Pea and ham soup

Pea and ham soup in a green bowl

I thought soup weather was over but I was wrong - yesterday was rainy, windy and cold. Good thing I bought a ham hock at the weekend to make soup.

Ham hock sounds a lot posher than pork knuckle, but it's the same thing. In Poland it's called 'golonka', which is what we used to call my (half Polish) nephew when he was a baby.

I searched for soup recipes online and found ones that cooked vegetables with the ham hock for an hour, then pulled the meat off the hock to serve. Yuk! Vegetables that have been cooked for an hour!

Instead, I made a stock by cooking the veg and the ham then strained it. Amazingly, I got exactly 2 litres, so for once I can be accurate about the recipe quantities. However I forget to weigh the split peas before I soaked them, but it doesn't really matter how much you use -- it will just affect how thick you soup is. If it turns out too runny, add some red lentils to thicken, as they don't need to be pre-soaked, and only take about 15 minutes to cook. (The grated carrot will also thicken the soup slightly)

Ham hock stock 

• 1 ham hock/pork knuckle
• 2 small or 1 large carro
• 2 medium onions
• 2 sticks celery
• 8 peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 large sprig thyme (optional)

1. Chop the vegetables roughly and add to a stock pot or large pan with the ham hock.
2. Cover with cold water.
3. Bring to the boil and simmer for about an hour.
4. Leave everything in the pan till cool, then remove the ham hock and set to one side.
5. Strain the liquor into a jug, and discard the soggy, overcooked vegetables.

Pea and ham soup ingredients

• 2 medium onions
• 2 sticks celery
• 1 small carrot
• Rapeseed or olive oil for frying
• 2 litres ham hock stock
• Meat pulled off 1 ham hock
• 300g yellow split peas
• 150g frozen peas

 How to make pea and ham soup

1. Soak the split peas in a large bowl of cold water overnight.
2. The next day, rinse well with cold water and leave to drain in a sieve over the bowl. 
3. Heat a little rapeseed oil in a large pan.
4. Finely chop 2 medium onions and 2 sticks celery.
5. Fry onions and celery in the oil until soft.
6. Grate the carrot and add to the pan.
7. Pour in the stock.
8. Add the split peas.
9. Season with pepper and bring to the boil.
10. Reduce to a simmer and continue cooking until the split peas are mushy.*
11. Check the seasoning.
12. Turn off the heat.
13. Add the frozen peas - they will cook in the residual heat from the soup.
14. Leave the soup to cool a little.
15. Liquidise in batches.
16. To serve, heat up only as much soup as you need, adding some of the ham pulled from the hock to warm through.

*The time taken for the split peas to become mushy will depend on how old they are -- if they have been sitting in the back of your cupboard for ages they could take a long time to go soft. 

Soda bread

To go with the easiest soup in the world, here's the easiest bread in the world. It contains no yeast and so doesn't require proving and there's no kneading. Instead, bicarbonate of soda is used as the leavening agent, hence the name 'soda bread'.

I based my soda bread on the Delia Smith recipe which can be found in Delia's How to Cook Book 1. I haven't been able to find her recipe online so have outlined the differences between mine and Delia's versions here. My variations were based entirely on what ingredients I had in the kitchen. The resulting loaf made a pretty amazing accompaniment to leek and potato soup.

Soda bread* ingredients

*Delia calls hers Irish soda bread. 

• 175g wholemeal flour (not wholemeal bread flour) plus extra for dusting
• 50g plain flour
• 50g medium oatmeal (Delia uses pinhead oatmeal)
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 large egg
• 275ml buttermilk or yoghurt - Delia specifies buttermilk since but I only had about 50ml I topped it up to the full amount with yoghurt.

Delia includes 25g wheatgerm in her recipe. I don't. Apparently it's very good for you. 

How to make soda bread

1. Butter a 450g loaf tin.
2. Heat the oven to the Magic Cooking Number, 190C.
3. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
4. Add the egg to the buttermilk/yoghurt and beat together.
5. Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix together to form a stiff dough.
6. Put the dough into the prepared tin and smooth the top.
7. Sprinkle with a little additional flour.
8. Bake for 50-60 minutes. 

