20.03.08: Spicy Red & Black Bean

With Kai assisting on the production of my final soup of the season, I opted for what has been, I reckon, my most successful recipe. One of my personal goals for the Soup Kitchen was to develop a deep bean recipe and this one incorporates two ingredients that have become emblematic of the soup kitchen, for me: biber salçası (red pepper paste) and creamed coconut.

I followed the Nearly Perfick Recipe, pretty much. Soaked the beans over night and boiled them up separately for an hour. Added chopped garlic and three minced Scotch bonnets to the usual mirepoix of carrots, onions and celery and sweated the mixture down thoroughly in the soup pot, seasoning with jeera 'n' dana (cumin and coriander) before adding the contents of a 340g jar of tatli biber salçası (sweet red pepper paste). I had a litre of bean soup frozen in my 'fridge, so added that to the pot. Then I added two thirds of the beans with four litres of Marigold bouillon, simmered for fifteen minutes and relaxed for five before blending. Finally, I incorporated the rest of the beans, finished the soup with 100g creamed coconut dissolved in a litre of boiling water and garnished each bowl with freshly chopped coriander.

Sanchez - who discovered us late, but has been coming in daily over the last week - pronounced this a "serious, black man's soup" which I guess means hearty and soulful. Mind you, Sanchez did not like the yoghurt I swirled into his soup and demanded a replacement bowl. He wasn't the only one who declined the yog, though most of the others are vegans.

25 people enjoyed this soup and several others popped in who couldn't pause for a bowl, but to say thanks for all the soups over the past months. Several wrote extravagant praise in the dairy, with repeated entreaties to revive the Soup Kitchen when the season rolls around again. And there were a couple, caught in the pic below, who were visiting the Soup Kitchen for the first time!

Last soupers: Sayonara!

18.02.08: Spicy Red & Black Bean

I haven't concentrated too much on listing Almost Perfect Recipes, but I'm pretty confident of this soup, which began as my twist on Dal Makhani on 16.11.07, continued on 03.12.07, and bridged Xmas/NewYear. So here goes (these quantities serve about 25):

For the mirepoix: 500g Onion, 500g carrots, 500g celery, half a dozen cloves of garlic, red pepper paste (biber salçası)
Main ingredients: 1kg red kidney beans, 750g black beans, 250g black lentils (urid/urad), 5/6l Marigold bouillon
Spices: ground cumin (jeera), chilli powder/cayenne, 50-100g creamed coconut

1. Soak the red and black beans overnight in separate bowls.
2. Start by rinsing the beans and boiling them in seperate pans, simmering for about 45 minutes, until soft. The black lentils (urid) should be boiled for about 20 minutes.
3. Roughly chop the mirepoix and sweat the chopped vegetables with the peeled and crushed cloves of garlic (add more if you like garlic) in a generous splash of oil in the bottom of your soup pot with the lid on, removing it every few minutes to stir the mixture and ensure it's not sticking. Let it cook down for at least 15 minutes.
4. Add cumin and chilli powder to taste: say, a couple of desserts spoons of jeera and not quite a full dessert spoon of chilli powder (add more if you like chilli).
5. Add the red pepper paste (biber salçası), which comes in sweet and piquant flavours. Choose the one you prefer and use as much as you like, but 200g is probably enough.
6. Add three quarters of the red and black beans, reserving some of each to add to the soup later, in order to vary the texture. Cover with four litres of Marigold bouillon and bring to the boil, simmering for ten minutes (so long as the beans are cooked).
7. Liquidise the soup.
8. Add the reserved red and black beans and the cooked lentils to the soup with another litre or more of Marigold bouillon (depending on how thick your soup is and how thin you want it to be) and return it to simmer.
9. Grate creamed coconut into the soup to thicken it and, perhaps, to balance the chilli. Again, the exact quantity is up to you.
10. Serve garnished with a swirl of fresh yoghurt.

Sorry about the lack of a photo (not even the new cliche blackboard shot). Wasn't really feeling myself today after a rough w/e and made this soup on auto pilot, serving 19 bowls and taking about £23 donations. Several of the soup suppers were similarly rough, so this hearty number went down well with all.

07.01.08: Has Bean

This blog got a bit scrappy in the week before Christmas, when a memorable Leek 'n' Sweet Potato concoction, courtesy of Carlo, went unrecorded and the Red and Black Bean Soup that I provided on Friday 21st went largely uneaten. I made masses in the expectation that demand would be strong on our final day, but it appeared that our regulars were all doing their Xmas shopping and so only about a dozen bowls were served.

