The Soup – Part II

The beauty of the 3C soup is that you can add almost anything :

parsnips would give a sweetness

sweet potato – ditto

roasted butternut squash – ditto again

It doesn't have to be a vegetable soup – you could add leftover pieces of chicken or gammon. I always think marrow fat peas work well in soups but I think they are like Marmite – you either love them or hate them. If you're not a lover of chick peas, try butter beans or cannellini beans – both have a natural creamy texture. As with the chick peas, rinse them and then add to the soup. With butter beans you tend to get the outer shell from the bean - personally I'd take a minute or three to remove them – so much nicer in the finished soup.

Lets not forget the cherry on the top – or in this case the dumpling on the top! Hurray for vegetable suet - one of the best comfort foods ever and I for one am really pleased that eventually the “meat free” fraternity were considered.

Soup and dumplings are definitely in my top ten for Autumn/Winter comfort. Quick and easy to make, economical too. If you are the sort of person who doesn't mind eating the same lunch or supper two/three days on the run then this is for you. If you're not then I can confirm that the soup freezes very well. Have a look at my favourite soup “dish”. A really useful, nay colourful piece of kit. Freeze your soup in the mugs, clip the seals and it's ready to use from your freezer.

  

Instant portable lunch to take to the office or anywhere for that matter!

The Soup

I know there are gazillions of soup recipes out there – this is one of my absolute favourites. It's versatile too since you can chuck in whatever you like and make it your own.

Carrot, Coriander and Chickpea Soup

“3C” soup

500g Charlotte potatoes, peeled and diced

1 large onion, finely chopped

4 large carrots, peeled and diced

2 stockpots – vegetable in my case but

chicken if you prefer

1 litre of water

1 tsp mild curry powder

1 heaped tsp ground coriander

salt and black pepper

Drop of rapeseed oil

1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed

Using a large saucepan, soften the onion and carrot in a drop of rapeseed oil for approximately 5 minutes on a low heat, stirring occasionally. Add the curry powder, coriander and black pepper and cook the spices with the onion and carrot for 2 minutes so that the flavours are released.

Add the stockpots plus 500ml of the water and simmer until the pots have melted.

Add the diced potatoes and the remaining 500ml of water. Bring to the boil then simmer for 10 minutes until the carrot and potatoes are cooked. Taste, then add salt to personal taste.

Set aside to cool.

Place 3 ladles of soup in a liquidiser/food processor and blitz until thick. Add this back into your soup and stir well – check that the soup is a consistency that suits your preference. If it's too thin, repeat the ladles as above. Add the chick peas, heat and serve.

By blitzing the ladles of soup – you are using the potatoes as a thickening agent and so no artificial thickening is required. You are left with a soup that has visible, chunky vegetables and of course the chick peas.

Note to self – don't be tempted to put the potatoes in with the carrots and onions when softening in the oil. The natural starch that is released from the potatoes means that they will cement themselves to the bottom of your saucepan – not a pretty sight – not to mention the wrecked soup.

Paprika … which is it to be

… Hungarian or Spanish?

In the overall scheme of things it probably doesn't matter that much.

I always thought in this day and age of “foodies” that most supermarkets, certainly the larger ones, sold every herb and spice known to man! Lets face it, you can buy ras el hanout and za'atar to name but two exotic spice mixes - even in my neck of the woods. Why then can you not buy Hungarian paprika – grrr.

Hence my mission – a simple enough task you'd think – think again – suffice it to say that all I could find was Spanish or “product of more than one country”. I used Spanish paprika and should say I'm not in any way against it - it's a great product. It's just that Hungarian goulash should have Hungarian paprika.

I'm sure you know what's coming next – use your favourite on-line grocery – which is where I should have gone in the first place.

Rant over, here's the goulash, complete with dumpling!

Here's the Hungarian paprika – two choices - sweet smoked and sweet :

Just before I go - a post script – about the goulash - next time round I'm adding diced chorizo, fried until crisp - oil and all, to the recipe. It can be cooked ahead and then folded in before cooking the dumplings. I'll add 250g of diced chorizo to the recipe.

Another post script – about the beef - in a perfect world shin beef is the best cut to use when slow cooking your goulash. The “shin” works hard and so has lots of connective tissue - slow cooking it gives you a moist and tender result – perfect for this dish.

Soup recipe coming next!

Thoughts on dumplings …

... potatoes and soup.

How positively boring does that sound. Bear with me, you know I have your best interests at heart.

Lets take this stuff in order :

I pushed the boat out this weekend when friends came for supper and – drum roll please – served dumplings too with the goulash. I made them using vegetarian suet – no-one asked if they were vegetarian or not – I'd wager you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Minutes to prepare and 20 minutes to cook when re-heating the goulash.

