start to cook and form a scum on the top. After about 5-10 minutes on a gentle boil, you can skim this scum off the top and you will be left with a nice, clear stock.  Passing it through a fine sieve or muslin bag wouldn't hurt either!

Once the stock was done, I could start on the soup itself.

  
Ingredients
250g Shredded Duck Meat
25g Fresh Grated Ginger
1.2 l Duck Stock
1 Onion
2 Cloves Garlic
Duck Fat
1 Orange
2 Star Anise
1 tsp Sechuan Peppercorns
2 tbsp Plum Sauce
1 Red Chili

For the pancakes 
55g Plain Flour
1 Egg
Pinch of Salt
100ml Milk
35ml Water
25g Butter


1.  Chop the onion roughly.  Heat some duck fat, or oil (about 2tbsp) in a pan.  Add the onion, garlic and ginger and fry gently for 3-5 minutes, until the onions have softened but not coloured.

2. Remove the zest from the orange.  Add this, and then the juice from the orange to the pan, along with the half of the duck stock (500ml), Star Anise and Peppercorns.

3.  Bring the soup to the boil and then cover and simmer for 30 minutes

4.  Let the soup cool slightly, then sieve out all the vegetables, return to the pan and add the rest of the stock, the shredded duck meat and season to taste.

Disclaimer : I hate making pancakes.  There was swearing!

5.  Prepare the pancakes, roll them up and slice them into thin strips.  Place a pile of the sliced pancakes in the middle of warmed dishes, then serve the soup over these.

[I'm sure you don't need telling how to make pancakes, but if you need a reminder, let Auntie Delia guide you.  I made half the quantity she makes]

6. Garnish with chives and thinly sliced red chili. Serve and enjoy!

Perfect Roast Chicken

Sunday dinner has long been the highlight of my week.  From being something to enjoy whilst hung over after a hard night out (thanks Mum!) to something I really enjoy cooking myself, in all its permutations, a good roast has always been one of my favourite meals.

Roasting a chicken seems to have gotten a lot easier, what with supermarket chickens having pretty good instructions printed on the packaging, but there are ways of making it even better. First off, I would always go for a larger chicken than you think you will needs.  This is for two reasons - larger chickens are less likely to dry out during cooking, and left-over chicken is so versatile - using it in curries, pies, soups or even just a humble sandwich, and bigger birds mean more left-overs!

In fact, it can be easier and cheaper to buy a whole chicken for any recipe that needs chicken meat, and strip the carcass, then freeze what you don't need before cooking it.  It's not that hard to get the meat off the bone with a sharp knife and it will save quite a bit of money too - often a whole chicken costs as much as 2 fillets!

So, cooking the chicken.  It's so easy, but I'm always surprised by how many people get it wrong or just think it's too much hassle.  Pre-heat to oven to around 190ºc.  Get an oven dish big enough to fit your bird in comfortably, the peel and chop a few carrots, onions, sticks of celery or fennel and spread them over the dish.  Get a lemon and prick it a few times to get the juices flowing and put it, along with a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and oregano, into the chicken cavity, then cover the whole thing in foil and put in the oven.

Cook the chicken for 1 hour per kilogram and 30 minutes extra, and take the foil off for the last half hour, but baste the chicken a couple of times in that last half hour just to keep it moist, and also to give the chicken a lovely golden skin.  It's all about not letting the bird dry out, and the kitchen will be filled with a wonderful smell of roasting meat.

Check the meat is cooked through, by pricking it and making sure the juices that run out are clear of blood, then put the chicken on a plate, wrap with the foil again and leave to stand for 10 - 15 minutes before carving.  And when it comes to carving, you can put as much effort in as you want.  Personally I more or less tear the meat off and put it on to the plates.

But of course, cooking the chicken is only half the battle in preparing a Sunday Roast.  The rest is the vegetables, and when it comes to them, timing is key, so keep an eye on the clock and try to make sure everything is ready at the same time

I love roast potatoes with my roast dinners, but there are as many vegetables that go with a roast as there are cooks who prepare them.  If anyone has any interesting suggestions, I'd love to hear them, so feel free to pass them on in the comments section below, and in the meantime, enjoy your chicken!

Caldo Verde Soup

For an experiment, I randomly bought some vegetables and then had a look around for a soup recipe that used them.  The vegetable I bought was some lovely dark kale, which I decided to make into the Portugese soup called Caldo Verde.  I had some chorizo sausage that Mrs Soup brought back from a work trip to Belgium of all places and some stock that I made from last Sunday's roast chicken left-overs, so this soup was rather economical, and also very tasty

Chicken Noodle Soup

I have had an exciting culinary weekend during which I ate Wildebeest and Ostrich burgers, biltong and dim sum, so when I got back I thought I would try something vaguely oriental - inspired as I was by the dim sum (and my almost successful attempts at using chopsticks - the steamed pork buns almost all made it from steamer to mouth without a stop on the floor in-between), and also by the desire to eat something that wasn't too heavy, after all the rich food I had consumed over the last few days

So here is my attempt at chicken noodle soup

Leek & Potato Soup

This is a pretty simple, but hearty and tasty recipe.  I use chicken stock in this, but you could use vegetable stock, or just water.  Similarly, you could substitute the butter for vegetable oil and even miss out the cream if you are watching the calories

Stock and Awe (or ...and Roll)

Because no-one wants to waste money these days, and also because it's so damn tasty, I always try to make my own stock whenever I can.  That said, I use stock cubes more often than I use home made stock, mainly because it's more convenient, and I don't always have stock in (although I do freeze it when I can, for just such times)

I prefer to use a slow cooker for my stock, although just leaving it on a low heat for a long time works just as well.  Like anything when it comes to cooking, my approach is that it's not an exact science, and every time I make it, there are different items in my stock, depending on what's to hand.