Category Archives: Soups

Method

Preheat the oven to moderate oven (190°C/375°F/Gas 5).

Heat the oil in a suitably sized saucepan. Fry the bread cubes until lightly browned. Stir in the paprika and chopped garlic and cook for a further minute. Add the chicken stock and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer the soup, covered, for 10 minutes. The bread should almost disintegrate into the soup. If not, help it along with a balloon whisk, potato masher or some such.

Pour the soup into serving bowls and break an egg into the middle of each. Pop the bowls of soup into the oven for a few minutes to poach the eggs.

Adjust the seasoning with salt, garnish with the chopped fresh parsley and serve.

Method

Strip the leaves from the parsley and chop up the stalks. Roughly chop the parsley leaves.

Melt the butter in a suitable saucepan over low heat and sweat the onion, potatoes and parsley stalks for a few minutes. Add a few spoonfuls of the chicken stock to keep things moist and continue cooking until the potatoes are barely done. Add the rest of the chicken stock, bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer cooking for a further 10 minutes. Stir in the parsley leaves and cook for 1 more minute before pouring everything into a cold bowl to stop the parsley overcooking.

Liquidise the soup before reheating gently and adjusting the seasoning to serve. Garnish with fresh parsley if you’re being posh.

Method

Melt the butter in a suitable saucepan over moderate heat and, when the foam subsides, sweat the onion in it for about 5 minutes without colouring. Add the chopped celery and sweat, stirring occasionally, for another 5 minutes also without colouring. Add the light chicken stock, increase the heat and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to simmering point and cook gently uncovered for 30 minutes. Liquidize the soup and return it to the saucepan.

Now it’s time to add the cheese. Since Stilton cheeses vary greatly both in strength and saltiness, I suggest that you treat the cheese as a seasoning and add it in stages to avoid over-doing it. Start with about a half (30 g). While gently reheating the soup, add the crumbled Stilton cheese stirring constantly so that it dissolves (this may take about 5 minutes). Taste the soup and try to balance the flavour of both the celery and the Stilton; neither should dominate. Add as much of the cheese as is necessary to achieve this balance.

Finally, adjust the seasoning to taste bearing in mind that you may not need any salt because of the salty Stilton.

Method

First, make the croûtons. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Drizzle about two tablespoons of olive oil on a baking sheet, add two crushed cloves of garlic and spread it around mixing the garlic into the oil (use your hands). Place the slices of baguette on the oiled sheet turning them over to lightly coat both sides. Bake them in the oven for 20-25 minutes until crisp and crunchy.

Place a 3.5 litre flameproof casserole on high heat and melt the butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil together. When hot, add the onions, 2 crushed cloves of garlic and the sugar, and fry turning everything occasionally until the onions begin to darken at the edges. (This should take 5 – 6 minures.) Reduce the heat to very low and continue cooking the onions very slowly for 30 minutes more. There should now be some nicely caramelized pan contents.

Pour in the stock and white wine, season, and increase the heat. While it is coming to the boil, stir with a wooden spoon scraping any caramelized residue from the pan bottom. Once at the boil, reduce the heat to very low again and leave it to cook very gently, uncovered, for about one hour. (All the above can be prepared in advance.)

When ready to serve, bring the soup back to simmering point and check for seasoning. Now is also the time to add the brandy if you wish.Serving this out of a tureen is apt to get very messy so I suggest you use individual soup bowls. Pre-heat the grill to high. Ladel the hot soup into the warmed soup bowls and top each with a croûton. Sprinkle the grated Gruyère over the croûtons and place the bowls under the grill until the cheese is golden and bubbling.

Warn your guests not to touch the bowls!

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C (gas mk 5). Toss the vegetables together with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar and place in a roasting pan. Place in the oven and roast for about 35 mins, stirring halfway through, until they are tender and caramelised.

Meanwhile, make the dukkah. Place the nuts and seeds in a dry frying pan and toast over gentle heat until the mustard seeds start to pop. Allow to cool, then pulse them in a food processor until coarsely ground. Transfer to a bowl.

Add the vegetables, together with any accumulated juices, and stock to a pan and heat for a few minutes to blend the flavours. Blitz in a blender (preferably the same one that the dukkah was ground in). Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with some of the dukkah sprinkled on top.

Method

In a pan large enough to take all the nettles, first melt the butter. Sweat the onion and potatoes together until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the nettles and sweat these, stirring constantly until they wilt. Then put in the chicken stock and milk and bring to simmering point. Add a little salt (I think cooking it with salt helps develop the flavour) but take care not to over do it at this stage. Simmer all together gently (take care it doesn’t boil over) for about 35 minutes until the potatoes are cooked through.

Blitz the soup in a liquidizer to a very smooth consistency. (You’ll probably have to do this in two batches depending upon the capacity of your liquidizer.) Return it to the pan and reheat it before adjusting the seasoning to taste with salt & pepper.

Method

Melt the butter in a large pan over medium heat then sweat the leek and watercress together for about five minutes. Keep stirring occasionally so that all the watercress wilts and collapses. Pour in the chicken stock and increase the heat to bring it to simmering point. Cook everything together gently for about 25 minutes.

Blitz the soup in a liquidizer. Now return it to the pan over low heat and stir in the cream. Adjust the seasoning to taste being careful of the pepper ‘cos watercress is quite peppery anyway.

(You can make this ahead of time and reheat it without fear of boiling, unlike the original which would curdle thanks to the egg yolks.)

Method

Melt the butter over medium heat and sweat the onion until soft (about 5 minutes) without colouring. Add the carrots and sweat these for a further 10 minutes also without colouring. Toss in the grated orange zest, stir and sweat for a minute or two. Now add the chicken stock, increase the heat and bring it to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for about 30 minutes.

Liquidize the soup and, if necessary, thin it to the required consistency with a little water. Warm the soup back up to serving temperature to season it. Taste first; the orange will seem to dominate before seasoning. Gradually add sea salt to taste. This will bring out the carrot flavour. Try to balance the carrot and orange flavours. Add a few twists of black pepper . Adding a splash of orange juice will give a distinctly fresh zing but be careful not to over do it.

Method

Sweat the onion in butter until soft and translucent. While the onion is cooking, chop the asparagus stems into lengths of about 1 cm. Add these to the onion and sweat over moderate heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent them from colouring.

Pour in the chicken stock and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer over low heat for about 25 minutes. Liquidize the soup until very smooth and pour back into the pan through a sieve to remove the fibrous ends of the asparagus stems. Rub the solids through the sieve (I find a pestle particularly effective) as much as possible. If necessary, thin the soup to the required consistency with a little water. Reheat the soup to serving temperature and adjust the seasoning.