600g broccoli
1 medium potato (approx 150g)
1 litre vegetable stock
100g Cheddar
75g Stilton
6 slices of good-quality bloomer
runny honey
200ml single cream
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Peel the onion and garlic and chop finely. Trim the leeks, slice finely, then wash in a colander to remove any dirt. Place a large saucepan on a medium-low heat, add a little butter, a drizzle of olive oil and the chopped and sliced veg. Pick the thyme leaves and add to the pan, then sauté gently for 15 minutes, until soft and sticky but not coloured.
Trim the broccoli and cut into even-sized florets, slicing the stalk too. Peel the potato and cut into small even-size chunks. Add the veg to the pan and pour in the vegetable stock. Turn up the heat and bring to the boil. As soon as it start to bubble, reduce the heat, cover with a lid and simmer for 12–15 minutes, or until the broccoli and potato are tender.
While the soup is cooking, get your soldiers ready. Place a griddle pan or a large non-stick frying pan on a high heat. Coarsely grate the Cheddar, slice or crumble up the Stilton, and mix them together. Butter the 6 bread slices lightly on both sides and divide the cheese between 3 of the slices. Put the remaining bread on top, then griddle or fry the sandwiches. If using a frying pan, try placing something on top of the sandwiches to act as a weight and push them into the pan. Turn them over when charred or golden and continue with the second side. When they are ready, transfer to a chopping board and drizzle with a little honey.
When the soup is ready, blitz with a hand blender until completely smooth. Pour in the cream, blitz again, and season to taste. Slice the toasties into soldiers and serve alongside bowls of the hot soup. Heavenly.
ROAST SWEET POTATO, SPINACH AND CHICKPEA SOUP
I initially wrote this recipe for my parents, trying to recreate a soup they had on holiday (I was given a list of the key ingredients), and it has become a firm family favourite. A little bit smooth and a little bit chunky, this is a rich and wholesome soup.
SERVES 6
550g sweet potatoes (approx. 3)
olive oil
1 × 400g tin of chickpeas
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon
1½ teaspoons ground cumin
2 onions
2 garlic cloves
½ a bunch of coriander
1 green chilli
1 teaspoon ground coriander
800ml vegetable stock
1 × 400ml tin of reduced-fat coconut milk
200g spinach
Preheat your oven to 200°C/gas 6. Rub the sweet potatoes with a little oil and place on a large roasting tray. Pop into the oven and roast for 30 minutes, until almost cooked.
Drain the chickpeas, and when the potatoes have had half an hour in the oven, scatter them around the tray. Drizzle with a little oil, season generously, finely grate over the lemon zest and sprinkle with ½ teaspoon of ground cumin. Toss everything together and pop into the oven for a further 15 minutes, until the chickpeas are golden and crispy and the potatoes are cooked through.
While the tray is in the oven, start the base. Place a large non-stick saucepan on a medium-low heat and add a glug of olive oil. Peel and finely chop the onions and the garlic and sauté for around 10 minutes, until soft. Pick the coriander leaves and keep to one side, and finely chop the stalks. Halve, deseed and finely slice the chilli, then add it to the pan with the coriander stalks, the remaining teaspoon of ground cumin and the ground coriander and fry for a further 3–4 minutes.
Carefully, roughly chop the sweet potato and add it to the pan. Add most of the chickpeas, reserving some for garnish, and pour in the stock and coconut milk. Gently bring everything to the boil, season well, then reduce to a simmer and cover. Cook for around 10 minutes.
When the soup is ready, add the spinach and cook for a couple more minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, add most of the coriander leaves and blitz the soup until smooth, using a stick blender. If it’s a little on the thick side, add a bit more stock or water until you get to the texture and thickness that you like. Squeeze in the lemon juice and stir through. Taste and adjust the seasoning, then serve sprinkled with the remaining crispy chickpeas and any remaining coriander leaves.
