21.03.08: Harira + Cafe Cairo

The final Soup Kitchen for now coincided with the Equinox, Good Friday, and a Full Moon, so it was an auspicious date for Cafe Cairo to host their third - and first officially licensed! - night at the Pullens Centre. For lunch, Rhiannon and Daisy made a vegetarian Harira, along the lines of the one they first made on 18.01.08, which should become emblematic of the cafe when it goes on the road, travelling around festivals this Summer. Keep up with the Cairo crew via their MySpace and Facebook pages.

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!

19.03.08: Potato & Leek

The Soup Kitchen has essayed several leek and potato soups and produced a Nearly Perfick Recipe, but Daisy's and Holly's novel spin was potato and leek. They produced a terrific soup that was typically chunky (unblended) and herby, with lots of thyme and lashings (or should that be grindings?) of black pepper. Frugally, it also incorporated a jug full of Spring onion soup left over from the day before.

The Ladies Who Lunch always bring a great vibe with them, as you can see (that baby does not belong to Daisy, BTW;-). Maybe they'll get it together to offer food the Pullens Centre sometimes over the coming months, after the Soup Kitchen closes? Let's hope!

18.03.08: Creamy Spring Onion

For my penultimate soup, I wanted a straightforward single-varietal vegetable recipe based upon the traditional mirepoix and maybe made creamy with the judicious addition of coconut. I thought to refine the Spring Onion soup improvised on 06.03.08, when there were no leeks in the market, blending the soup and straining it through a sieve to achieve a silky consistency.

I bought a 3kg box of Spring onions from pals in East Street, bruv, for a quid more than I paid last time, plus a couple of leeks, a kilo of spuds and a bunch of parsley. I went to Oli's for bread and to get a head of their celery, which always seems greener and bushier, and saw that they had wonderful white onions, so I bought a couple of them, too, as per the pic.

Back at base, I peeled and diced the white onions, washed and diced the leeks and half a kilo of carrots, plus a whole head of celery, and sweated this mirepoix over medium-low heat in a splash of oil in the bottom of the soup pot with its lid on to retain the moisture, stirring every couple of minutes to prevent sticking. I peeled the potatoes, chopped them into a rough dice, and added them to the pot. The spuds will cook down completely to thicken the soup.

I washed and then I started to chop Spring onions, adding them to the pot as they were chopped, stirring the contents and adjusting the heat to prevent sticking. Fresh Spring onions give off quite a lot of moisture, so no further liquid was necessary until all the Spring onions had been chopped - which took a minute or 45 - and added to the pot. Then I covered the contents with four litres of Marigold bouillon and simmered for ten minutes before turning off the heat and leaving the pot to cool for ten minutes more before blending.

I blended the soup thoroughly, adding another litre of bouillon and a litre of boiling water with 100g of creamed coconut dissolved into it. However one blends and blends, little bits of onion will always remain, with a slightly slimy texture that's not too pleasant, unless you pass it. Yes force all this soup through a sieve into another pot, using the back of the ladle. It's worth the effort, I guarantee.

One person described this soup in the dairy as 'very Springy' and someone else wrote, 'fucking lovely', but they should watch out, because language like that can get you excluded from Pullens Tenants & Residents Association. A third person put, 'totally gorgeous', which is the same sentiment expressed in a less spunky form. And then there's the woman who has so fallen for my soup that she talks about it in her sleep, to her boyfriend's consternation. She reckons 'soup of souperman are so gooood!!' C'est vrai, cherie. What are you going to do without me?

Defeated ping pong champ sniffs the soup (pic of Victoria by Bruce Webb)

17.03.08: Irish Broth

I set out this morning to make a chunky vegetable miso soup thickened with pearl barley, but then I realised it's St Paddy's day and miso is hardly very Oirish, is it begorrah? So, I figured I'm leave out the miso, amp up the herbiness and call this stand-your-spoon-in veggie stew-soup, 'Irish'. It was a chilly day and this rib-sticker hit the spot with 20 people, several of whom wrote nice comments in the dairy: 'I finally feel warm again'.

I used a kilo of pearl barley (pot barley might've been better, but that's for another time) and bought a selection of roots, including a couple of different types of turnip, parsnips and swede. And cabbage, nice Savoy cabbage. And some baby button mushrooms, just for the hell of it. I boiled up the barley with a couple of dessert spoons full of dried herbs, diced a mirepoix and sweated it while peeling and dicing the roots into 1cm cubes. I wok-fried the diced roots (and mushrooms) - as they do in Ireland - before adding them to the pot, then added the cooked barley, plus six litres of Marigold bouillon. Simmered the soup for fifteen minutes and finished it with shredded cabbage. Garnished with shamrock.

14.03.08: Pumpkin & Split Pea

The Soup Kitchen reveres Delia Smith, even when having a gentle dig at her for promoting McCain's frozen discs of mash potato as a soup thickener. But of course there are people who just don't have the time, inclination or skillz to mash! These days, Deals is driving a vehicle called How To Cheat At Cooking in which she cuts corners by incorporating readymade products into her recipes. In that spirit, I offer this interpretation of my friend Jennifer's soup, the secret ingredient of which is a 425g jar of Loyd Grossman's Jalfrezi Sauce.

