Who doesn’t love a big bowl of chunky soup with a few lardons of pancetta, chorizo or sweet streaky bacon.
A welcome supper to chase away the January blues, a satisfying and comforting meal in a dish.
I love to add some beans and/or chickpeas to add extra oomph, not to mention hearty richness.
A little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, some finely grated cheese and a sprinkling of freshly chopped parsley or coriander and there’s a feast in a bowl.
I’m never without some frozen soup – a brilliant standby, frozen in 520ml tubs that take no more than ten minutes to defrost and are ample for two people.
A few chunks of freshly baked bread or a Cheddar cheese scone and you’re sorted.
Myrtle taught me this brilliant 1,1,3,5 formula that we use in Ballymaloe House and here at the school for many of our soups.
It results in a delicious soup in any season:
1 cup of chopped onion
1 cup of chopped potato
3 cups of any vegetable or a mixture of your choice
5 cups of chicken or vegetable stock or water if all else fails
I sometimes use 4 cups of stock and 1 cup of creamy milk, particularly for potato and fresh herb or onion and thyme leaf soup.
These soups can be whizzed in a blender for a silky texture or left whole for aficionados of chunky textured soup.
I love my soups to reflect the season. You might wonder what vegetables are in season while we’re still in the depths of winter. Well, the answer is lots, leeks are great just now, kale and broccoli of course, parsnips and my favourite winter perennials Jerusalem artichokes – the knobbly inulin rich rhizomes that keep on giving until the end of February, sometimes well into March. Look out for them in the shops and farmers’ market because I will devote my next column to Jerusalem artichokes (I’ll give recipes next week). They also make a delicious soup using the 1,1,3,5 formula.
Kale is another of our brilliant winter vegetables. We plant it at the end of July and start to harvest it around the middle of September and then it will continue to crop until March.
We grow three varieties – green and red and Cavolo Nero also known as black cabbage or Tuscan kale. They are absolutely bursting with flavour and goodness and also make one of my various winter soups, Kale and Lentil. I got this recipe from Rory a few years ago. Rory likes to keep the texture very thick, but I’ve added more stock for a less robust soup – I’ve given you both options, each is delicious, just a different texture.
You can almost feel every mouthful doing you a power of good…
Ballymaloe Basic Soup Technique
Well over half the soups we make at Ballymaloe are made on this simple formula. 1.1.3.5.
Use the same receptacle to measure each ingredient and liquid – a cup, mug, measure, bowl…
Serves 6
1 part chopped onion
1 part chopped potato
3 parts any chopped vegetable of your choice, or a mixture
5 parts stock or stock and milk mixed
seasoning
One can use chicken or vegetable stock or water and season simply with salt and freshly ground pepper. Complementary fresh herbs or spices may also be added.
So, one can make a myriad of different soups depending on what’s fresh, in season and available.
If potatoes and onions are the only option, one can still make two delicious soups by increasing one or the other and then adding one or several herbs. We even use broad bean tops; radish leaves and nettles in season.
Serves 6
Example:
50g butter
150g chopped potatoes, one-third inch dice
110g peeled diced onions, one-third inch dice
340g chopped vegetables of your choice, one-third inch dice
1.2 litres homemade chicken stock or 1 litre stock and 150ml creamy milk
Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan. When it foams, add potatoes and onions and turn them until well coated. Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper. Cover and sweat on a gentle heat for 10 minutes. Add the vegetables and stock. Boil until soft, taste and serve or liquidise, sieve or put through a mouli. Do not overcook or the vegetables will lose their fresh flavour. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
A Green Vegetable Soup
Ingredients as above… but with green vegetables e.g. spinach, watercress, wild garlic, nettles, chard greens, radish leaves, broad bean shoots, kale, mustard greens, leek greens, foraged greens or a mixture
Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan. When it foams, add potatoes and onions and turn them until well coated. Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper. Cover and sweat on a gentle heat for 10 minutes.
Add the stock and continue to cook until the onion and potato dice is tender… Add the freshly chopped greens, return to the boil, uncovered for 3 or 4 mins or until just cooked. Taste and serve or liquidise for a thick soup. Taste again and correct the seasoning…
NOTE… If the green
vegetables are added at the beginning, they will most likely be over cooked and
the soup will lose its fresh taste and bright green colour…
Vegan Option
For a vegan option, use vegetable stock or water and substitute soya, almond or cashew milk for creamy milk and proceed as in master recipe.