I froze the uneaten soup from 21.12.07 in three litre-sized portions and served it again today, providing continuity to our enterprise and acting in the spirit of thrift that's surely appropriate to the age, is it not? I extended with more black and red kidney beans, biber salçası - red pepper paste - plus a can of borlotti beans, making a thoroughly rib-sticking bean soup, which I served with a swirl of fresh Greek yoghurt, to cheer everybody up on what was for many their first day back to work.

Intended to be more unctuous than spicy, this soup didn't contain any chilli and utilised the sweeter paprika paste rather its more piquant alternative. The frozen soup incorporated sweetcorn and the fresh one would include a can of meaty borlotti beans (although I did think of using the rest of the urid black lentils left over from making Dal Makhani) making for a really hearty soup. You can gauge how successful it was from this picture of Daisy and Annie, who have evidently been inspired to draw a heart in the condensation on the window:

Overnight, I soaked half a kilo of red kidney beans and another half kilo of black beans. To make the soup, I started with a mirepoix. Actually, I roughly chopped three purple onions, a white onion and a shallot and peeled the cloves of most of a head of garlic (all of which I found in the bottom of my fridge) and left them roasting in a medium oven, with the beans simmering in separate pot on the top, while I popped down the shops for bread, spread and milk.

Back at the Pullens Centre, I transferred the cooked onion and garlic to the soup pot, with a splash of hot oil in the bottom, added most of a head of celery, roughly diced, and the best part of a pound of carrots, also chopped. Continuing to cook this mixture over low heat with the soup pot lid on, I added a dessert spoon full of cumin seed and another spoon full of ground cumin, plus half a jar of paprika paste (let's say three dessert spoons full) and a splash of Marigold bouillon from a litre jug to keep the mixture moist and prevent it sticking to the bottom of the pan, adding more liquid as necessary. Meanwhile, the beans carried on simmering.

To the flavour base in the bottom of the soup pot, I added half the cooked beans from each pot with the rest of the litre jug of bouillon, plus a further two litres (making three in all) and carried on cooking until the beans were soft enough to blend. I turned the heat off and left the pot to stand for five minutes before blending its contents with Brenda the blender until it had a fairly smooth consistency. I assembled the finished soup by tipping in the rest of the cooked beans, the 3 litres of left over soup that had been defrosted and the 500ml can of borlotti beans (with their liquid).

Finally, I returned the soup pot to the stove top and reheated the soup, stirring well, and added another litre of bouillon to thin and make it more soupy. The soup was served with a swirl of fresh Greek yoghurt and some two dozen people enjoyed it. One wrote in the log bok, 'Lovely hearty soup - come on the New Year, let's have you!!

3.12.07: Red and Black Bean

Today, the start of our third month of operations, was quietly significant in the evolution of the Soup Kitchen since Brian O'Neill, senior Resident Involvement Officer let me know that our small grant application to buy equipment has been approved by the Tenants Fund Management Committee. So, I can start buying stuff! Brian came in with a couple of his colleagues from Southwark Council and all three of 'em had second helpings of today's beany soup.

Despite the weather, the Open Yards Weekend seemed to have gone really well and the community art exhibition mounted @ the Pullens Centre, showing works by about two dozen residents, was a great success. Daisy Kelly Granger (below) sang to a packed room on Friday evening and returned on Saturday, somewhat hoarse, to delight a more relaxed house. A really soulful singer, Earl Green, also performed, backed by Les Back on guitar and joined by an amazing harmonica player whose name I didn't get. Cold drinks were served. Which was nice.

Daisy's outfit is by Linda Brooker

Because the weather has been so morose, I thought I'd do a hearty soup, not unlike Day 21's Spicy Bean. Recently, it seems like there's been a dearth of black beans around these parts, but I managed to score a couple of 500g bags in an ethnic grocery down the Walworth Road. Overnight, I soaked 1kg of black beans and 500g of red kidney beans. This morning, I started by washing my hands and boiling my beans, in separate pans, simmering for an hour.