Roast Sweet Potato, Spinach and Chickpea Soup
ROASTED CAULIFLOWER AND COCONUT SOUP
We adore this soup at home and make it often after work, when we are a little tired and just want to curl up with a bowl of something warming. It’s easy to do, doesn’t need much attention, and is rich, lightly spiced and deliciously creamy.
SERVES 4–6
2 onions
600g cauliflower
4 garlic cloves
1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 heaped teaspoon ras el hanout
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
a handful of unsweetened coconut flakes
1 × 400ml tin of reduced-fat coconut milk
600ml vegetable stock
2-3 tablespoons chilli oil
Preheat your oven to 180°C/gas 4.
Peel and cut the onions into 1cm wedges and trim then cut the cauliflower into even-sized florets. If it has the leaves on, don’t cut them off, roast those too. Place it all in a roasting tray with the unpeeled garlic cloves and sprinkle with the cinnamon and ras el hanout. Season well, and drizzle everything with a good glug of olive oil. Toss it all together and pop into the oven for 25–30 minutes, until cooked through and a little charred. Scatter the coconut flakes on to a small tray and pop into the oven for the last few minutes to toast – they should only need 3–4 minutes.
When the veg are ready, remove the garlic cloves and scrape all the veg into a large saucepan. Squeeze the garlic out of its skins and add them too. Pour in the coconut milk, add the stock and gently bring to the boil. Reduce the heat a little and simmer for 5 minutes, then remove from the heat. Using a stick blender, blitz the soup until creamy and smooth, adding a splash more water if it is too thick.
Taste and adjust the seasoning, and serve topped with the toasted coconut flakes and a drizzle of chilli oil.
Roasted Cauliflower and Coconut Soup
SALMOREJO
Not unlike the much-loved gazpacho, salmorejo is its simpler yet classier big sister. I love that by using only a few store cupboard ingredients you can quickly create something so delicious and refreshing – a glass of this on a hot summer’s day is pure bliss. But please, please only make this with ripe, in-season tomatoes – this is not a winter soup and is easily ruined otherwise. You’ll end up with bland mush.
SERVES 4
2 large hen’s eggs or 4 quail’s eggs
1 slice of serrano ham, 1cm thick
a few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley
8 large ripe tomatoes
1 garlic clove
2 thick slices of good white bread (around 100g in total)
125ml extra virgin olive oil
a splash of sherry vinegar
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 ice cubes, to serve
Start by boiling your eggs. I boil hen’s eggs for 7 minutes so they are hard-boiled, and quail’s eggs for 3 minutes. Run them under cold running water, then peel and chop into bite-size pieces. Chop the serrano ham to a similar size. Pick and chop the parsley leaves.
Bring a large pan of water to the boil, then remove from the heat. Score a little cross on the top of each tomato, through the stalk, then plunge them into the boiling water for a minute or two, until you start to see the skin peeling away. Drain, then carefully peel off the tomato skins and discard.
Roughly chop the tomatoes and pop them into a blender. Peel and roughly chop the garlic and add it too, then blitz until completely smooth. Tear out the centre of the bread, discarding the crusts, then add to the blender and blitz until creamy. Finish by blitzing in the oil
and a generous splash of vinegar. Season to taste, and add a little more vinegar if needed. Pour the salmorejo into a jug and pop into the fridge to chill for at least a couple of hours. Serve over ice, garnished with the chopped egg, serrano ham and some parsley.
Salmorejo
BREAD, LEEK AND CABBAGE LAYER SOUP
This is my take on an Italian classic, a fantastic oven-baked soup made up of layers of stale bread, cheese and greens. It’s wonderfully comforting and something a little different.
SERVES 6
800g Savoy cabbage or cavolo nero, or a mixture
4 leeks
2 onions
4 garlic cloves
1 large fennel bulb
200g mature Cheddar
½ a teaspoon fennel seeds
3 litres vegetable stock
½ a lemon
olive oil
½ a bunch of sage
4 anchovy fillets in oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 large country-style loaf, ideally a few days old
Remove the stems from the cabbage and/or cavolo nero leaves and rinse well. Roll the leaves up like large cigars and cut into ½cm slices. Trim the leeks, slice to a similar thickness and rinse away any dirt. Peel and finely slice the onions and garlic. Trim and finely slice the fennel. Coarsely grate all the cheese and leave to one side. Grind the fennel seeds in a pestle and mortar until fine.
