Celeriac, Chickpea, and Cabbage Soup

After reading (yet) another soup recipe from me, Kate from Applemint recently threatened to dub me The Soup Queen. Well, I'm afraid The Soup Queen is at it again so hang on to your seats everyone.

I think I make so many soups because I have access to good seasonable vegetables through Walthamstow's two markets, one a traditional fruit and veg market and the other a farmer's market. These two markets sell both quality and quantity of food, and I find it easy to get tangled up in over-zealous vegetable buying. I then often wind up with more vegetables than a vegetarian family of 7 would be able to tackle in a week. As it seems to be the case, the road to soups is paved with good vegetable intentions.

So what to do when you find yourself with extra celeriac, curly kale, and savoy cabbage on your hands? That's right, you make soup. A quick look around the cookbooks showed me that my wonderful River Cafe Cookbook Green had the perfect soup for me in it. It was one of the earlier cookbooks to organize recipes by season and month, and I still find it an excellent resource for helping me to do the most with the ingredients that are abundant at the moment.


The celeriac soup isn't a tremendous departure from many soup recipes, but the addition of fennel seeds once again takes the flavor to a deeper and warmer place (my polenta shortcake earlier in the week showed off fennel seed's versitility with sweet things). The scent that came from frying the fennel was an intoxicating tempter that made you reconsider whether or not you actually need to finish the recipe before dipping your spoon into it.

I added kale to my soup and it fit in to the original recipe easily. I also used dried chickpeas despite my dislike of them, and my dislike was confirmed since those darn things didn't soften up even after 5 hours of boiling. I'm repeating the recipe as is, though, so you can make your own decisions. Do make sure you are generous with the parmesan cheese on top, though, which makes the eating of the soup that much more worthwhile.



For my abundance of vegetables and the wonderful fennel seeds, this is being submitted to Rinku at Cooking in Westchester for Weekend Herb Blogging.

Celeriac, chickpea, and cabbage soup
from River Cafe Cookbook Green

• 800 g celeriac, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 200 g dried chickpeas, cooked, or 800 g tinned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 500 g savoy cabbage, thick stalks discarded, and finely shredded
• 1 large red onion, chopped
• 4 Tbs olive oil
• 150 g pancetta, cut into fine matchsticks
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed
• 1.25 liters chicken stock
• sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 ciabatta loaf, cut on the diagonal to make crostini
• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• extra virgin olive oil
• parmesan cheese, freshly grated
• 2 Tbs chopped flat-leaf parsley

1. Heat the 4 Tbs of oil in a heavy, large pot and add the pancetta, bay leaves, and fennel seeds. Cook for a few minutes to allow the flavors to combine.
2. Add the onion and celeriac, stirring, and allow to cook for 8 - 10 minutes until the onion has softened and the celeriac has colored.
3. Add the cabbage and chickpeas, again stirring and allowing to cook for another few minutes.
4. Add enough stock to cover the contents. Season with salt and pepper and simmer gently for 30 minutes, until the celeriac is soft and the chickpeas have begun to break.
5. Toast the crostini on both sides and lightly rub with the garlic clove.
6. Place a slice of toast in each bowl, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, and grate some parmesan cheese on top.
7. Ladle in the soup, and top with parsley and some more extra virgin olive oil.

Persimmon Chutney

I had a bit of a disaster last night when getting ready to write the day's blog post. It wasn't a culinary disaster (well, at least, that wasn't what was troubling me) but a computer disaster. Reaching for my 4th cup of tea of the evening, I mis-judged the height the laptop screen would re-gain as I leaned back, and...horrible, horrible tea all over the keyboard. Of my new computer. It immediately shut off, and we thought "Oh how clever, an auto shut-off function", which, we've since learned, the computer doesn't have. It's quietly sitting in a corner now, with me trying not to make eye contact with it until we take it to the shop, because I've learned that's how you make computers work again. All my recent food pictures are on the other computer, so I am sharing with you a recipe that was fine if not over-the-top exciting.

We live near a market with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetable options, and where the occasional interestingly-named item crops up. The process goes that I become intrigued, buy it, take it home, look it up on the internet, find it's something fairly mundane/completely bizarre, and try to find an appropriate way to eat it. Last week's purchase was a fruit named 'kaki'.

Kaki, it turns out, is the Latin word and Japanese name for the fruit that is also called a persimmon or Sharon fruit (thank you internet). The name persimmon supposedly comes from the Algonquin name for 'dry fruit', and the tree the persimmon grows from is part of the ebony family. I've always liked the look of the fruit, with its frilly stem on top of the jewel-like glow of the cut flesh.

