Leek and Potato Soup

With the UK lockdown now in its third week, I find myself buying slightly random greens with vague ideas of what to do with them rather than a firm plan. This is not a good idea, but for some reason I keep thinking that I shouldn't make specific plans, since I don't know if I'll be able to get hold of the right ingredients at the supermarket. This is very silly, since there doesn't appear to be any shortages in the vegetable section, at least not in my local shops.

But buying greens, they have a limited lifespan and must be used. Last week I bought a packet of leeks. They then had to live in the salad drawer at the bottom of the fridge, until Lundulph dug them out the other day and commented that they are going manky. Indeed, the outer leaves were yellow. Thus, I made sure to get potatoes when I went to the shop this week with the aim to make leek and potato soup. Oddly enough, this seems to be the only canned soup that's left on the shelf - no one is buying it.

After some research in my cook books, I settled on Delia Smith's recipe, but decided to increase the amounts and also spruce up a little with some chilli.

Ingredients

430 g leeks
1 kg potatoes
145 g onions
2 cloves of garlic
100 g salted butter
1 small scotch bonnet chilli
1 l chicken and/or vegetable stock
½ dl chopped curly leaf parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Trim the green edges and the root plate of the leeks, cut them in half length-wise and make sure to wash any grit stuck between the layers. Then slice finely and set aside.
2. Wash the potatoes well and peel if needed. Dice into 1 cm cubes and add to the leeks.
3. Peel and wash the onion(s), then dice into 1 cm cubes and add to the other vegetables. Peel the garlic.
4. Heat up the butter in a large stock pot and when it's bubby, add the vegetables and press in the garlic. Stir through to get them coated with the butter, then cover and turn down the heat somewhat and leave to fry/sweat for about 15 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. In the meantime, using a glove, halve the chilli and scrape off the seeds and pith and discard, then chop finely, taking care to protect your skin.
6. Prepare/heat up your stock (I used 1 cube chicken stock and 4 cubes vegetable stock, as that's what I had).
7. Wash and chop the parsley.
8. Once the frying time is up, add the chilli, stock and parsley and season to taste. Stir everything, cover and let simmer for another 15 - 20 minutes until the potatoes are soft.
9. Using a stick blender, blitz to achieve the consistency you prefer or leave as is if you'd rather, then serve.

Delia recommends blending smooth, but both Lundulph and I prefer a little bit of texture in this type of soup, so I just did a little pulse blitzing.

The amounts above also result in loads of soup. Lundulph and I had a generous portion each for lunch. The rest was left to cool down completely and I divided into 3 x 600 g portions which I've frozen. What I discovered, however, is that I was rather hungry a lot sooner after lunch than I expected, but I guess this is the standard thing with having mainly potatoes in a meal. They fill you up, but are processed quite quickly and you feel hungry after a couple of hours.

Asparagus Soup

When I made the fabulous Osterpinze, there were a lot of recipes for asparagus soup on the various Austrian websites I read. It seems very much like I experienced in Bavaria, there is almost an asparagus obsession in Spring. I read through several recipes, but I didn't like them much and instead settled on this English one as it seemed to have the highest asparagus content of them all and made my way to the local Pick Your Own, to get some fresh asparagus.

Ingredients

350 g trimmed and washed green asparagus
3 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
100 g baby spinach
700 ml vegetable stock - stock cube is fine
25 g butter
1 tsp vegetable oil
Salt and pepper

Method

1. Keep about 5 cm of the asparagus tips and cut up the rest of the stalks into chunks.
2. Peel and finely slice the shallots, peel the garlic and wash the spinach if required.
3. Make the stock.
4. Heat up the butter and oil in a deep frying pan until it bubbles, then fry the asparagus tips for a few minutes to soften and give them colour and set them aside.
5. In the same pan, add the asparagus stalks and shallots and press in the garlic, then fry for 5 - 10 minutes while stirring occasionally.
6. Add the spinach and stir through to wilt it, then add the stock and bring to the boil.
7. Remove from the heat and blitz with a stick blender. Season to taste and add more water if it's too thick.
8. Serve the soup with a couple of asparagus tips on top.