To make 30 portions, you'll need 2kg of yellow split peas and a couple of pumpkins, or one big one. I saw some lovely green skinned pumpkins in East Street yesterday, but today they were gone and so I had to haggle with a wily Jamaican pumpkin purveyor instead and pay his price. Not that I minded, because his pumpkin was every bit as good as he claimed and he was grateful for all my change. Plus, with a couple of the Scotch bonnets left over from t'other day for added heat, I could (and did) claim that this soup is coming direct from JA:

1. Soak the split peas overnight and start by boiling them up and simmering for at least half an hour.

2. Finely chop a mirepoix of onion, carrots and celery, about a pound or half a kilo of each. As this soup will not be blended, it's important that the dice is small and neat. And a couple of de-seeded and minced Scotch bonnets (left), or more if you dare, but be aware that these peppers are HOT.

3. Sweat the mirepoix over medium/low heat in a good splash of oil in the bottom of your soup pot with the lid on to preserve moisture, taking it off every few minutes to stir the contents with a wooden spoon and prevent them from sticking or burning.

4. While the mirepoix sweats, peel the pumpkins, remove their seeds and dice their flesh into centimetre cubes.

5. When the mirepoix has cooked down and begun to caramelise in the bottom of the soup pot, add a dessert spoonful each of ground jeera 'n' dana (cumin and coriander), stirring it into the mixture. Then add the jar of Loyd's jalfrezi sauce and the contents of a tin of tomatoes, stirring that into the mirepoix as it continues to cook.

6. Now add the diced pumpkin, stir, cover with two litres of boiling Marigold bouillon, turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Add another couple of litres of bouillon and simmer for ten minutes or so before adding the peas.

7. Now add the cooked split peas with a further two litres of Marigold bouillon, making six litres in all. Stir the soup so that it's well mixed and simmer for a further ten minutes. The soup will continue to thicken as the split peas disintegrate.

8. Check the seasoning. If you've overdone the chilli, calm down the flavour by grating creamed coconut into your soup. Garnish with freshly chopped coriander as you serve.

19 people enjoyed this soup, which was an improvement on the day before, but the experience was a lot more pleasant. A small party came in from the Buddhist Centre up the street, where Ira doesn't cook on Fridays, and one of them also tried a bowl of yesterday's left over cauliflower soup. As did Joe, because he's a bit young to appreciate chilli. Several of the Soup Kitchen regulars lingered over second bowls and wrote compliments in the dairy: 'legendary - makes me sweat in a good way.

13.04.08: Cauliflower, White Bean & Fennel

Strange day. Uneasy atmosphere, with funereal talk and the news of Irene at no.89 having been burgled. I've got used to shifting most, if not all of the soup and seeing twenty three friendly faces, but today I struggled to serve 14 bowls to lost souls, same as the day we started, on 01.10.07, when cauliflower was also involved. Not that I'm blaming the caulis, mind, nor Kai, who helped to make this soup. It was inspired by the sight of perfectly decent looking cauliflowers on a stall down East Street for 70p each. I bought five. I thought the combination with fennel and white beans was pretty good when I first tried tried it on 14.01.08, but I got left with loads and served it up again the following week. Still, the version with turnips I did at the beginning of last week went down well. So, I thought I was onto a winner. Mmm...

I'd intended to produce a definitive recipe, but now I can't be bothered and so I'll keep it concise: sweated mirepoix augmented with three bulbs of fresh fennel; seasoned with fennel seed and powdered turmeric; added cauli stalks and leaves, reserving the florets, covered with two litres of Marigold bouillon; added three 800g cans of butter beans and another 2l. bouillon; simmered for ten minutes and rested for five before blending. After blending, returned pot to heat and added cauliflower florets with a final 2l. bouillon (making six litres in total) and simmered for ten minutes before blending again, just enough to break up the florets, leaving some texture in the soup. Served garnished with chopped Spring onion and scattered fennel seeds. Yum, yum? Ho, hum!

12.03.08: Carrot 'n' Ginger + Chilli

Carrot and Ginger. Or is it the other way round?

Daisy was absent with the sniffles today and so Rhiannon made the kind of pungent soup that would probably have made her better if she'd had any. But, seeing as Daisy stayed under her duvet, all her soup got eaten by others. Fantastic it was, too, with gob-smacking flavour: ginger upfront, hotly pursued by the almost smoky Scotch bonnets; the carrot coming through nonetheless, with the tang of fresh coriander, as garnish. 'Twas truly, deeply, madly orange.

11.03.08: Chickpea & Spinach

This soup proved to be as popular as any served at the Soup Kitchen and caused someone to remark that the soup making is peaking as the season draws to a close while some others expressed sadness that their soup supply is to be cut off at the end of next week. But let us not mourn the passing of time and rather celebrate the turn of the seasons' wheel. Let's write down a few more definitive recipes while this blog is still active. And let us also get the table tennis tournament played out before the middle of next week!