Alternative soda bread recipe

Alternative soda bread

Following on from last weekend's experimental baking, I decided to have a go at another soda bread recipe. Again, the ingredients and quantities used were mainly based on what was in the cupboard, so I think a degree of flexibility is perfectly acceptable. 

Alternative soda bread ingredients

• 50g medium oatmeal
• 125ml water
• 75g Greek yoghurt
• 75ml milk
• 1 teaspoon soft brown sugar
• 175g wholemeal flour
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 15g butter
  

How to make alternative soda bread 

1. Add the oatmeal to a large pan and cover with the water.
2. Bring to the boil then turn off the heat.
3. Cover with a lid and leave for 50 minutes.
4. Beat the yoghurt, milk and sugar together and keep in the fridge till needed.
5. After 50 minutes, add the butter to the oatmeal and beat until it disappears.
6. Heat the oven to 190 degrees C (the Magic Cooking Number)
7. Add the yoghurt mixture to the oatmeal and beat until smooth.
8. Add the flour, bicarb and salt to the mixture and beat together to form a sticky dough.
9. Butter and line a loaf tin.
10. Tip the dough into the tin and cover the top, either with silicome paper if using, or tin foil.
11. Bake for 15 minutes.
12. Remove the foil/silicone and bake for another 30 minutes.

Leek and potato soup

This has to be the easiest soup in the world to make, and surely one of the most satisfying to eat - it feels like putting on a big fluffy pair of slippers.

Goes perfectly with homemade soda bread. 
 

Leek and potato soup with homemade soda bread

My brother told me how to make this soup after having made it when he was in primary school. He is 33 now so does that mean I can call it 'an old family recipe'?

Leek and potato soup ingredients

• Rapeseed oil*
• 1 large onion
• 2 large leeks
• 2 medium floury potatoes
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• Plenty salt and pepper
• A little grated Cheddar, to serve

*I doubt my brother recommended using rapeseed oil so feel free to substitute for olive or butter. 

How to make leek and potato soup

1. Heat a little rapeseed oil in a large pan.
2. Chop the onion finely and add to the pan.
3. Put the lid on the pan and sweat the onions over a low heat while you prepare the leeks.
4. Remove the outer leaves from the leeks, then chop into long batons. Slice each baton lengthways, then run under the cold tap to remove any soil.
5. Slice the cleaned leeks into smaller pieces.
6. Add to the onions and sweat until both are soft (about 10 minutes)
7. Peel the potatoes and cut into even sized pieces.
8. Add the vegetable stock to the pan.
9. Add the potatoes and season with plenty salt and pepper.
10. Put the lid back on the pan and bring everything to the boil.
11. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender.
12. Leave the soup to cool slightly, then either liquidise in a food processor or mash with a potato masher.
13. Check the seasoning. 
14. Sprinkle over a little grated Cheddar to serve.

Carrot and lentil soup

It's been raining for what seems like a year so I need to stock up my freezer with a selection of soups for lunch at work. While the best soups always contain cheese (cauliflower/broccoli and blue cheese, leek and potato with cheddar), lentils can turn an essentially dull vegetable soup into a satisfying meal, while still being healthy.

I was feeling lazy when I made this soup, and couldn't be bothered to dry roast and crush any fresh spices so I used pre-ground spices instead. The result was disappointing, until I upped the quantity used considerably. 

 

Carrot and lentil soup ingredients

• 3 large carrots, peeled and grated
• 2 sticks celery, finely chopped
• 1/2 swede or a turnip
• 1 medium onion, finely diced
• 3 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon turmeric 
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon asafoetida
• 1 teaspoon sambal oelek or other chilli sauce
• 2 JOTs fresh root ginger, peeled and grated
• I teaspooon fresh ginger paste
• 150g red lentils, rinsed
• 2 teaspoons Swiss bouillon stock powder
• Rind of 1 orange
• Plenty salt and black pepper
• About 1 litre water 

 

How to make carrot and lentil soup

1. Heat a little rapeseed oil in a large pan till hot.
2. Add the chopped onion and celery and fry till soft and golden.
3. Add the grated carrot and ginger, and cook for about 5 minutes over a low heat.
4. Add the spices, approx 1 litre cold water and the lentils.
5. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer.
6. Add some boiling water to the Swiss bouillon stock powder and mix till dissolved and you have a watery liquid then pour this in the pan. 
7. Add the grated orange zest and ginger paste. 
8. Turn off the heat and allow the soup to cool slightly before tasting and adding seasoning. 