I minced most of a head of garlic - probably ten cloves - and roughly diced one very large onion, starting to cook these in a generous splash of vegetable oil over medium heat at the bottom of the soup pot. I diced half a dozen carrots and half a large and leafy head of celery, adding the diced veg. to the pot, and continued cooking over medium heat with the lid on, stirring every few minutes.

When the veg. mix cooked down and was starting to caramelise, I added about a dessert spoon full of paprika, a teaspoon of chilli powder, a teaspoon of garam masala and a sprinkling of cumin seeds. I mixed these spices into the cooked vegetables, allowing the flavours to mingle for a few minutes before de-glazing the soup pot with red wine. I used the end of a bottle of claret left over from the weekend, boiling off the liquid before adding the secret ingredient: Aci Biber Salçasi.

I used a couple of good-sized scoops of this piquant red pepper paste, stirring them into the cooked mirepoix before adding the red kidney beans and half the black beans, covering them with three litres of Marigold bouillon and bring the pot to the boil. While the pot simmered, I continued to boil the rest of the black beans and, in the pot used for the red beans, I boiled another 500g of urid, black lentils, which take about 25 minutes to boil until soft.

Finally, I assembled the soup. I turned off the heat under the soup pot and left it to stand for ten minutes before blending with Gaynor the stick mixer, adding 100 creamed coconut dissolved in a litre of boiling water. Then I added the separately-cooked black beans and urid and returned the soup to the heat to warm it through before serving with chopped fresh coriander, a swirl of yoghurt and a sprinkle of cumin seeds.

While the soup was cooking this morning, parties of primary school kids from Crampton Street school (which isn't actually in Crampton Street) came in to look at the art exhibition. Among them was Jack, Daisy's youngest brother, who was evidently so tantalised by the aroma that he came back for a bowl after school. Hopefully, he agreed with the verdict written in the log bok, that this one was a hearty, filling, winter-warming sooooop. Jan Pun: truly beanificial.

16.11.07: Dal Makhani

I don't think any one who knows their chutney would seriously contest the suggestion that Simply Indian offers the best curry-on-demand delivery service in our part of Sarf London . It's certainly got the most irritating Flash website (but you can order online and turn off the sound;-) You know a dish is becoming properly trendy when it appears on the Simply Indian menu and 'Dall Makhani' made it, oh, about a year ago: 'This is a very typical Punjabi dish containing black lentils, red kidney beans, butter, cream, and various spices. Makes this a wonderful, warming and tasty dish" (sic) it says. This version is no soupier than S.I.'s, or not much. Instead of lashings of butter and cream, its creamy texture is derived from a 200g block of creamed coconut.

Carlo had cooked up some black lentils, urad, that filled a 2 litre jug left and were left over in the 'fridge. Yesterday, I picked up two 400g cans of Bio Idea brand organic fagioli nero, black beans, from Fare Shares for 50p each. Overnight, I soaked probably a kilo and a quarter of red kidney beans. This morning, a geezer turned up to service my boiler, so I put the kidney beans on to cook at home while investigating a recipe via Google. Boiler and appliances duly checked, I went to Oli's and bought garlic, ginger and green chillies, plus a couple of big onions and a packet of cumin seeds (99p). I also picked up a jar of piquant red pepper paste - Kirimizi Biber Salcasi - which turned out to be a crucial ingredient of the eventual soup. And one of Oli's big round loaves, too.

Back at the Pullens Centre, I carried on simmering the red kidney beans, which need to be cooked until they're soft, for at least an hour. I minced two bulbs of fresh garlic and equal quantities of ginger and green chili, then diced and started to cook the two big onions in a generous splash of oil (Carlo left some nice Spanish olive oil), adding the minced trinity of garlic/ginger/chillis, a big fist full of each. I sprinkled probably a dessert spoonful of cumin seed and another of garam masala into the mix. Then I added two tins of plum tomatoes, a couple of dessert spoonfuls of tomato puree that was left over in the 'fridge, plus half a jar of the aforementioned red pepper paste.

To this dense red base of spicy tomato and onion, I added the pulses: first, the red kidney beans and three quarters of the cooked black lentils. Adding four litres of Marigold bouillon, I brought the soup to the boil and simmered it for ten minutes. Before blending it, I scooped out a couple of great big ladles full of the kidney beans, etc, and reserved them for later re-incorporation. Then I Gaynored soup, liquidizising it fairly thoroughly and adding a further couple of litres of liquid: creamed coconut melted in boiling water. Then I returned the reserved kidney beans and black lentils to the soup and added the two tins of black beans, with their liquid, these late additions giving texture to the soup, which I served with a swirl of yogurt soured with lemon juice .

