Chunky Cheddar & Celeriac Soup

This is a recipe I got off of BBC GoodFood and altered a little. As a lover of celeriac and of cheddar, it was too good to miss. It makes a tasty, warm and filling soup.

Chunky Cheddar & Celeriac Soup

1 tbsp butter
3 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed 
500g potatoes, peeled and diced
2 celeriac bulbs (~1kg total), peeled and diced into bite-size pieces
1l stock plus water to add
4 sage leaves
2 strips lemon peel/1 tsp lemon juice
Diced, crumbly mature cheddar, amount to taste

1. In a large pan, melt the butter. Add the onions and garlic and cook until soft.

2. Add the potatoes, stock, sage and lemon peel/juice. At this point I cooked everything until soft and then pureed it, and afterwards added the celeriac to soften. This gives you a nice creamy soup with chunks of tasty celeriac. You can also just add everything with the stock and simmer until the potatoes break apart and thicken it up a bit.

3. Spoon whilst still hot into bowls and add the bits of cheddar on top. Serve and enjoy!

Lorraine Soup

Seeing as it's the festive season and we have mountains of leftover chicken and stock in our house after the Christmas Lunch Feast, I found a fitting recipe to use it all up. This is a Scottish recipe for Lorraine Soup, and it comes from a farmhouse cooking book. The original recipe calls for all the ingredients to be mashed or ground and pushed through a sieve, but I simplified it a little and just blended it all.

Soupy Christmas cheer

Lorraine Soup

1 thick slice of white bread, crusts removed
1/4 pint (150ml) milk
2 cooked chicken breasts, cut up
4 oz (~110g) ground almonds
2 hard-boiled egg yolks
2 pints (1.1 litres) chicken stock
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp lemon juice
2 egg yolks
1/4 pint (150ml) double cream
2 tablespoons diced, cooked chicken to garnish

1. Put the bread in a small saucepan with the milk, bring to the boil and then set aside to cool.

2. Mix the chicken, almonds and hard-boiled egg-yolks into a large pan with the bread and milk and chicken stock. Blend until smooth.

3. Bring the mixture to the boil, season with salt and pepper and then add the nutmeg and lemon juice. Simmer for 10 minutes and then turn down the heat.

4. Beat the egg yolks with the double cream and mix in 3 tablespoons  of the hot soup. Stir the mixture into the soup and heat gently for 2-3 minutes, stirring continually until it thickens.

Serve at once garnished with the diced chicken.

Chestnut Soup

I must say, first of all, that this is one of the best soups I have ever tasted. It's bouncing right up to the top. It simply is amazing. (Strangely, it tastes a little like chicken soup, but is so much better.)

The recipe is a suggestion from an old friend, and one that interested me as the main ingredient (chestnuts) is popular around this time of year, being sold by the bundle on street corners ^^ And the recipe intrigued me, as it contains bacon, so I had to try it immediately.

It's a fairly simple recipe, or it should be if you can find the ingredients. I didn't manage to find pre-cooked and pre-peeled chestnuts ("Merchant Gourmet Roasted and ready to use", where are you when I need you?) so bought a couple of bags of normal chestnuts instead. I took a guess, but 1kg turned out to be pretty perfectly near 600g once they'd all been peeled.

I'd also never cooked chestnuts before. After looking it up, I realised they could be boiled or roasted. Seeing as roasting sounded like the easier and tastier alternative, I went for that.

Roasting chestnuts is quite easy. They can explode when cooking so you need to make a horizontal line or cross on the shell with a knife before putting them in (I did the line, this worked perfectly). Then just put them on a tray with baking paper and stick them in a 200°C oven for 15-20 minutes. After they've softened up and have been given a few minutes to cool, just peel...

I shall warn you, this is a lengthy process, and took me quite a while. If you decide to take this route, you'll find in the end that this tasty, unique soup is most certainly worth the time! If you'd rather just chuck everything in a pot, save yourself an hour or so and get the pre-made ones.

