today's soup

[ramtops]

started life as carrot and cumin. The organic box contains a bag of carrots every bloody week, and we don't eat that many, so every now and again I make a huge pan of carrot soup to get rid of them.

on Monday, we had lemon and coriander chicken, and some dhal made from black lentils. We pogged all the chickie, but there was some juice left, and that got tipped into the soup pot together with the rest of the dhal.

it's *delicious* - we had it with home made (well bread machine made) bread, and some chicken tikka.

[burp]

Comments

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

The organic box contains a bag of carrots every bloody week,

Reviewing what was available on the stall from which we used to get our organic box, I am so glad we gave up. It would have been chard, kale, probably five tonnes of potatoes, and possibly a few carrots and maybe squash ... Life is short and kale is tough, though curiously, the chard seemed to keep longer when I bought it there than it did when it was in the box. Hadn't been lying around for days, obviously.

I have a very good recipe for cream of leaf soup if you ever want it. I've so far done it with watercress and chard, but it seems proof against anything of a leafy disposition, though possibly not kale.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

oh, I quite like kale (though we haven't had any for weeks). But yes pleae to the soup recipe - I love soup, and it's a grand way to get rid of anything we're not too fond of!

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

I don't have much experience of kale, nor am I likely to in this life, so I worry about it ... plus, I suspect I got rather leathery kale (inevitably).

Soup ...

40g each of butter and flour, make a roux, cook out for 3 minutes, stirring madly to make sure very smooth, bit by bit add a pint of milk or stock (I have been using stock because we have the EU stock mountain in the freezer), stir, ensure all lumps have been eliminated, etc. Bring to boil, when thickens lower heat, and ...

...add what seems like appropriate amount of leaves (I used two bunches of watercress the first time, and a couple of large handfuls of rainbow chard the second, stalks and all) chopped roughly. Also, half a bunch of spring onions, green and white bits, sliced. Simmer for 20 minutes or so.

At this point I used my blender on a stick for the watercress, but used the main blender for the chard, as it was coarser, and for the chard I sieved the soup, though there was in fact very little fibre.

Return to clean pan, season with the usual and lemon juice, add 5 tablespoons of double cream (that is usually spelled 'a small carton' because I really don't like having little bits of cream in the bottom of the pot hanging round in the fridge), reheat, serve. Up to the point where you put in the cream it stores quite well for a day or so, so can be made in advance.

Looking at it, I suspect it would also work rather well with mushrooms. Spinach is a no-brainer, and I'm wondering about lettuce too.

I also thought that there would be a floury aftertaste because of the roux, but if it's thoroughly cooked, about 3 minutes, before the milk or stock is added, it seems not to. I like it because it's a dead simple, great standby recipe, and because of that advance element.

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

That looks very much like my mushroom soup recipe apart from the cream.

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

Mushroom soup, then ... it's a lot simpler than the other two m'room soup recipes I've got, and I can finally do something about those fascinating mushrooms I see at the market sometimes. (PK won't eat mushrooms but likes mushroom soup, because it's not about texture.) And I should cut down on the cream ... maybe do that one with milk.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

sounds delicious - thanks :)

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.