Simple, but awesome soup

I’ve been travelling with work a lot recently, what with the recent satellite launches. It’s so nice to do domestic things, at home, with the mrs. A mate is coming around this evening, to watch some videos and drink cider with us. I made us some seasonal soup to eat:

* An eating pumpkin, roughly chopped and lightly roasted in olive oil, with
* Some peeled, roasted garlic
* Lumps of peeled, roasted ginger
* Fresh tomatoes blended with stock cube and water
* A teaspoon of salt and black pepper
* Some chilli sauce – just a bit for warmth

All whizzed up. I just sampled it to check the salt levels and it’s just lovely! Can’t wait to tuck in with crusty bread and butter tonight.

Share your amazing recipes…

butternut squash and sweet potato
Peel em, chop em, cook em ,blend em, eat em

Leek & potato soup is one of my staples. C&P here from my notes.

Serves two hungry people.

Ingredients

1tbsp butter
2 cloves garlic
250g leeks (one large leek per person for shopping purposes)
250g potatoes (again, one good-sized spud per person)
1 onion
500ml veggie stock (3x veggie OXO cubes will do)
black pepper
115ml milk

Method

Chop and wash the leeks. The easiest way I’ve found to chop them is to lop the dark green leafy bits off and then slice them lengthways twice, not quite to the end of the root. Then cut into 1cm pieces crossways. You need to wash the leeks as they tend to hold soil inside the layers, and you’re not making leek and dirt soup. Peel and dice the onion, and finely chop or crush the garlic.

Melt the butter in a big pan on a medium heat. Add the onion / leek / garlic and fry gently for about ten minutes until the leeks are soft and buttery. Stir regularly, you don’t want the oniony mix to stick or brown.

Whilst the leeks are cooking, peel and dice the spuds, about 1cm cubes is good. I’ve got a chip-making gadget which makes dicing a breeze.

When the leeks are softened, pour in the stock and add the spuds. Give it a generous twist of black pepper. Don’t be shy, the nuttiness of the pepper is pretty much essential to this recipe. I don’t believe it needs additional salt as the stock cubes are pretty salty in themselves, but if you’re using different stock then you might need salt at the stage. Use common sense here, you can add more salt when serving but if there’s too much you can’t take it out again.

Turn up the heat to bring the soup up to simmering point, then reduce it so that it’s simmering gently rather than boiling like mad. Leave it to simmer for about 20 minutes, till the spuds are softened through. Stir regularly so that it cooks evenly and doesn’t stick.

A couple of minutes before it’s done, add the milk. If you’re using creamy milk you might need to let it cool a little first to avoid it curdling; I use skimmed so it’s never been a problem just to slap it in. If you’re going to liquidise it, do it now whilst the temperature’s reduced. Personally I think it’s better to leave it chunky. Bring it back up to temperature, stirring to avoid a skin forming, then serve with warm crusty bread.

Nom.

Two tins good plum tomato
An sliced onion
Half a pint of good veg stock
Add a bouquet garni of cinnamon sticks, peppercorns, cloves and bay leaves, ideally wrapped in muslin.

Simmer for half an hour.

Put above, minus bouquet, having squeezed the juices from it, in a blender and razz it.

Then, in same pan, add a littlebutter and a spoonful of curry powder. Warm this, then add some spinach (frozen is fine). Put the tomato soup back in, and bring up to heat. Stir in a little cream before serving. Awesome.

cougs, y’know what takes leek and potato soup to a whole new level? chuck in a massive handful of fresh flat leaf parsley shortly before blending it up. it’s brilliant.

also, dead simple:
2 tins tomatoes (either whole or chopped, doesn’t matter)
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
500mls veggie stock
1 large handful fresh basil leaves
black pepper

sweat the onions and garlic in a tiny bit of olive oil til they’re soft but not browned. chuck in the toms and stock, season and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.
whip off the heat and throw in the basil, then whizz it with a stick blender. season with black pepper, and eat it.
dead easy.

Pea and Rosemary?

One of the easiest soups ever and great at Christmas.

1kg frozen peas
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
2 pints vegetable or chicken stock (1 1/2 pints for a thicker soup)
3 large onions
5 sprigs of rosemary

– sweat 3 onions and the garlic till soft.
– add frozen peas, stir and cover for a few minutes until bright green.
– add stock and rosemary (don’t chop rosemary as leaves fall off during cooking).
– simmer for 40 mins.
– fish out rosemary stalks, leaves should have dropped off in pan. Counting them in and out makes sure you don’t miss any.
– blend until smooth with hand blender.
– season to taste.
– you can add a swirl of cream when serving if you like.

Miso! Miso! Fighting in the dojo.
Miso! Miso! Oriental prince in the land of soup!

Few rashers of smoky bacon, diced.
Pack of mixed seafood from the fish counter (or just prawns if you prefer).
Couple of sticks of celery, chopped.
1 bell pepper, chopped.
1 scotch bonnet, finely (and carefully 😯 ) sliced.
Couple of garlic cloves, crushed.
1 small onion, finely sliced.
Whatever herbs are to hand.
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
Tin of tomatoes.
1 pint of fish stock.

Fry off the bacon, then add celery, pepper, scotch bonnet, seafood, garlic, cayenne pepper and onions and fry a tiny bit more.
Add fish stock & tomatoes, bring to boil, then simmer and add herbs to taste.