Bring the vegetable stock to the boil in a large saucepan. Blanch the shredded cabbage in the stock for 5 minutes, then remove to a bowl with a slotted spoon and set aside. Keep the stock hot in the pan and squeeze in the juice from the lemon half.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas 4. Heat a good drizzle of olive oil in a non-stick frying pan. Pick and shred most of the sage leaves (leave a few whole for garnishing) and add to the pan with the garlic. Fry over a medium-low heat for a couple of minutes, until the garlic is golden. Add the sliced fennel, ground fennel seeds, leeks and anchovies and reduce the heat. Sauté for 12–15 minutes, until the veg are soft and sticky but not coloured, and the anchovies have broken down. Add the blanched cabbage to the pan, season well and mix everything together. Remove from the heat.
Cut the bread into 12–15 slices and toast all but 5 of them until golden. Get a wide, deep ovenproof dish (about 25cm across) and start layering up the soup. Start with half the toast, cutting the slices if necessary to create a secure, even layer on the bottom. Top with half of the cabbage and onion mixture, and sprinkle over a third of the grated cheese. Layer with the remaining toast, cabbage and a third more cheese. Ladle over the stock, until the dish is almost full, then finish with a layer of the untoasted bread. Push and submerge the bread into the stock, scatter over the remaining cheese and sage leaves, and drizzle with a little olive oil. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until the top is golden. Serve immediately.
Bread, Leek and Cabbage Layer Soup
CRAB AND PRAWN WONTON BROTH WITH CHARRED CORN
This soup is so wonderfully simple and pretty that I’m always pleased as punch when I’ve made it for myself. My tip is when you find wonton wrappers (in Asian supermarkets or online), keep a few packets stored in the freezer, then this becomes a great store cupboard soup. Also, if you don’t like crab or prawns, you can use just one or the other. I’ve even made these with 200g of pork mince before, and it worked just as well.
SERVES 4–6
100g crabmeat (I like to use 50g white meat, 50g brown meat)
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
100g cooked prawns
a 2cm piece of ginger
1 garlic clove
24 wonton skins
1.2 litres good-quality fish or chicken stock
2 corn on the cob
2 spring onions
1 tablespoon low-salt soy sauce
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 red chilli
½ a bunch of chives
a punnet of cress
In a mixing bowl mix together the crabmeat, oyster sauce and half the sesame oil. Finely chop the prawns and add to the bowl. Peel the ginger and garlic and finely grate them in, then mix everything together well. Fill a little pot with water and get a tray ready to line up your wontons.
Place a wonton skin on your chopping board, rub the outside edge with a little water and put a teaspoonful of the crab mixture into the middle. Bring the sides up and scrunch together, forming a little bag with a gathered top. (You can fold the wontons however you like, to be honest, as long as they are completely sealed.) Fill all the skins and leave them to one side.
Place a griddle pan on a high heat. Place a large saucepan of water on a high heat and bring to the boil. Put the stock into another saucepan, place on a medium heat, and gently bring to a simmer. Place the corn on the griddle and grill for a few minutes on each side, until charred and cooked through. Stand the cobs upright on your chopping board and carefully cut off the charred kernels. Transfer them to the simmering stock. Trim the spring onions, slice finely, and add to the stock too, along with the soy sauce and the remaining ½ tablespoon of sesame oil. Check the seasoning and tweak to your taste. Halve, deseed and finely slice the chilli and keep to one side. Trim and slice the chives.
When you are ready to serve, pop the wontons into the boiling water and boil until they rise to the surface, which means they are ready. Ladle them into your serving bowls and top with the sweetcorn broth. Finish with the sliced chives, a little sliced chilli and a pinch of cress.