This was a very nice soup, but really not enough for a meal in itself, a starter at best. I think it would also benefit from toasted pine kernels as a topping and possibly a drop or two of Tabasco sauce. The amount of asparagus can easily be increased and possibly a potato or two would provide more bulk. A nice fancy sourdough bread would probably be good too, like the original recipe recommends.

Nettle Soup

Spring is coming in big strides now and the few spare hours I have at week-ends when it's daylight is to experience some despair in that I stand no chance of getting on top of all the weeds. But I have my special favourites that do get priority - the rhubarb bed is one of them and as I cleared them out, I noticed that there were a lot of nettles around, so decided to try my hand at nettle soup.

A quick browse, combined with not having potatoes in the house, made me settle for this one, which turned out pretty well, after some adjustments of my own.

Thus armed with a very thick plastic bag and my thick leather gloves (very good for brambles!), I wandered through the farthest and shadiest corners of the garden and took off all the nettle tips and a few of the smaller leaves. Volume-wise, I'd say I had about 3 litres of the stuff, per weight, I barely reached 200 g. But there was no injury involved anywhere.

Ingredients

4 tbsp pearl barley
200 g nettles - tips and tender top leaves only
1 medium onion
30 g butter
1 handful of wild garlic
1 tbsp chopped parsley
25 g chives
600 ml chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste

To serve
Swedish meatballs
Labneh or strained Greek yoghurt

Method

1. Measure up the pearl barley in a small saucepan, add plenty of water and set to cook as per instructions on the packet.
2. Wash the nettles thoroughly, then steam for about 10 minutes until they have wilted, but still remain dark green.
3. Peel and dice the onion coarsely, then melt the butter in a frying pan, let it start going golden, then add the onion.
4. Stir the onion to get it coated with the butter, then turn down the heat and let fry gently until it goes translucent. Stir occasionally.
5. Transfer the nettles into a deep casserole, add the garlic, parsley and chives. Pour over the chicken stock, bring to the boil and simmer for a few minutes.
6. Remove the casserole from the heat and carefully blend the nettle soup until smooth. Season to taste.
7. When the pearl barley is ready, drain it well, then stir into the smooth soup along with the fried onions.
8. Serve with a topping of your choice, like Swedish meatballs and labneh or strained Greek yogurt.

This turned out quite nice, even if it was a quite un-appetising dark green. I did make one mistake in adding a whole litre of stock, rather than 600 ml and this made the soup too thin for my liking. It combined very nicely with Swedish meatballs and a couple of spoons of the labneh I made the other day. I think more wild garlic would be good too.

Cauliflower soup

This is a recipe from our local magazine, which this month had three warming recipes for warming up after having been to see the fireworks at Bonfire Night. Normally it's cold and wet and Lundulph and I will sit with our feet in warm water drinking whisky, however this year we've had a heat wave and it was 17 °C! Absolutely no need to warm up at all.

But I decided to try this recipe anyway, since I really do need to improve my soup making and we've been having canned soups for way too long. And I'm glad I did, this turned out quite nice.

Ingredients

1 large head of cauliflower (mine was 1157 g)
3 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper
1 large onion
15 g butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 l water
4 vegetable stock cubes
1 tbsp chanterelle stock concentrate (optional)
1 dl boiled arborio rice
1 large clove of garlic
fresh parsley and chilli sauce to garnish

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 °C fan.
2. Cut up the cauliflower into florets, wash and drain.
3. Place in an oven pan, drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt and pepper, then stir round to coat the florets.
   
4. Bake the cauliflower for 30 - 40 minutes until it start going golden brown and begins to soften.
5. Peel and dice the onion, then fry it in the butter and olive oil until it goes translucent.
6. Peel and finely dice the garlic.
7. Bring the water to the boil and stir in the stock cubes and the chanterelle stock concentrate.
8. Add also the onions, rice and garlic and stir through while simmering.
9. When the cauliflowers are ready, add them to the soup and let simmer for a further 15 minutes.
   
10. Allow to stand for a few minutes, then using a blender, carefully blend the soup.
11. Serve with fresh parsley and chilli sauce on top.