I chose Charlotte potatoes to serve with the goulash. Fantastic firm potato – I par boiled them, let them cool and then peeled ready for the last 20 minutes. Try and make sure your potatoes are a similar size so that they cook evenly. Place them in a casserole or a foil tray, add a couple of knobs of butter, cover with foil and pop into a pre-heated oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6 whilst your dumplings are cooking.

I have not forgotten the non meat eaters - far from it, since I'm in the same boat. Why should we miss out on the Autumn comfort.

I made myself one of my favourite soups – what I call a “rib sticker” - it's thick and chunky – carrot, coriander and chick pea. The soup benefits from being made a day before if you prefer – it also uses Charlotte potatoes so fits in with the shopping list. The dumplings cook well sat in the thick soup - 20 minutes whilst re-heating the soup gently.

You don't have to wait for visitors - feet up in front of your favourite boxed set works well too.

Peasant food at its absolute best.

Hungarian rhapsody ...

… not in the musical sense! You probably wouldn't imagine using the word “rhapsody” or actually “rhapsodic” attributed to food, however, to the extent that one can be enthusiastic and excited about it I don't see why not.

I'm sure it's no surprise that the “Hungarian” refers to goulash. This time of year when it's turning cold it's difficult not to get bored once you've exhausted all the old favourites.

Here's my latest thought, “zhuzhed” a little. These days goulash seems to be served with rice or, spatzle (a soft egg noodle). I'm an old fashioned kinda gal with certain dishes and goulash is one of them. I like to serve mine, as was done in the 70s, with new potatoes. The ultimate comfort food however you want to serve it – by the way don't forget the sour cream - stirring in or even a blob on top – optional of course.

Hungarian Goulash

Serves 4-6 depending on size of appetite

900g braising steak, diced

glug of rapeseed oil to seal the beef

1 large onion, chopped as finely as possible

*8 tbsp tomato ketchup

*2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

*1 tbsp soft dark brown sugar

*2 tsps salt

*2 tsps Hungarian sweet paprika

*½ tsp mustard powder

300ml water

2 beef stock pots

1 tbsp cornflour mixed with 1 tbsp water

small tub of sour cream - optional

Use a large frying pan and seal the steak in the rapeseed oil – in small batches – if you overfill the pan you will finish up with grey steak and it will “stew” - not nice! Set the batches aside in the slow cooker. Soften the onion for 2 minutes and then add to the steak.

In a medium sized bowl mix together the ingredients marked *.

Using the same frying pan – and therefore any residual juices, add the water and the stock pots, bring to the boil and stir until the pots have melted. Add the mixed ingredients * and pour over the beef.

Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or until meat is tender.

At the end of the cooking time, using a slotted spoon, remove the steak from the gravy. Mix the cornflour with water and stir into goulash and cook on high to thicken.

Add the steak back into the thickened gravy and you're good to go.

Feeling hungry?

The moral of the rummage …

... is whatever you may cook if you have any leftovers – protein or otherwise, no matter how small an amount – bag it and freeze it. Note to self – don't forget to label and add a date too.

I always used to think that by Wednesday evening it was downhill all the way to the weekend - however the tiredness was kicking in and I felt like a limp lettuce leaf - supper was the last thing I wanted to think about.

All the more satisfying to produce a mid week meal using ingredients taken straight from your freezer. Time spent, five minutes rummaging through it and another five assembling the pie – ok – ten if you insist.

I appreciate you've got to allow for defrosting – if you're not a morning person, or probably more to the point are too busy splitting atoms why not “rummage” the night before – post-it notes for reminders are a wonderful thing.

If you need to be persuaded :

It's not just about being thrifty, to use a very old fashioned word – economical if you want an up to date version! It's about making the absolute best out of your leftovers that already taste great – believe me they taste even better when they've taken minutes to assemble. You won't be sorry.

Mid week glass of wine anyone?

Way back …

… when I visited my Nana and stayed for tea it was always “salad” or the 60s version of it but what I always remember is a bowl of sliced raw onion and cucumber steeped in malt vinegar.

It doesn't sound appetising I grant you, just the thought of the raw onion together with the pungency of the vinegar is enough to blow your socks off.

Which brings me to my second short cut using your spiced sweetened vinegar. Slice an onion thinly and submerge it in the spiced vinegar. Leave it for a few hours or overnight – somewhere cool but not in your fridge – you'll taint everything – vinegar flavoured chocolate mousse is not a good “culinary” look!

This is what it looks like :

For those sandwich connoisseurs out there I have two suggestions – mature cheddar cheese with the onion or, if you've roast beef left over, try a sprinkle of salt and then the onion – ta dah – on either count.

If the onion is a hit you might like to try cutting into chunks then submerge and leave it to absorb all the spiced sweetened vinegar overnight - or even a day or two and then add it to a casserole for added zing. It should be covered and kept in a cool, dark place.

It may not be a “pickled” onion for the purists but it beats the **** out of spending a fortune on a less than acceptable alternative.

Works for me!