Persimmon is a very sugary food when ripe, and so I thought of making something savory with it that cut through some of that sweetness. I found a recipe on epicurious for a permisson salsa which sounded lovely for summery months, and which I thought could be tweaked into a warm chutney sauce for colder months like these. It suggested tying together persimmons with lime, ginger, and chili - three fantastic flavors in their own right. We had the chutney with roast chicken, and I used some of the drippings of the roast to add a depth of flavor to the chutney. Not strictly necessary, but I did like how it helped tie tastes together.

I wasn't over-awed by the chutney in the end, in a large part because the persimmons weren't quite ripe enough and so stayed more whole and chalky than I would have expected. I still really like the idea of all those ingredient together, though, and do feel it should 'work'. I would be tempted to try this again keeping the ingredients more or less the same but making sure my fruits were achingly juicy sweet next time.

I'm submitting this to Anna at Paulchen's Food Blog for this week's installment of Weekend Herb Blogging.


Persimmon Chutney

• 4 limes, juiced
• 2 ripe persimmons, peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks
• 1 small-medium red onion, chopped
• minced chili or 1 small chili, chopped (enough chili to accommodate your taste)
• 1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger
• 1 Tbs fresh chicken drippings plus 1/2 C water, or 1/2 C chicken stock
• glug of dry white wine
• salt and pepper to taste
• (optional: 1 Tbs brown sugar)

1. Combine the lime juice, diced persimmon, onion, chili, ginger, and chicken stock/water in a saucepan, and heat over a medium-low heat.
2. Simmer until the persimmon has reduced down into a mush. Leave it to simmer further if you want it to be less chunky, or simmer less if you like the chunkiness. Take care not to let the mixture dry out. Cooking should take a total of 5-10 minutes.
3. Taste for flavor and balance with salt and pepper.
4. If the chutney is too sour for your taste, add some brown sugar 1 tsp at a time.
5. Remove from heat once it's the consistency you like, and serve warm with meat.

Carrot and Cardamom Mash

Cardamom is one of my favorite spices, both to smell and to taste. The first time I knowingly tasted it was in a Celestial Seasonings tea called Bengal Spice. I found the combination of cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom absolutely intoxicating. Like a cat with catnip, I would go into moments of empty-headed joy when drinking the tea, and was fully addicted to the body-warming suffusion of flavors that this simple drink could give.

Cardamom is used mostly in Middle Eastern and Central Asian cooking, with use also seen in Scandinavian countries. Green cardamom is more typically used in sweet dishes and in the Middle Eastern coffee drink, while black cardamom is more for savory dishes and is described as having a more blunt, strong flavor. It has a huge range of medicinal uses attributed to it, from being used to sweeten breath, help mouth ulcers and gum problems, aid tuberculosis sufferers, improve digestion, counter-act obesity, and act as an aphrodisiac. A fairly impressive list, I think, and makes me wonder why we haven't all been munching on cardamom to help heal all our ills.

I got in the mood for cardamom the other night when faced with a cold, rainy walk home and a return to a cold (though dry) house. I remembered the wonderful warmth of the tea, and felt I had to work its way into my dinner. Carrots were already on the menu out of necessity, and I thought that a mash with carrots, potatoes, and cardamom would deliver both the right, comforting, flavor and consistency.


We had the mash with middle-eastern spiced lamb chops: plenty of garlic, ras al hanout, and a bit of chilli powder, stirred together in a dish with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then put under the grill. It was all very right for a rain-soaked winter night.


For my weather-led use of cardamom, I'm submitting this to Simona from Bricole for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging.

Carrot and Cardamom Mash

• 4 large carrots
• 2 medium potatoes
• 3 pods cardamom (green cardamom is preferable)
• 1/2 C milk
• 10g butter (approximately - use as much butter as you normally do for your mash)
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Peel the carrots and potatoes, and roughly cut into pieces.
2. Boil the carrots and potatoes in water until they are both well softened.
3. Meanwhile, crush the cardamom pod and combine it with the milk in a small saucepan. Gently boil the milk for about 15 minutes, to allow the flavors to infuse.
4. Drain the carrots and potatoes, saving a ladel-full of the cooking liquid.
5. Strain the cardamom seeds from the milk.
6. Mash the carrots and potatoes together with the butter and the cardamom-flavored milk. If mash needs a bit more liquid, add some of the reserved cooking liquid.
7. Add salt and pepper to taste.

A Quick Sabzi

Some days, I am overtaken by pangs of healthy thoughts. I wonder how I can work more bran into my diet. I begin craving broccoli. I contemplate going for a jog. With the cold weather and the holidays hurtling toward me at speed, my mind is telling me to be good before it all falls apart in a tumult of turkey and oh-alright-just-another-slice-of pie.

