More than two months have passed since my last post. It seems like even longer since I was buckling under the weight of the campest cake ever in a North London pub. I am now holed up in my new flat in Crystal Palace ready to regale any friends who will make the trip south east with tales of burning palaces and dinosaur statues.
Eventually I will buy a table and then people can come for dinner. For now I am just pleased to finally have the internet. It only took eight weeks.
Rest assured, to those who were concerned, that my absence was only due to lack of internet access. I have not stopped eating. Three meals a day and additional snacks is still my routine and I have a shiny new kitchen to make a mess of plus a host of new food shops and restaurants to explore.
One of my New Year’s resolutions that has lasted was to start making soups to take into work for lunch. This has lead to much experimenting with flavours and sieving techniques. I like a smooth soup and when I have cut corners and only liquidised the hot broth I have found the result disappointing on both a textural and a flavour level. Perhaps something in the slow process of pressing liquid and mulch through a fine mesh sieve brings out depth of flavour.
My two favourite soups are a Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato and a Butternut Squash, Bacon & Chestnut. It all sounds very Covent Garden but home-made soup tastes so much better than that.
You don’t really need to follow a strict recipe for a soup and I certainly haven’t kept any measurements when I have made them so all I can offer is a rough guide.
Roasting seems to me to be a great way to add depth of flavour if you are lacking the good stock that will elevate your soup to a higher level. If this was the olden days and I had a family then I would be boiling bones all day and I’d have stock coming out of my ears. As it is I use Swiss Bouillon powder because I refuse to use those disgusting plastic sacks of posh stock that look like bags of saline.
The recipes follow.
Butternut Squash, Bacon & Chestnut
If I was on Masterchef and I offered the judges this soup I am sure they would say bacon or chestnut would have been enough but both is too much. I know they are right but there were a couple of rashers of bacon in the fridge and that’s just the way I roll.
Cut a medium sized butternut squash in two and place in a roasting tin. Drizzle over some olive oil and scatter over a few small knobs of butter and some thyme. Roast in a hot oven until the squash is completely soft and can be scrapped away easily from the skin. In a large pan fry a finely chopped white onion in oil. Add a couple of rashers of sliced bacon and about 125 grams of tinned chestnuts. Fry for a few more minutes and season. Add the squash puree and bits of thyme to the pan and stir. Add some vegetable stock, about a pint, then roughly half a pint of milk. It depends on the size of the squash and how thick you like your soup as to how much liquid you need and you can always add more liquid after liquidising. Liquidise the broth and then sieve it to ensure it’s totally smooth. Season to taste and serve with some chopped, toasted hazelnuts. This makes four servings.
Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato
You must sieve this soup otherwise you will end up chewing on bits of tomato skin and rosemary which is not pleasant. I am convinced that roasting a whole head of garlic and adding the resultant puree into the soup is what makes it so creamy without adding any cream.
In a roasting tin place about five large plum tomatoes and two red peppers with a whole head of garlic and some rosemary. Drizzle with olive oil and roast until the skins have burst on the tomatoes. The garlic cloves should be soft, not burnt. Remove the stem, pith and seeds from the peppers once they have cooled down. Fry a finely chopped white onion in a large pan. Add a tablespoon of honey and a stick of rosemary. Add the tomato and pepper flesh to the pan then squeeze in the garlic pulp. Stir then add about a pint and a half of stock. Liquidise then push through a fine mesh sieve. This makes four servings.
I’m so heartened that you have returned to the Interweb, it has been a lonely place without you. Plus, I love soups and have suddenly been given a lot of free time….