This is very little effort for a very nice flavour. After blending, the soup was quite thick, which Lundulph seemed very happy about. I would have preferred it a little runnier. So a bit more water next time. I think the original recipe stated that the garlic should be fried together with the onion and I forgot that, but I don't think adding it later made too much difference. The original recipe didn't include the rice, but I had some left over from the cabbage rolls I made the other day and I wanted to use it up.

Goulash of sorts...

Continuing my marathon of Hairy Bikers' Bakeation, I got very inspired by the goulash soup they made when they were in Hungary.

So yesterday, I made my shopping list and wandered down to the butcher's and the High Street to get the bits I was missing.

Reading through the recipe, I got the feeling the proportions weren't quite right. Still I decided to try to stick to it as closely as possible. However after eating it, I felt some adjustment was required with the spicing and I've tried to do this here.

Ingredients

1 kg braising steak
2 tbsp plain flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
vegetable oil
2 medium onions
4 medium carrots
2 red bell peppers
1 green bell pepper
5 cloves garlic
4 tbsp sweet paprika
2 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp caraway seeds
4 tbsp tomato purée
3 bay leaves
2 l stock
4 potatoes
sourcream for serving

Method

1. Trim and dice the meat. Mix together flour, salt and pepper, then toss the meat with it.
2. Heat up a little oil in a non-stick pan and brown the meat in batches taking care not to crowd it.
3. Peel and dice the onions and carrots. Wash, peel and dice the peppers. Peel the garlic.
4. In a casserole, heat up some oil and sweat the onions, carrots and peppers and press in the garlic.
5. After about 10 minutes, when the vegetables start to soften, stir in the browned beef, sweet and smoked paprika, caraway seeds, tomato purée and bay leaves, followed by the stock.
6. Bring to the boil, cover and let simmer gently for 1.5 h.
7. In the mean time, peel and dice the potatoes. After the 1.5 h, add the potatoes and taste. Season if necessary and let simmer for a further 30 minutes.
8. Serve with a dollop of sourcream.

I just realised that I forgot the sourcream when we had the soup for dinner yesterday. Oh well, never mind.

On the whole, this was a rather nice soup and very nice now when it's getting colder and colder. But there's loads of it, I will have to freeze it in portions, we can't be eating goulash soup for the coming week.

Enhanced Gazpacho

Last week Lundulph and I visited some god friends that we'd not seen for a long time and we had Gazpacho from New Covent Garden. It was very tasty and had noting to do with what Lundulph had concocted at primary school and certainly not related to the stuff I bought in Spain many years ago that came in a carton as well. This tasted more like Bularian tomato sauce without the potatoes.



But they only had one packet left at the supermarket, so I decided to enhance it with the baby courgettes and beautiful French beans I picked last Sunday. The Pick Your Own farm has become quite an addiction.

I didn't measure things sadly. I cut the courgettes with my alligator cutter into match sticks and fried them in quite a lot of ground nut oil. When they were well browned, I poured out as much as I could, then poured the soup over them and put back on the hop to heat through. I added about a tea spoon of hot crushed chillies, a tea spoon of dill and a tea spoon of thyme and stirred through. In the mean time I steamed the French beans. To be on the safe side, I topped with a table spoon of crème fraîche and crispy bacon.

Pretty quick and very tasty. Pity I only had one pack of the soup. In the future it would be nice to work out a good recipe for gazpacho though.

A Light Saturday Dinner

I've come to realise that making soup is quite a hit and miss business for me. I do like soup, but I don't seem to have the knack for it and so about 50% of the soups I make are barely edible and on those occasions I end up eating them myself. But the other 50% of them work out pretty well. Last night was a good one. Remember the cabbage I baked the other day? I saved all the liquid I used for boiling the cabbage and used it as follows:

Ingredients

3 tbsp grape seed oil
1 large onion
6 dl cabbage stock
6 dl water
1 tsp vegeta spice mixture
5 medium sized potatoes
2 large carrots
1 yellow pepper
10 okra fingers
2 tbsp dried savory
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
black pepper

Method

1. Heat the oil in a deep non-stick saucepan.
2. Peel and dice the onion and fry in the oil until translucent.
3. Add the cabbage stock, water and vegeta and bring to the boil on medium-low heat.
4. Wash and if needed peel the potatoes, then cut into strips and add to the soup.
5. Wash and peel the carrots and cut in strips and add to the soup.
6. Wash the pepper and remove the seeds, wash the okra and remove the stalks.
7. Cut the pepper into strips and the okra into small chunks and add to the soup
8. Let simmer for another 5 minutes




Lundulph had a couple of pork sausages left over from a grilling spree and I put them in as well, to heat them through. This turned out rather tasty. Very quick as well, I used my alligator chopper for the onion, potatoes and carrots, brilliant if you want everything in julienne strips. I think some tomato might have been nice as well, but I couldn't be bothered.