One rather tasty way of eating healthy vegetables is to make them into a sabzi. Madhur Jaffrey, the Indian chef and cookbook writer, tells that 'sabzi' is a word that came into northern India from Persian invaders. In Persia, sabzi simply means 'green'; in India, it's transmogrified to mean vegetables, or a vegetable dish prepared without meat added in.

Because of that broad definition of what sabzi means, you'll find many sabzi recipes about. I like one of the recipes Madhur gives, mainly for its simplicity in preparation but the flavor it can deliver. I also like the fact that you can change around some of the ingredients and still come away with a tasty side dish - I often make it with carrots rather than the suggested courgettes, and have scaled back the list of the ingredients until it was only cumin, coriander, and mustard I was working with, and still I've chased all the last bits around the plate. I've copied out Madhur's recipe as written, but I do feel it's a forgiving one if you can't match every ingredient, especially asafetida, which might be the most difficult to find (and perhaps even commit to, since it's translation in English is 'devil's dung' due to its...rather strong odor).

For the lovely combination of Indian spices and vegetables, I'm submitting this to Truffle from What's On My Plate for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging.



Courgette and Green Pepper Sabzi, from Madhur Jaffrey
Serves 3-4 as a side

• 3 Tbs olive or corn oil
• Generous pinch of asafetida
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/4 tsp whole brown mustard seed
• 1 1/4 Lb / 560g courgettes sliced into 1 1/2 in long and 1/2 thick fingers
• 1 large green pepper, cut into 1/2 in wide slices
• 2 Tbs yogurt
• 1 Tbs ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp chaat masala (or pinch of cayenne pepper and squeeze of lemon)

1. Heat a large pan or wok over medium-high heat, and add the oil
2. When the oil is hot, first add the asafetida, and quickly follow it with the cumin and mustard seed
3. The mustard will begin popping within a few seconds; when it does, add the vegetables
4. Stir and fry for 5 minutes
5. Add the yogurt, and stir until it's absorbed
6. Reduce heat to low, and stir in the coriander and salt, continuing to stir for a minute
7. Add the chaat masala / cayenne pepper and lemon, and quickly toss all together
8. Taste, and add more salt if needed.
   

Chorizo and Squash Soup

This week, I once again found myself with a couple of unused squashes on hand (and phwoar, how often does that happen to the best of us?). I do very much like my squashes and my veggies in general, but I suppose when I buy my groceries I sometimes get over zealous and get more than we can eat; the spirit is willing but we're just unable to live up to my ideals of vegetable eating. I also found myself a bit stumped as to what to make with these two butternut and acorn squashes. I've done a squash bake, squash risotto, and sweet squash desserts all in the past few weeks, and I was somewhat flummoxed as to what to do now.

And then it came to me: chorizo. A nice sausage is often the answer to many of life's troubles (as a nice cheese can be as well) and chorizo was the answer to this problem. It's a rich sausage with some fantastic flavors to it, which I thought would complement the healthy squashes quite nicely. I'm very lucky with where I work that I have a brilliant Spanish food shop near me (Brindisa, whose tapas restaurant is the favorite I've found in London), and my choice of chorizo was vast. More than other sausages, I believe it's important to get a good quality chorizo since it's such a fatty sausage, and a poorer chorizo tends to be filled with gristle and give off even higher-than-normal amounts of fat when cooked. I opted to get a slightly sweet fresh chorizo, and a spicy cured chorizo, and to use both in the soup.

Aside from just having a craving for it, chorizo also made sense because of the herb I knew I'd be using with this soup. For the past 3 months our house has been under construction, and our entire garden has been an inaccessible write-off. I would worry about the herb plants occasionally, but knew there wasn't much point in worrying since there was absolutely nothing I could do. The construction will be finished next week (so they tell me - please be true, pleasebetrue) and slowly we're beginning to see the garden again. With it, I could tell that everything had died except for our impossible-to-kill lemon geranium and our doesn't-quite-thrive-but-doesn't-quite-die rosemary. As much as I love the wonderfully citrusy and almost astringent taste and smell of the geranium, it would be the evergreen-like rosemary that would be the natural compliment to my chorizo and squash in this soup.

I roasted the vegetables together (with garlic and rosemary) to bring out a bit more of their flavor before throwing them in the pot with the already-cooked chorizo. I also found some sweet paprika at the back of our cupboard, and though I have no idea how it got there it found its way into the pot to some very pleasing results. I loved how this all came together, with the squashes being softened but not mushy, and absorbing the rosemary, chorizo, and paprika flavors in equal measure. It was a great way to send off these squashes that were moping around my vegetable rack, and to welcome the rosemary back from the confines of my off-limits garden.