Really complicated dahl soup

I made a really complicated dahl recipe by from the Guardian by Urvesh Parvais (me neither) when some friends came round for lunch on New Year's Day. As usual, I had tons left over, and as usual I turned the leftover dahl into soup.

Really complicated dahl soup

As I said, this dahl was really complicated. To give you an idea how complicated, here's the list of ingredients:

Complicated dahl ingredients

• red lentils 250g
• sunflower oil 3 tbsp 
• dry chilli 1 
• cumin seeds 1 heaped tsp 
• asafoetida ¼ tsp 
• garlic ½ small bulb, sliced 1mm 
• onion ½, finely sliced
• turmeric ½ level tsp 
• salt 2 level tsp (then add to taste) 
• ginger finely chopped 1½ heaped tbsp 
• green chilli 2, finely chopped (adjust to your taste) 
• dhana jeru (2 parts coriander seed, 1 part cumin seed) 3 heaped tsp 
• fresh coriander ½ bunch (reserve a little for garnish), roughly chopped 
• tomatoes 100g, roughly chopped 
• jaggery (or sugar) 1½ level tsp (add less to begin with then adjust to taste) 
• garam masalo ½ level tsp

I could go on to explain the extremely complicated method for making this dahl, but my guess is you're not going to bother making it, so I'm not going to bother writing it. If you fancy giving it a shot, go to the Guardian website.  

My friends did say that it was lovely dahl, though it was a little too thick for my liking. However, when I turned it into soup and had some at work it was way too garlicky. When I first read the recipe I wasn't sure if it really meant 1/2 bulb garlic, or if this was a typo and was meant to read 1/2 clove garlic. Deciding a clove was too little and a bulb too much, I think I settled on about 4 cloves. The garlic is sliced, not crushed, and half of it is added in the last 5-10 minutes' cooking time. It was these slices that I picked out of my soup, though admittedly they were slightly larger than the recommended 1mm thickness. Guiltily, I threw away the remaining portion of soup.

Pumpkin soup

This soup turned out to be really quite hot - perfect for the first week in January back at work.

Pumpkin soup ingredients

• 1 medium onion
• 1/2 medium pumpkin
• 1 small carrot
• 1/2 tablespoon ginger purée 
• 1/2 tablespoon homemade curry powder
• 1 small hot red chilli
• 200ml coconut milk
• 200ml vegetable stock
• Handful sweet corn

  How to make pumpkin soup

1. Heat a little groundnut oil in a large pan.
2. Chop the onion finely and sweat in the pan till soft (about 5 minutes).
3. Chop the pumpkin into small chunks.  
4. Grate the carrot. 
5. Add the ginger puree and curry powder and stir for 30 seconds.
6. Add the pumpkin and carrot and sweat for a couple of minutes.
7. Pour in the coconut milk and vegetable stock.
8. Pierce the chilli and add to the pan.
9. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer.
10. Simmer until the pumpkin is soft and beginning to collapse - about 20 minutes as a guide but the time will depend on the size of the pumpkin pieces. 
11. Turn off the heat and leave to cool slightly.
12. Fish out the chilli.
13. Mash the pumpkin with a potato masher. You could liquidize the soup if you prefer, but I like a bit of texture.
14. Sprinkle the sweet corn over the top of the soup before you serve. 

 

Pumpkin soup

Chicken noodle soup

Not leftover roast chicken risotto

I'm so bored with being told that you can make a roast chicken last 3 days by making risotto with some of the leftover chicken and homemade stock. For me, risotto is monotonous stodge on a plate.