Modified Miso Soup

I've been aware of this Japanese speciality for some time and have had in the back of my mind to try it out. Today I did, after researching on the net for a couple of days, having decided on this recipe.

I spent last week getting the ingredients together but was unable to find dashi stock. Looking into it further, apparently dashi stock is made on dried giant kelp and dried bonito flakes. Now as you know, I'm not a big fish fan, so dried bonito flakes did not appeal in the least. But I found that occasionally the dashi stock can be exchanged for chicken stock. Also I had a few vegetables to use up. So here's what I concoted tonight.

Ingredients

200 g shiitake mushrooms
5 Chantenay carrots
1 long red pepper
8 dl water
3 cubes of chicken stock
100 g firm tofu
2 tbsp white miso puree
1.5 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
0.5 red onion

Method

1. Peel and halve or quarter the mushrooms.
2. Wash and slice the carrots and pepper.
3. Bring the water to boil, then add the stock cubes and stir to dissolve.
4. Add the mushrooms and vegetables. Cover and leave to simmer for a few minutes.
   
5. Dice the tofu and add that as well.
6. Mix the miso puree and the soy sauce in a bowl, then add it to the soup and leave to simmer for 5 - 6 minutes more.
7. Slice the onion and use for decoration when serving.

I had a little taste of the miso and had a very bad feeling of the soup, but on the contrary it turned out quite delicious. Lundulph had seconds. He also topped up with a few slices of chorizo. I think I'll try adding strips of chicken or pork next time. Now we'll finish off with some lovely ginger cake that we bought from our local farm market on Saturday.

Autumn begins

Well, it's once again Sunday and since it has been rather chilly over the last week, I thought it's time for a soup. Also I was in a highly experimental mood and this is the result:



Ingredients

750 g potatoes
5 - 6 carrots
3 small parsnips
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp dried thyme
3 tbsp grapeseed oil
1 l water
1 tsp vegeta
black pepper
9 Polish kabanosse sausages

Method

1. Wash, peel and slice the carrots and parsnips.
2. Place on a tray lined with aluminium foil, add the honey, thyme and oil and mix them round, so the carrots and parsnips get a good coating.
3. Wash, peel and dice the potatoes, then steam for 10 minutes. Take out about a third of the potatoes and mix in with the carrots and parsnips. Leave the remainder of the potatoes to finish steaming.
4. Place the tray with the vegetables under a medium-high grill, stirring occasionally, should the vegetables begin to burn.
5. When the potatoes are ready, move them to a deep pot and blend them, adding the water gradually. At the end, add the vegeta and black pepper.
6. Slice the kabanosse sausages.
   
7. When the other vegetables are ready, add them along with the sausages to the soup and bring to the boil.

This was quite nice and very filling.

"Hm, root soup, I cook!"

"For a Jedi, it is time to eat as well".

Well, in the Sainsbury's lottery in February, I won a free packet of sweet potatoes. I've never cooked these and only had them once in a quiche together with regular potatoes, which was very nice, so I've been thinking of trying them out for a while.

Also the trend I started with making large amounts of soup to take for lunch are really good and I fancied potato soup for next week.

Ingredients

5 small onions
1 dl vegetable oil
900 g sweet potatoes
900 g potatoes
4 large carrots
1.8 l boiling water
3 tbsp chopped mint leaves
3 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp dried dill
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tbsp Vegeta
black pepper

Method

1. Peel and dice the onions, sweet potatoes, potatoes and carrots.
2. Heat up the oil and fry the onions until translucent.
3. Add the vegetables and stir in well, so they get coated in oil.
4. Add the boiling water, then add all the herbs.
5. Leave to simmer for 20-25 minutes under cover until the roots are soft.