It went very well with the regulars. Gordon and Nick were particularly enthusiastic, declaring it 'fan dabbie dosey' and 'the best soup to date' (respectively;-) My friends from the Buddhist Centre on Manor Place (here's a pic of the shrine) brought a cake, so people were encouraged to linger after a portion or two of what was generally agreed to be a pretty damn fine soup and then have a cup of tea and and slice of cake. It was all very civilised but, I must say, I only served sixteen, not counting refills. The Soup Kitchen's numbers are down on a fortnight ago, but perhaps people aren't aware that we're back in business. That should change imminently as some fresh flyers are being printed...

Talking of fresh flyers, here's Kai (eyes right), who I reckon has been the Soup Kitchen's most faithful devotee, having hardly missed a soup since we started. Here, he is waving away the camera in a futile attempt to avoid public ridicule for this pathetic, soup-related joke: a pilot ejects from his plane over dense jungle and drifts down on his parachute, guiding himself towards the one clearing he can see in the rain forest below. Too late, he realises he is about to land in the middle of a tribal gathering and, as luck would have it, he drops down smack into a great big cooking pot that's simmering over an open fire in the middle of the clearing. Whereupon, the tribal chief exclaimed, "there's a flyer in my soup!" No, you're right and I told him, Kai, you oughta be ashamed...

Day 21: Spicy Bean

Never mind what the dictionary says, 'spicy' is wrong. At least, it looks wrong. Of course it should be 'spicey', IMO, but in a spirit of willing co-operation, because it's spelled that was in Debra Mayhew's Soup Bible, and because Natty wrote it that way on the blackboard today, on this occasion I will cheerfully conform with the conventional spelling. Maybe the way forward is to opt for 'spiced'?

In this recipe, the spices in question are cumin and Cayenne pepper. I didn't have any Cayenne and used paprika instead, spiked with a hefty pinch of chilli powder. The recipe also calls for red wine and beef stock. For the stock, I used a jar of Marks & Spencer's concentrated vegetable stock. For the red wine, I used a box of Chilean cab. sav. that's been hanging around the Pullens Centre kitchen since the last Annual General Meeting (and the next AGM is tomorrow!)

Overnight, I soaked 750g of black beans and the same quantity of red kidney beans in two separate bowls and, first thing this morning, I boiled them in two separate pans for an hour. The quantities were determined by the fact that, having trawled the length of Walworth Road, I was only able to buy a single 750g bag of black beans. Still, this 1.5 kg of beans turned out to be just the right amount since all the soup (made with 4 litres of stock) was eaten: another 23 bowls full!

I deviated from the recipe by increasing the quantity of red peppers and reducing the celery in the mirepoix of chopped vegetables that forms the flavour base of this soup, to make it richer. I diced a single very large onion, four or five medium-sized carrots and half a dozen red peppers. Rather than bland bell peppers, I used the more elongated, slightly piquant variety. Heating a little oil in the bottom of the soup pot, I put in the diced vegetables and added the spices, about two dessert spoons full of cumin and the same amount of paprika with a teaspoon of chilli powder.

Once the spice was added, I continued to sweat the diced veg. in the soup pot with the lid on over low heat for a further five minutes or so, stirring every now and then to stop the mix from sticking to the bottom of the pot, which I de-glazed with a glass of red wine before straining the cooked beans and adding them to the soup pot. The M&S concentrated veg. stock makes four pints, or not quite two litres, which is about half what I needed, so I added another two litres of Marigold bouillon to the soup and simmered it for half an hour.

I blended the soup a bit with the Dynamic stick mixer then, while it was still fairly chunky, removed about a quarter of the soup to another pot. I continued to blend the bulk of the soup until it was quite smooth and then returned the chunkier soup to the main pot and mixed it, to give contrasting smooth and slightly chunkier textures. I served it with a dollop of full fat cow's yogurt, which went down very well with just about everyone.

This was a very popular soup on what was a cold, brilliantly clear day. Several people had second bowls and Linda wrote in the log bok, 'the best yet! My favourite so far'.

Soup Maker: Russell

Soup: Spicy Bean
No. of bowls served: 23
Expenditure: £12.66
Donations: £26.87
Running balance: +£179.49