Crab and Prawn Wonton Broth with Charred Corn
CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL
This is my recipe for a classic chicken soup, slowly poached and finished with herby dumplings. It’s simple and clean and one of the most soothing foods out there. My yiayia and Mum would make this for us, often with rice, if we were poorly, as it’s thought to be healing. (The Jewish version, matzo ball soup, is often dubbed Jewish penicillin). Whether it’s true or not, there’s no denying how comforting this soup is, and the addition of lemon here means it is packed with Vitamin C; great when you’re full of cold. So next time you know someone is feeling pants, you know what to cook them.
SERVES 6
1 × 1.2kg chicken
2 carrots
2 sticks of celery
2 onions
6 cloves
a few sprigs of thyme
1 fresh bay leaf
½ a bunch of flat-leaf parsley
½ a stick of cinnamon
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 leeks
olive oil
50g chicken fat (skim it off when you make the broth, or otherwise use 50g butter)
4 lemons
A few sprigs of mixed soft herbs (I like a mixture of chives, chervil and dill)
150g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon mustard powder
75ml milk
Place the chicken in a large saucepan and pour in enough cool water to cover. Peel and chop the carrots and celery and add to the pan. Peel one of the onions, cut it in half through the root, so it doesn’t fall apart, and stud with the cloves. Tie the thyme, bay leaf and half the parsley together with a piece of butcher’s string and add to the pan along with the onion halves and cinnamon. Season with pepper and a teaspoon of salt.
Place the pan on a medium heat and gently bring to the boil. Leave the water to gently bubble away for 5 minutes, and skim away any scum that comes to the surface. After 5 minutes, reduce the heat to low and cover with a lid. Gently poach the chicken for around 1 hour, until it is tender and cooked through. If it isn’t quite ready, give it an extra 10–15 minutes.
While the chicken is poaching, make the base for your soup. Peel the remaining onion and chop finely. Trim the leeks, removing the outer layers, and finely slice also. Wash them in a colander to remove any dirt. Place a large saucepan on a medium-low heat and add a glug of olive oil. Add the onion and leeks and gen
tly sauté for around 15 minutes, until soft and sticky but not coloured.
Once the chicken is ready, remove it from the broth and leave to one side. Discard the herb bunch, cinnamon and onion halves, and measure the broth. You want 2.4 litres. If there isn’t enough, top it up with boiling water. Pour the broth, chopped celery and carrot into the pan with the leeks. Shred all the meat from the chicken, discarding the skin, and add it to the broth. Keep the carcass to make fabulous stock (see here). Squeeze in the juice from 3 of the lemons, then taste and tweak the seasoning. Add the juice from the remaining lemon if it needs a little more. Finely chop the soft herbs and the rest of the parsley, and mix three-quarters of them in a bowl with the flour, baking powder, mustard powder and a good pinch of salt. Melt the chicken fat or butter in a small pan and pour into the flour mixture along with the milk. Mix just enough to bring together, but be careful to not overwork the mixture. Use a teaspoon to scoop up spoonfuls of dumpling batter and roll into balls – you don’t want them too big, as they will puff up. You should get about 24 dumplings from the mixture. Pop these into the broth. Cover for 5 minutes, until the dumplings have cooked through. Ladle the soup into bowls, distributing the dumplings between them, and finish with the remaining chopped herbs.
Chicken Soup for the Soul
PORK AND BLACK BEAN SOUP WITH GREEN GODDESS DRESSING
This soup might not be much of a looker, but I promise you it is an absolute corker. Intense, thick and hearty, the green goddess dressing cuts through it beautifully, and makes it a well-rounded meal.
SERVES 6
2 green peppers
750g pork shoulder
250g spring greens or chard
2 onions
2 garlic cloves
2 sticks of celery
1 chipotle chilli (if you can’t find chipotle chilli, use a pinch of dried chilli flakes and ½ teaspoon sweet smoked paprika)
olive oil
Stirring Slowly Page 5