This was highly experimental and I had no confidence at all in the concoction, but actually it wasn't too bad. One thing is that the sweet potatoes were well over-done and went mushy in the mouth, whereas the potatoes and the carrots retained some crunchiness.

Also it's surprisingly filling.

A hot tip from Simon: add the sweet potato later so it keeps it's crunchiness. Next time I'll try adding it after 15 minutes of the cooking time.

Bulgarian Meatball Soup

This is the third week of making lots of soup to take with me as lunch to work. I must say it's great. The story behind this soup is that it's the only meat soup that I would eat as a child. And Lundulph can eat it without having to go hungry an hour afterwards.



Ingredients

Meatballs

300 g minced meat
1 egg white
salt, pepper (finely ground!)
plain flour for rolling

Soup

1 medium sized onion
1 - 2 carrots
1 segment stem celery
4 tbsp oil
1 l water
3 - 4 potatoes or
2 - 3 tbsp pudding rice or
1 dl noodles
salt, pepper, fresh chopped parsley

Method

1. Peel and finely dice the vegetables. If you are using potatoes, please keep them separate.
   
2. Blend the minced meat with the egg white, salt and pepper. Then take a grease proof sheet of paper and cover well with plain flour. Now make small balls (small enough for a child to eat in one bite) and place on the floured paper. When all the mince has been rolled , gather up the four corners of the paper and shake carefully around, so the balls get covered.
   
3. Fry the onion, carrots and celery in the oil for a few minutes.
4. Add 1 l of water, and bring to the boil. If you can boil it in a kettle beforehand and add immediately, this will speed things up a bit.
5. When the water boils, add the meatballs and let simmer for 5 - 6 minutes.
6. Now add the fried onion and carrots and potatoes/rice and leave to simmer for another 20 or so minutes to make sure everything is cooked. If using noodles, add these after 10 - 15 minutes.
   
7. Finally add salt, pepper and parsley, stir in well and take off the heat. Ready.

Additional to be done after the soup is off the heat.

Variant 1

1 egg yolk (from before)
1 egg

1. Whisk these together in a cup, then carefully add some of the soup into the cup, a little at a time stirring constantly. Then pour everything back into the soup dish and stir through.

Variant 2

1.5 dl cold water
1 tbsp plain flour

1. Whisk the water and the flour together to completely dissolve it, then pour into the soup and stir in well.

Since I don't like any form of celery, I never buy it, but I had some Jerusalem artichokes and I put one big one in instead.

Also, I had 500 g of minced meat, so I used 2 egg whites and used both yolks in the additional first variant.

Bulgarian Lentil Soup

I made this last Sunday, and thought I'd already added it to the cookbook, but apparently not, so here it is.

Ingredients

1 medium sized onion
2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp sweet paprika
1 l water
250 g unpeeled green dried lentils
2 - 3 cloves of garlic
1 large carrot
2 small green peppers
1 small celeriac or 4 - 5 Jerusalem artichokes (optional)
salt, pepper, parsley, dill, savory

Method

1. Soak the lentils for at least 2 h in water, preferably overnight.
2. Dice the onion, carrot, peppers and celeriac or Jerusalem artichokes, but keep each separate.
3. Heat up the oil and fry the onion in it. Press in the garlic as well.
4. When the onion/garlic have gone translucent, add the paprika, stir vigorously for about a minute and add the water - you need to have these ready, if the paprika is fried for too long, it burns and doesn't taste as nice. The water can be cold/room temperature, but it would speed things up a bit if it's hot. I never bother with that, though.
5. Add the soaked lentils and carrots and whichever of the herbs that are dried. Also add the celeriac, if you decide to use this. I don't like celeriac, so I don't use it.
   
6. Bring to the boil and leave to simmer for 15 - 20 minutes.
7. Now add the pepper and leave to simmer for another 5 - 10 minutes.
8. Add the Jerusalem artichokes and leave to simmer for further 5 - 10 minutes. Also add the fresh herbs, after chopping them. This is a new invention, I had some Jerusalem artichokes left over and I added them and it tasted really nice. You can skip them if you don't like them. It's important not to let them boil for more than 10 minutes, so that they don't disintegrate.

The soup is now ready and is nice on it's own. Some people add vinegar just before eating.