Chestnut Soup

600g cooked, peeled chestnuts
1 red onion, chopped
1/2 head of celery (~3 large sticks), chopped
260g cubetti pancetta, or sliced strips of pancetta
1 clove garlic
Pinch of dried chillis
Small sprig of rosemary (or 1 tsp of dried rosemary)
1.35 litres of chicken stock

1. Heat a bit of oil in the pan and fry the onion and celery for a few minutes until softening. Add the pancetta and cook very slowly until the vegetables are caramelising and the pancetta is becoming crisp.

2. Add the crushed garlic, chilli and rosemary (finely chopped if fresh). Stir.

3. Next add the chestnuts. Break them up in the pan and fry for a few minutes, then add the stock.

4. Leave to simmer for 30 minutes, then liquidise.

Alternatives:
- I used vegetable stock instead of chicken stock. It's just as lovely.
- As I am for the most part vegetarian, I'll be looking for a veggie version sometime in the future. Any suggestions?

Caribbean Pepperpot

Well, I thought I would make the first soup one of my favourites (and also one of the most convenient as it used up most of my leftovers!), so I made my Caribbean Pepperpot :)

It's originally a Cranks recipe, and the original recipe is here. However, the first time I made it, I didn't have cabbages, nor did I have a large enough amount of coconut milk as the recipe suggests, so I did without. The resultant soup is incredibly tasty nevertheless, very warm and peppery with just a bit of a bite. It's a perfect hearty (vegetarian) winter soup.

Caribbean Pepperpot

150g/6oz onions, chopped (1 onion)
2 cloves garlic
~5 tbsp sunflower oil
300g/10oz potatoes, diced (2 medium potatoes)
250ml bouillon
400g tin chopped tomatoes 
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp coriander (preferably fresh)
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 fresh chilli (also works with ~1/2 tsp chilli flakes) 
tabasco sauce
150-200ml coconut milk 
1 yellow & 1 red pepper

1. Heat the oil and saute the onions until soft. Add the crushed garlic cloves just a minute or so before you take the next step, which is to add the potatoes as well. If the potatoes are chopped finely, fry until transparent, if thickly then until the edges are going clear.

If you want a finer soup, chop them small. I personally like the larger,

stew-like pieces.

2. Next add the can of tomatoes and bouillon. Mix and add the paprika, coriander, chilli powder and Tabasco, if you're having it. The soup is just as nice without the bite. Stir well and add the fresh chilli/chilli flakes.

3. Add the coconut milk, and let the soup simmer away for ~15 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft. You might need to add some more water in the meantime.

4. Meanwhile, make the peppers to garnish with and mix in. Chop them finely and fry in a pan with a bit of oil until soft, or just browning at the edges.

5. When the soup is ready, mix in most of the peppers, reserving a tablespoon or so per bowl to garnish.

Mmm, fresh from the veg shop...

Serve and enjoy!

Alternatives:
- This soup is just as nice pureed, and it's got a bit of character to the texture with the pepper skins. If so, the peppers can just be chucked in along with the potatoes.
- It makes a nice stew, with thickly chopped potatoes and onions, once most of the liquid has boiled off.

A Search Begins

I love soups. It's nice and simple. And why not combine the joy of writing with the joy of cooking - and tasting, and eating, and (for the most part) being healthy?

Voila, here is born this blog, to find the finest soups in all the world. The Supersoups. The ones that just blow your mind away with an explosion of taste, or the ones that just fill you to the brim with yummy food goodness. I want to find the best ones ever.

So once a week (hopefully more), I'll be making a soup. The recipe comes from anywhere - cookbooks, cookery shows, Internet websites, and hopefully a few will come handed down from many generations. Each post will have the recipe, a taste-review of how it does, what's good, what's bad... and hence a collection of some massively good soups shall spring forth :)