Seafood Gumbo. Of sorts.

[adds this thread to favourites]

cougs, y’know what takes leek and potato soup to a whole new level? chuck in a massive handful of fresh parsley shortly before blending it up. it’s brilliant.

Ah, the mistake you’re making there is blending it. (-: I’ll have a go with that next time, ta.

That gumbo sounds really nice. I might get away with it using smoked haddock and cod fillets.

[adds this thread to favourites]

+1. The way I cook is to get get as many recipes as I can, crib bits from all of them, then make my own variant tweaking until I get it right. Threads like this are gold for me.

We had a soup thread a little while back, incidentally.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/soupy-twist-more-recipes-please

One of my favourites, still, is my Thai Chickenless Noodle Soup. Details are on that thread. I’ve gone through lots of different ones and I still keep coming back to this, it’s insanely good.

Good news: My mate is bringing banana cup cakes. We’ll have them hot with toffee chunk ice-cream.

Simple tasty soup
1 onion diced and softened in pan with a clove or 2 of crushed garlic
Add 1 can of butter beans inc juice and a mug of stock.
Bring to boil and add a few sprigs of rosemary.
Blend and serve with fresh ground black pepper.

Serves 2

2nd Cougar’s Leek and Potaasaayyyyyto Soup. I make mine similarly. It’s luvly (‘cept I use a bit of cream rather than milk). I prefer the potatoes left chunky too.

I likes swoup, I does. Anyone fancy trying a work-in-progress? It’s good but it’s not -quite- there yet, I’m still tweaking and open to suggestions.

Curried Parsnip Swoup

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, thickly sliced
500g parsnips, peeled, cut into chunks
spices – 1/2 tsp each of coriander / cumin / turmeric / garam masala
salt and freshly ground black pepper
750ml veggie stock
200ml double cream
paprika / chilli flakes / coriander leaf to garnish?

Method

Put a roasting dish in the oven with the oil and preheat to 200’C.

Add the spices to the oil, then add the veg with a little salt and pepper and mix well. Mix well and roast for ~30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tender and golden.

Put 500ml of the stock in a large soup pan and bring up to boil, then add the veg.

Pour the leftover stock into the roasting dish and place over a high heat. Stir and scrape any brown bits from the dish, then add the liquid to the soup. Simmer for 20 mins.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly, then liquidise until smooth. Return the soup to the pan, add the cream and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Pea And Ham Soup

907g bag frozen Peas
50ml oil
some butter
an onion or two
1 clove garlic
160g bacon, cut into strips
750ml stock
180g pack Ham Hock

fry the fryey stuff, then chuck peas in. Then blend after a while.
Loverly. Official recipe is here

907g bag frozen Peas

That’s a pretty specific weight of peas 🙂

That’s a pretty specific weight of peas

It’s two pounds.

just a post so I can find it again, loving these suggestions. I promise I’ll add some fish dishes if we do a regular cooking thread.

not terribly seasonal but….Asparagus and Sugarsnap soup

one supermarket bunch of asparagus
one supermarket bag of sugar snap peas
one onion
one bunch of celery

dice the whole lot (one of those slicey food processors helps) and fry for 10mins – to soften rather than brown

pour in a litre of chicken or veg stock

boil for 15 mins

blend the living daylights out of it

add lemon zest and between half and all of the juice of the lemon to taste plus a bit of seasoning

Totally sublime soup.

Or bubbling on the pan as I type

Peasant’s Ribolata

One carrot, one onion diced and fried for 5 mins
one clove of garlic minced and added for 30 seconds
A bunch of kale of similar thrown in
cover with water and simmer for 25mins
add a tin of cannellini beans or similar
cook for another 5 mins
add a couple of handfuls of torn up stale bread and some seasoning

serve with parmasan.

lightyears better than it sounds

there was a long time in my life when all soup was was a starter to be suffered, or something to force down when ill.. I have been educated now (by the g/f), a proper soup and some crusty bread is awesome, will try the curried parsnip soup recipe above soon (& the other soon enough), as this is one of my very favorites. My own personal one never taste the same twice though… which is annoying and weird but not bad (I’m told there lots of different types of parsnips, like potatoes, so it may be partly down to this).
Got some pork stock in the fridge that I’m gunna turn into a soup tomorrow, no idea what yet but it’ll be good.

Very good thread, missed the previous one, so cheers for the link to that. 😀

Just found this in my Twitter feed.

Thai Chickenless Noodle Soup.

That looks interesting. What’s all the sprinkly stuff on top?

z1ppy- as well as the different varieties, parsnips vary in flavour depending on when they’re picked too (so we were told by a couple of veg farmers at a “meet the growers” event at our local organic food co-op place last week).
if it’s just after a frost, they are a lot sweeter apparently.
and if they’re very late season, they can be very bitter.

What’s all the sprinkly stuff on top?

Toasted coconut and chilli flakes. The full recipe’s here.

go to supermarket. buy tin.
go home.
open tin into pan/microwaveable bowl.
make it warm.
eat it.

simples.

Can we makes this thread a sticky, it may take me a while to work through them all. 🙂

Cheers for these folks – need to get into making soup again.