As usual, Lundulph needs meat and this week-end I got him a nice piece of unsmoked gammon, which I roasted as recommended in Delia Smith's 'How to cook'. I got two pieces of aluminium foil, placed them in a cross, put a bunch of thyme, sage and black pepper in the middle, placed the gammon on top, then put more thyme, sage and black pepper over it and wrapped up the foil into a parcel. Baked in the oven at gas mark 4 (180 degrees Celsius) for 1 h (Delia recommends 20 minutes per 1 lb meat + 20 minutes on top of that). Then I unwrapped the gammon, scraped off the herbs on the top and put it back in for another 30 minutes on gas mark 7 (230 degrees Celsius) to give it a bit of colour. Not sure if this was a good idea, it just seemed to try out. Lundulph said it was rather nice.

Next time he's asked me to cook the meat with the soup, so that it can pick up some of the flavours. We agreed to try thin strips of chicken or turkey breast.

I had the last of the soup today, so there's nothing to photograph. Sorry, will try to remember to add some next time.

Bulgarian Bean Soup with Gammon

I've spent most of the week clearing out the freezer. Still it's quite full. However, I think it's about time I made some nice Bulgarian bean soup. It's completely vegetarian, which is great, but Lundulph is not designed for vegetarian food, so I've added the gammon to give it more substance.



I think this is one of the most popular Bulgarian dishes and there are probably lots of variations in the different parts of Bulgaria. This is my Mum's recipe. There are two ways to make it. If you have a pressure cooker, then this comes in handy, as it shortens cooking time considerably.

Alternatively, it can be slow cooked in the oven, which makes it even tastier. My earliest memories of the soup is watching it cook on an open fire at my Grandparents' allotment. Then it was made in a terracotta pot and is definitely the tastiest way to do it. I'll describe the pressure cooker method. The recipe contains a spice mixture called Vegeta, which I've found available in Turkish shops. It contains salt, so you can either use it or just add salt to taste (not necessarily the same amount!). Also if you are doing gammon, that's quite salty, so reduce the amount of salt in the soup.

Bulgarian Bean Soup

500 g dried white beans
2 medium sized onions
2 medium sized carrots
2 - 3 green peppers
2 - 3 cloves of garlic
black pepper
2 - 3 tbsp Vegeta
3 - 4 tbsp dried savory
1 tsp sugar
1 dl olive oil
2 medium sized grated tomatoes or 1 tbsp tomato puree
1 dl fresh chopped or finely cut parsley
0.5 dl fresh finely cut spearmint
0.5 dl fresh chopped lovage
3 - 4 tbsp fresh finely cut dill

1. Clean the beans and place in a large bowl and fill with water. Depending on how old the beans are and what type they are, leave them to soak for 4 h up to 2 days for very old beans. I've found that the beans I buy in the supermarket are OK with about 8-10 h soak, I fill the bowl in the morning before I go to work, then I cook them in the evening when I get home. This reduces the cooking time a bit.
   
2. At the end of the soaking, remove any remaining water, place in the beans in the pressure cooker and add water until it reaches about 5 cm above the beans.
3. Close the pressure cooker and bring to the boil and let boil under pressure for 15 - 20 minutes.
4. In the mean time peel and dice the vegetables and measure up approximately the same amount of water and boil it in a kettle. It depends on how much soup you want.
   
5. After the initial cooking, take the pressure cooker off the heat and place under cold water to cool it off quickly. When the pressure is gone, open it and remove the water. Don't skip the cooling, because it's almost impossible to open the lid otherwise and should you manage to do that, the contents will explode in your face.
   
6. Add the new hot water, then add the vegetables and bring to the boil without the lid.
7. After the soup has started boiling, add the dry spices and olive oil, then cover and cook under pressure for 1 - 2 h on low-medium heat, again depending on the age and type of the beans.
8. When the time is up, take off the heat and place under cold water to cool it quickly.
9. Open and taste a bean. If it's soft, stir in the tomato(es). Add the fresh herbs as well. The measures are quite approximate, I generally put a handful or so of each. Leave to simmer for 5 minutes. If the bean is still a bit crunchy, close and cook under pressure for a bit longer.
   