Go for something light like this healthy soup instead. You'll still have plenty stock left to freeze or use for thick chicken soup, and leftover cold roast chicken is a fine addition to any salad. 

Chicken noodle soup ingredients

 

• 2 bowls homemade chicken stock
• A handful mange tout
• A handful kale leaves, roughly chopped
• 4 spring onions, diagonally sliced
• A splash dark soy sauce
• A tiny splash nam pla
• 1 bruised blade  lemongrass
• 1/2 lime
• 1/2 teaspoon chilli paste
• I nest dried thin noodles
• As much leftover roast chicken as you want to add

How to make chicken noodle soup

1. Bring the chicken stock to a rolling boil in a medium-sized pan.
2. Add the splashes of nam pla and dark soy sauce, together with the bruised lemongrass stalk and chilli paste.
3. Add the noodles then after 1 minute drop in the vegetables and the cooked chicken. 
4. Simmer for a minute or 2, until the chicken is warmed but the vegetables remain crunchy.
5. Remove from the heat and ladle into individual bowls, then squeeze 1/4 lime into each bowl.

Thick chicken soup

For this soup I used the leftovers and stock from New Year's Eve's roast chicken with tarragon, so if you don't have any tarragon wilting in your fridge you can do without. 

  Thick chicken soup ingredients

• About 700ml homemade chicken stock
• 1 large leek
• 1 large banana shallot
• About 200ml milk
• 2 tablespoons crème fraîche
• 1 handful cooked chicken per person
• About 3 sprigs tarragon
• 1 medium potato

How to make thick chicken soup

1. Heat a little rapeseed oil in a large pan.
2. Finely chop the shallot and leek, add to the pan and sweat gently till soft.
3. Add the stock to the pan.
4. Peel the potato, chop into small cubes and add to the pan.
5. Bring to the boil then simmer gently for about 20 minutes.
6. Chop the tarragon very finely and add to the soup along with the milk and crème fraîche.
7. Simmer for another 10 minutes - the potato should have collapsed completely and the soup thickened. If the soup is not as thick as you'd like, turn the heat up a little and continue to cook till it reduces and thickens.
8. Add the cooked chicken, torn into pieces, just before you want to serve the soup to warm through. 

If you've made a big batch of soup to freeze or have later and only want a portion or two now, heat just enough soup and chicken as you need in a separate pan - if you heat then reheat the chicken it will get tough and taste awful. 

Accidentally amazing soup

I didn't think this soup would taste so good! I originally intended to add miso paste, but having warmed and tasted the stock I decided not to. I then thought about adding some nam pla, but after adding the lemongrass and allowing it to infuse, the sweet, almost sickly taste of the stock was transformed into a lighter, fragrant broth. The chopped mint scattered on top just accentuated the fresh taste. 

Of course, there's no guarantee your soup will turn out this good every time. The key is in the stock. In this instance, I had an aniseedy stock made from the bones and cooking liquor from a duck dish I made for friends a few weeks ago. If I'd used chicken stock, I probably would have added that nam pla, and maybe a bit of soy sauce. A vegetable stock version would most definitely have needed that miso paste.

Chicken noodle soup ingredients

• Duck stock
• 4 chicken thighs
• 3 lemongrass stalks
• 1 red chilli
• 2 large handfuls spinach
• 2 portions sugarsnap peas
• 2 servings soba noodles
• 1 sprig mint

2 warmed bowls

How to make chicken noodle soup 

1. Add some rapeseed oil to a frying pan and heat till hot.
2. Add the chicken thighs to the pan, turn down the heat, and brown. Turn and brown the other side.
3. WARNING: THERE WILL BE SMOKE AND SPLUTTERING HOT FAT.
4. Meanwhile, put the stock in a solid-based, high sided pan, and warm.
5. Add the browned chicken thighs to the warm stock and bring to a lively simmer.
6. Finely chop the chilli and add to the stock.
7. Bash the lemongrass with a pestle and snap into pieces so that you can fit it in the pan. 
8. Cook for about 20 minutes.
9. After about 15 minutes, boil a kettle of water, tip into a separate pan and cook the noodles for about 5 minutes.
10. Add the spinach and sugarsnap peas to the stick mixture and cook fora further 3 minutes. 
11. Drain the noodles and add to the warmed bowls.
12. Ladle over the broth with the vegetables and chicken thighs. 
13. Scatter over the chopped mint and eat straight away.