And for rosemary's proud return to my table (as well as, may I say, my inspired use of sweet paprika and two types of squash), I'm submitting this to Vanessa at What Geeks Eat for a bit of weekend herb blogging fun.

Chorizo and Squash Soup
Serves 4 as a main course

• 1 butternut squash, peeled and chopped into 1 inch squares (although any squash will do)
  
• 1 acorn squash, peeled and chopped into 1 inch squares (again, any squash will do)
  
• 1 tin tomatoes
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 4-5 stalks of rosemary
• 2 Tbs sherry vinegar
• Olive oil
  
• 1 onion, well chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 400-500 g fresh chorizo (I used regular/sweet chorizo)
• 80-100 g cured chorizo (I used spicy, to add a bit of variety)
• 1 liter water, boiled
  
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 tsp chili (more or less depending on what level of spiciness you like things)
• salt and pepper

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees
2. Throw the chopped squashes into an oven-proof dish, along with all but 1 sprig of the rosemary and 1/3 of the chopped garlic. Pour a bit of olive oil in and stir until it's all coated with a bit of oil and the garlic is mixed.
3. Empty the tin of tomatoes into another, smaller, oven-proof dish. Stir in the other sprig of rosemary, another 1/3 of the garlic, and the sherry vinegar.
4. Place both dishes in the oven and cook for 20 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, saute the onions, celery, carrots, and remaining garlic with a bit of olive oil in a large pot over a medium heat until they all begin to soften.
6. Slice both types of chorizo; the fresh chorizo should be in hearty but still bite-sized chunks, the cured should be thinner (but not wafer-thin).
7. Add in both chorizos and cook until the chorizo is cooked through, stirring often. (If you need to de-glaze your pot a bit, use another glug of the sherry vinegar.)
8. This step should (hopefully) be happening just as your vegetables are coming out of the oven: pour the water into the pot with the sausages, and bring to a low boil. Skim off any scum or excess fat (you'll get quite a bit from the chorizo but you might want to leave some since it is tasty)
   
9. Test to make sure the squashes are just soft enough to eat; if done, remove both the tomatoes and the squashes from the oven.
10. Take out all but one or two of the rosemary sprigs, and then add everything into the soup pot.
11. Add the paprika and the chili to the soup and stir well. Add salt and pepper to taste.
12. Cook the soup for another 5 or so minutes at a low boil, until the flavors come together. Remove the rosemary sprigs before serving.

Buttercup Squash Bake

With the onslaught of autumn vegetables showing no sign of abating, I'm still happily buying up the squashes and cruciferous veg that come my way. With each passing week and each additional bagful of vegetables, though, I'm trying to find more and creative ways of serving them in order to keep myself from feeling vegetable-based boredom. This week's item for the creative treatment was the buttercup squash.

Buttercup squash sounds like butternut squash but is actually quite different; while butternut squash is on the watery, pumpkin-y side of the spectrum, buttercup squash is much more creamy in texture, something like a sweet potato (though more solid). With visions of pumpkins and sweet potatoes floating through my head, nutmeg danced into my thoughts as well.

And so I give you buttercup squash bake, with a nutmeg flavored bechamel sauce - very easy to tie together once you have peeled and sliced your squash and made your bechamel. I like Delia Smith's basic bechamel recipe, though I added a clove of garlic and a half a grated fresh nutmeg in lieu of the peppercorns and mace. I also like to stir in a healthy spoonful or two of ricotta cheese at the end of making the bechamel, though I don't always have it on hand or remember to buy it.

A word of warning if anyone happens to use soya milk or lactose free milk: the milk can go funny when it boils (particularly the lactose free version) so do try to keep it just below bowling point if you want to keep it separating and looking as if it's curdled.

I'm submitting this post to Beth at The Expatriate's Kitchen as part of Weekend Herb Blogging.



Buttercup Squash Bake (an approximate recipe)

• 1 serving of bechamel sauce, a la Delia
• 1 average-sized butter cup squash, peeled and cut into thin, half-moon slices
• 2 slices of bread, whizzed through a blender
• 50-60g parmesan cheese, grated

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180
2. Layer the slices of the squash in an oven-proof dish so that they are slightly overlapping - most of the dish should be taken up by squash
3. Pour the bechamel sauce over the squash
4. Cover with the breacrumbs, lightly patted down
5. Cover with parmesan cheese (if there isn't enough cheese to cover the whole thing, grate some more)
6. Place uncovered in the oven and cook for about 25 minutes or until the squash is tender. If the cheese starts to cook too quickly, cover with tin foil and uncover for the last few minutes.