At this point it is ready to eat. You can use dried herbs, they should then be added along with the savory. As for the savory itself, I've rarely seen it fresh in the supermarket, so haven't had a chance to try cooking with it so far.
What my Mum does, is serve the soup in this state immediately and the next day. After that she does the following.

Bean stew

3 - 4 tbsp of grapeseed oil
1 tbsp of sweet paprika

1. Heat up the oil on low heat.
2. Add the paprika and stir very vigorously, as it burns easily.
3. Pour over the soup, stir well and bring to the boil.

This "re-juvenates" the soup and it is good for another couple of days. Of course I can't remember that ever happening in my parents' house - the soup disappears very quickly independently of original amount made. Lundulph is not as big a fan as my Dad, so I make half the amounts and it lasts quite a long time anyway.

Lately my Mum has been experimenting with slow cooking and says that the bean effect doesn't take place if you use this method. I've never had this problem with beans, so I'm not bothered, but I'll ask her for the details and add it here. Yes, the beans are still done in the pressure cooker, but there is no need to soak them in advance, but put all vegetables in together with the beans from the beginning, then close and cook on the lowest possible heat for 1 h. At this point the pressure vent should have started to make a noise indicating that pressure has built up. Now you can increase the heat to low-medium and leave for 2 to 2.5 h. The trick is to heat up the soup slowly and cook for a long time. No need to change the water. At the end, add the spices, both fresh and dry. Do the stew mix as well if you want. Then just bring it to the boil again and it's done.

My idea is to do the above in a terracotta pot in the oven on the slow cook setting overnight. I'll try this next time and add an update on how it went.

Finally the gammon.
I bought boneless piece of gammon for roasting, removed as much of the fat as I could and cut up in 1 cm thick slices and grilled for about 8 minutes on each side. Cutting it was difficult, so if you can find ready sliced gammon, I recommend it.
Lundulph thought it was OK, but would be better to cut the gammon in small pieces, fry them shortly to seal them, then cook together with the bean soup. I'll try this next time and let you know what happens. Watch this space.

Chinese Noodle Soup

This is a hearty soup that I learned from a former colleague and a friend. I've mentioned it earlier. It's fairly quick to make and is great for cold evenings.


Ingredients

2 boneless pork loin steaks
3 - 4 tbsp dark soy sauce
3 - 4 tbsp light soy sauce
3 - 4 tbsp toasted sesame oil
100 - 200 g (1 pack) mangetout
100 - 200 g (1 pack) baby corn
1 head of broccoli
1 large carrot
1 pack instant noodles (I used the beef flavoured ones and used the sachet, but I think it'd be better without it. Also I used 2 packs, that was a mistake.)
boiling water
1 - 2 large eggs

Method

1. Remove as much as possible of the fat off the steaks, then slice into thin strips, about 0.5 cm thick.
2. Place the pork in a bowl, then pour the two soy sauces and stir through to get the meat well coated. Cover with cling film and leave to one side for at least 10 minutes (I left it for 40).
3. While the meat is marinated, cut the broccoli into smallish bunches, peel and slice the carrot thinly, wash all vegetables and cut the baby corn in two along it's length.
4. Also boil water in a kettle or the large pot where the soup will be made.
   
5. Heat up the sesame oil on high heat in a non-stick wok type pan. When it's really hot, add the meat along with the marinade and stir fry for a few minutes to get it browned.
   
6. Add the vegetables and stir so they can pick up some of the flavour. A few minutes should do it, then take off the heat.
   
7. If not already there, pour the water into the soup pot and place on medium heat. Break up the lump of dried noodles and put in the water. Stir for a couple of minutes to loosen the noodles.
   
8. Transfer the pork and vegetables into the pot as well, add more water to reach the consistency you want. Taste the liquid and add salt if needed or more soy sauce.
9. Let simmer for a few minutes, then turn off the heat.
10. In the mean time, break the two eggs into a cup and whisk them. After switching off the heat, slowly pour the eggs into the soup, while stirring vigorously.
    

It would be good with other ingredients as well I think, like bamboo shoots, mushrooms, pak choi.