Carrot and cardamon soup

Soup 2 of my soup frenzy Sunday, and another adaptation from the New Covent Garden's Soup and Beyond book.

I'm surprised the recipe included a teaspoon of sugar, which I omitted, as it is still very sweet for my liking. It took a bit of tweaking to produce a little sharpness - I added lime lime leaves and tamarind.  

I also added some red lentils to make this soup more substantial for lunch, so you don't need any bread with it.  

Purple carrots, disappointingly orange on the inside

On a whim I bought some purple carrots which I used for this soup - maybe they are sweeter than orange ones? Apparently back in the day all carrots used to be purple, till William of Orange made them all orange. Sounds like a QI not true alert to me.

Carrot, lentil and cardamon soup ingredients

• About 3 medium or 2 large carrot
• I large onion
• I clove garlic
• 1/2 litre vegetable stock
• 50g red lentils, rinsed
• Juice 1/2 lemon
• About 2 tablespoons coconut milk
• Seeds from 8 cardamon pods
• 1 tablespoon tamarind paste
• 1 tablespoon chopped lime leaves

  How to make carrot, lentil and cardamon soup

1. Chop the onion finely.
2. Add a little rapeseed or olive oil to a pan to warm.
3. Add the onion and cover with a lid to sweat for about 5 minutes.
4. Grate the carrot and add to the onion.
5. Crush the garlic and add to the pan.
6. Fry for a few minutes till the carrot starts to reduce and you can smell the garlic.
7. Add the stock and coconut milk and lentils.
8. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer.
9. Add the cardamon seeds, lime leaves and tamarind paste.
10. Season with salt and pepper.
11. Simmer for about 30 minutes. 
12. Add the lemon before serving. 

 

Carrot, cardamon and lentil soup which looks like any other soup

Squash and satay soup

Here’s a soup that I really do consider free, since it is made almost entirely of leftovers. 

Before you turn your nose up at the idea, let me explain that after I made squash and sausage salad yesterday, I had some leftover Crown Prince squash and sweet potato. This had already been roasted in some rapeseed and chilli oil with a pinch of chilli flakes and ground coriander for the salad, so was ready to use.

Of course my initial thoughts were of turning this into soup, and at first I contemplated playing on another favourite salad by adding chickpeas and feta to a base of onions and vegetable stock.

Then I found a tiny tub of leftover homemade satay sauce in the fridge and hit upon the idea of making satay soup. Although quite healthy, this feels like a decadent soup to have for lunch at work on a Tuesday, so think of it as a reward for being almost halfway through the week. It is also reminiscent of the delectable Bolivian sopa de maní that is only served on Sundays.

Squash and satay soup nigredients

• I medium onion, finely chopped
• About ¼ Crown Prince Squash, roasted
• About ¼ sweet potato, roasted
• About ½ litre vegetable stock
• About 1½ tablespoons satay sauce
• Finely chopped mint leaves, to serve

How to make squash and satay soup

Couldn’t be easier, provided, of course, you have some ready made satay and leftover squash. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother.

1. Heat a tiny amount of oil in a pan.
2. Finely chop the onion and add to the oil.
3. Fry till soft.
4. Add the stock and the roasted squash and potato.
5. Add the satay sauce.
6. Bring to the boil then simmer for about 30 minutes.
7. Either liquidise roughly or smoothly to taste, or simply squash the squash and potato against the back of a spoon.
8. Add a little finely chopped mint.

Soup - lunch for free

I almost always make and take my lunch to work, so when I don’t I’m shocked at the price that people pay for a salad or a bowl of soup. That’s why I consider lunch made at home to be ‘free’. If you tried it for a week you could save yourself £25.