Chunky Winter Vegetable and Bean Soup with Spicy Sausage
We make huge pots of this in the Winter, I usually keep some in the freezer. Kabanossi is a thin sausage now widely available, it gives a gutsy slightly smoky flavour to the soup which although satisfying is by no means essential. Gubbeen chorizo would be a good substitute for the kabanossi sausage. There’s lots of chopping involved here but the end result is so worth it, how about a ‘chopping fest’ with some of your family or children.
Serves 8-9
225g rindless streaky bacon, cut into 5mm lardons
2 tbsp olive oil
225g onions, chopped
300g carrot, cut into 5mm dice
215g celery, chopped into 5mm dice
125g parsnips, chopped into 5mm dice
200g white part of 1 leek, 5mm slices thick approx.
1 Kabanossi sausage, cut into 3mm thin slices
400g tin of tomatoes
salt, freshly ground pepper and sugar
1.7 litres good homemade chicken stock,
225g haricot beans, cooked *
Garnish
2 tbsp parsley, freshly chopped
extra virgin olive oil (optional)
Prepare the vegetables. Put the olive oil in a saucepan, add the bacon* (see note at bottom of recipe) and sauté over a medium heat until it becomes crisp and golden, add the chopped onion, carrots and celery. Cover and sweat for five minutes, next add the parsnip and finely sliced leeks. Cover and sweat for a further 5 minutes. Slice the Kabanossi sausage thinly and add. Chop the tomatoes and add to the rest of the vegetables and the beans. Season with salt, freshly ground pepper and sugar, add the chicken stock. Allow to cook until all the vegetables are tender, 20 minutes approx. Taste and correct the seasoning. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, serve with lots of crusty bread.
* Soak the beans overnight in plenty of cold water. Next day, strain the beans and cover with fresh cold water, add a bouquet garni, carrot and onion, cover and simmer until the beans are soft but not mushy – anything from 30-60 minutes. Just before the end of cooking, add salt. Remove the bouquet garni and vegetables and discard.
Note
If
the bacon is very salty, put into a small saucepan, cover with cold water and
bring to the boil. Strain and dry on kitchen paper.
Rory’s Lentil and Kale Soup
This is a nourishing combination of ingredients that makes a soup that is deeply satisfying to eat. I serve this soup with a very thick consistency in the Italian style. If you prefer the soup thinner, just add more stock to the lentils when cooking. A drizzle of the very best olive oil is the perfect finishing touch, and that last minute addition seems to elevate this really rustic soup to a much more sophisticated plateau.
Serves 6 -8
250g green lentils
1 red chilli
1 bay leaf
3 cloves of unpeeled garlic
branch of thyme
1 onion halved
1.2 litres chicken stock
500g curly kale, weighed after the tough stalks have been removed
150ml cream
salt and freshly ground pepper
Place the lentils, chilli, bay leaf, garlic, thyme, onion and 1 litre of chicken stock in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook very gently until the lentils are tender. Do not allow the lentils to become overcooked and mushy but at the same time they do need to be completely cooked all the way through. I add a good pinch of salt to the cooking lentils 5 minutes before they are cooked.
Remove the bay leaf, thyme and onion and discard. Peel the skin off the chilli and discard the skin. Split it in half lengthways and remove and discard the seeds. Chop the chilli flesh finely and add back into the lentils. Press the flesh out of the cooked garlic and discard the skins. Stir the soft garlic into the lentils. Taste and correct seasoning.
Bring 3 litres of water to a boil in a large saucepan and season well with salt. Add the kale leaves and cook uncovered until completely tender. Strain off all of the water and place the leaves in a food processor. Puree briefly, add the cream and continue to puree to a smooth consistency. Taste and correct seasoning making sure to add some freshly ground black pepper. Both elements of the soup can be put aside now for reheating later.
When ready to serve the soup, Heat the lentils and kale in separate saucepans. When both mixtures are simmering, add the kale to the lentil saucepan and gently fold through. The soup can look streaky at this stage and that is the way Rory prefers to serve it. Add more boiling stock to thin to your preferred consistency. Ladle into hot soup bowls and drizzle each serving with new season extra virgin olive oil. Serve immediately