Student Food

When I was at uni, occasionally I'd cook noodles. The cheapest available were the dried ones, pre-packed with a small sachet of spices and another one with some orange coloured fatty stuff. The noodles required you to pour boiling water on them and leave for 3 minutes and stir in the spices and fat. It's really good and warming, but oh so boring and although I didn't try this myself, I do know at least one person who has survived on these a lot longer than anyone thought possible.

There is a better way to do these.

Get some nice pork fillet and slice in thin strips and place in a bowl.
Pour some light and dark soy sauce and leave to marinate for about 10 minutes.
In the mean time cut some vegetables into thin strips - carrots, peppers, onion, mushrooms.

Make the noodles as per the instructions on the packet, but use more water - up to double the amount.

In a deep non-stick pan, heat up some grape seed oil and stir fry the meat and vegetables. No need to drain the marinade, put it in as well. Don't fry until everything is ready, just to get it browned. Then add the noodle soup, bring to the boil and let boil for 5-10 minutes.

Whisk an egg, then pour it slowly into the soup, while stirring all the time.

Ready to eat!

A Stray Hot Day

This year, it has been such a strange weather - some people are still picking tomatoes. And it's October and mornings are getting darker.

If there is a really hot day with lovely sunny weather, I recommend cooling down with this starter. It's another traditional Bulgarian recipe, a variety of it is known as Greek tzatziki. As usual the quantities are approximate, I've never measured them.

Tarator

Ingredients

1 l Greek style yogurt (or home made)
1 medium sized cucumber, peeled and finely diced
1 bunch of dill
2-3 tbsp olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic
salt
water
chopped walnuts (optional)

Method

1. Place the yogurt in a deep bowl and add the cucumber.
2. Use scissors to chop the dill into the bowl.
3. Add the oil, chop or press the garlic and add as well.
4. Add some water, salt and walnuts if you want.
   
5. Stir well. If it seems too thick, add more water. It should have the consistency of a soup.

If you have been to Bulgaria on Summer holiday, you have probably had this as a starter. Unfortunately, restaurants are stingy and use mostly water. They also grate the cucumber, which just makes the tarator more watery and tasteless. Diced cucumber gives something crunchy in the soup and keeps it's flavour.

If you don't like garlic, reduce the amount or completely skip it. And careful with the walnuts, they might not be to everyone's taste, better place them on the side so that whoever wants them, can just add them later.

This is a really good way to rehydrate. And in order to get the flavour out, make this a few hours in advance and keep in the fridge. Alternatively, if you don't have time, add some ice cubes when serving.

I tend to live on this and salad in the Summer.

Mushrooms

Today I had a lazy day and made soup. There were two baked potatoes left and also all the green peppers from the stuffing frenzy last Saturday. So I fried some onion, chopped the peppers and boiled them, together with an assortment of dried herbs and spices. Diced the potatoes and put them in at the end too. My latest favourite herb mix is dill, parsley, thyme, oregano and savory. In soups I've also started using Vegeta instead of salt. It's salt with some spices and is rather nice. But I should have put in a lot more than I did. Finally, when the soup was ready, I whisked two eggs together lightly and poured slowly into the hot soup, while stirring. This makes it look a bit thicker and "meatier" than just vegetables and water. It's a nice alternative to blending potatoes and mixing in.

Also something compelled me to buy large mushrooms on Friday. So today, I put the grill on low, then peeled the mushrooms (never wash, they just soak up more liquid) and placed upside down on the grill pan. I put some salt and pepper and a couple of thin slices of butter (really thin, like scrapings) and put them under the grill on the top shelf, then turned the grill down to it's lowest setting and left them there, not sure for how long, but kept an eye on them. when the butter seemed to be going a bit brown and burnt and I heard a couple of sputters, I moved the pan to the bottom shelf. When they looked ready, I took them out.

So, I served the soup with a big mushroom on top and I put some blue cheese on mine, absolutely yummy!

I used to get regular mushrooms at uni, peel them and take the stems off, then lay them out on a tray like little cups and I'd put small pieces of bacon, ham, garlic and butter or cheese in each, then bake under the grill. Not too healthy, but very nice fingerfood for the telly. On extreme days, I'd just do the mushrooms with only salt on top. The little cups would fill with liquid and I'd try to eat them without spilling. They weren't as nice when cold and/or reheated.