The inspiration for starting this blog came after a veggie single mum friend asked me for some meat and fish recipes to cook for her daughter. Although I rarely get home before 7, the odd fish finger sandwich aside, I always have a homemade meal. So I thought I would share my ideas, tips and shortcuts for creating quick, tasty and inexpensive meals.

My friends think I am a great cook but I am not – I’m just capable of following instructions. Admittedly I sometimes ignore those instructions and make things up myself.

The recipes will be written in easy to follow steps and include explanations where I think they are needed. I will unashamedly rely heavily on recipes developed by others, adapting them as I see fit.

The contents of my freezer, my friend

Today I took an inventory of my freezer and was ashamed at how disgusting the top drawer was.

There are strict rules about what goes in the middle and bottom drawers of my freezer but the top drawer is full of items such as half-melted ice cream, pine nuts, coffee beans and random objects that have since lost their identifiable purpose.

Throwing out the crap and cleaning the drawer was strangely satisfying and put me in the mood for making soup.

Split pea soup

I love soup. It is the perfect delicious nutritious solution to clearing out your vegetable rack and making free lunch.

However my soups do have a tendency to end up all the same. I need to expand my soup repertoire and introduce different ingredients.

My standard soups are generally based on some combination of the following vegetables:

Basic soup vegetables

• Onion
• Carrot
• Leek
• Celery

The vegetables are gently sweated until soft in a little oil.

Olive oil does not need to be extra virgin for cooking, though my mum always uses extra virgin which she buys from Lidl. I have recently started using rapeseed oil, which is produced in the UK. It has an earthy, apply taste – if Somerset was a taste, it would be rapeseed oil.

Then I add either:

Liquid for soup

• Stock, vegetable or chicken, or
• Water with Parmesan rind (thank you, Nigel Slater). I store these in my friend the freezer.

and add one of the following to thicken:

Thickening agents for soup

• Lentils
• Chickpeas
• Split peas
• Pearl barley

Potatoes can also be used, but I tend to reserve this exclusively for leek and potato soup which is possibly the easiest and most satisfying soup to make of all. My brother showed me how to make leek and potato soup after he was taught at primary school.

I add spices and herbs depending on what other ingredients I use. Here are some guides

• Coriander goes well with carrot or parsnip
• Cumin goes well with chickpeas
• Chilli goes well with pumpkin and squash
• Thyme goes well with mushrooms

Today I used the following:

Split pea soup ingredients 

• 1 large onion
• 2 sticks of past its best celery
• 2 carrots
• Stock made from boiling a gammon joint in water with a sliced onion, carrot and celery stick, bay leaf, peppercorns and rosemary sprig
• Split peas, rinsed and soaked overnight in cold water, drained, and rinsed again in cold water. This means you need to plan ahead the day before you want to make the soup but it takes no effort at all. Dried split peas are very cheap and make a good thickening agent. They are a good source of roughage.

How to make split pea soup

1. Fry the onion in a large pan while you chop the celery into small pieces.
2. Add the celery to the pan and sweat – this means you cover the pan with a lid while the vegetables cook slowly in the oil till soft.
3. Grate the carrot then add that to the pan, cooking till soft.
4. Add the stock and the split peas.
5. Season with pepper only. Don’t add salt – the peas will be tough and you will fart.
6. Bring to the boil.
7. Boil rapidly for 10 minutes
8. Reduce the heat and simmer till the peas are cooked.
   This could take 30 minutes or longer, depending on how long the peas have been in your cupboard.
9.  When the peas are cooked, turn off the heat. 
10. Leave to cool.
11. Liquidize in a blender or use a hand-held blender to puree.
    I like to leave some texture in the soup but make it however you like.

Notes on split pea soup

I suspect that my split pea soup is too salty because I had to cook the split peas for so long in gammon stock, thus concentrating the salinity of the stock.

O says the soup looks like sick. It does. I pureed the soup in response to this comment and it now looks like pureed sick. However it is yummy tasty and will provide me with five free lunches at work.