To make 30 x 250ml portions, you will need: two kilos of dried chickpeas; two 800g cans of Natco spinach puree; a jar of tahini; a whole head of garlic, at least; plus a pound, or half a kilo each of onion, carrots and celery for the mirepoix and a kilo of floury white potatoes to thicken the soup. (Alternatively, you could use gram flour as a thickener.) This soup is seasoned with jeera 'n' dana - cumin and coriander - which you can buy as powder, or grind yourself for a fuller flavour and finished with Cayenne pepper, or a squeeze of lemon juice, if you prefer.

1. Soak the chickpeas over night. Start by discarding the soak water and boiling the peas in fresh water, simmering for an hour or more.

2. Wash, peel and cut the onion, carrot and celery into a rough dice. Peel and crush the garlic. Sweat this mixture of chopped veg. over medium heat in a generous splash of oil in the bottom of the soup pot with the lid on, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

3. Season the cooking mirepoix with ground cumin and coriander, two desserts spoons full of each. Make up two litres of Marigold bouillon and add a splash or two to the soup pot to stop the seasoned mirepoix from sticking.

4. Peel and roughly chop the potatoes and add them to the pot with the rest of the two litres of bouillon. Turn up the heat and bring the soup to the boil.

5. Prepare a further two litres of Marigold bouillon before adding two thirds of the chickpeas to the soup pot and then pour it over and continue to cook. If the peas left in the pot, which will be added to the soup later, are soft, take them off the heat. Otherwise, continue to cook them until soft.

6. Simmer the soup for fifteen minutes, then turn the heat off and leave it to stand for ten minutes before blending. Blend to a smooth consistency.

7. Return the blended soup to the heat and add the cans of spinach puree and the rest of the chickpeas with a further two litres of Marigold bouillon.

8. Stir in tahini to finish the soup. I used a full 450ml jar, but you can vary the quantity according to taste.

9. Serve garnished with a sprinkle of Cayenne or a squeeze of lemon juice to cut the flavour of the chickpeas and tahini with something a bit sharp. Enjoy!

10.03.08: Rooty Miso

All weekend the forecasters kept predicting that heavy weather was imminent so, this morning, I thought I'd better make a proper hearty soup to insulate us all against low, low pressure. Plus, I've been intending to revisit my experiments with miso that began back with winter vegetables on 17.10.07, continued with various beans and pulses on 23.11.07, and reached some sort of a conclusion with root veggies on 10.12.07. Also, I wanted to have a go with Marigold Organic Instant Miso Bouillon Powder.

I bought this array of ingredients from Somerfield (swede, kale, carrots, potatoes) and Oli's (white radish, two types of turnips, 3 tins of kidney beans for a quid). I might say I spent a bit more than I usually do and then I spent £2.69 more at Baldwins for a tub of the aforementioned miso powder. Previously, I've mixed fresh miso paste into a soup stock made of Marigold bouillon and learned to add it last and then not to let the soup boil in order to preserve the precious enzymes as far as possible. But this powder is a whole lot easier to use and the 140g tub makes 7 litres, which is exactly how much I require. So, thanks once again, Marigold, and lets talk about sponsorship, eh?

To make the soup, I peeled and diced the swedes and turnips and radishes into centimetre cubes, put them in a roasting tray with a little vegetable oil, and roasted the dice on high heat for half and hour or forty minutes, stirring the mixture occasionally. Since this soup was not going to be blended, I took extra care chopping a finely diced mirepoix of leek instead of onion, with carrot and celery, plus half a dozen cloves of garlic, and sweated it in the bottom of the pot. I peeled six large white potatoes and steamed them for about half an hour, until they were cooked right through.

I assembled the soup by adding the roast root veg. to the mirepoix in the soup pot, covering with four litres of Marigold Miso, then squeezing the steamed potatoes through a ricer into the soup to thicken it, adding a further two litres of boiling miso bouillon, stirring, and finishing with shredded curly kale plus the last litre of miso. Looking back, shredded curly kale has been the green component of all four of my miso soups. To paraphrase Al Murray, all hail to the kale.

I garnished this rooty miso soup with fresh bean sprouts for crunch and served 21 people with at least 28 portions, as many had seconds. A bowl was left over for me to enjoy and, while I don't necessarily concur with the person who wrote in the dairy that this was the 'best so far', it was better than OK if I do say so myself.

07.03.08: Butter Bean & Parsnip

I soaked a couple of kilos of butter beans over night in the expectation that there would be someone to help me shuck their skins off this morning. Wrong! So, that was an unexpectedly happy hour, which put the time of soup readiness back to nearly one o'clock. By then, Iaxte and baby, plus husband, had been sent away once and returned already, hungry. Happily, they declared the wait for this super smooth soup to have been worthwhile.

The news from my (provisionally) favourite cheap veg. stall down East Street is that the character who runs it has learned a new word and it is the South London diminutive of 'brother' that's usually used only by close friends, innit, bruv? However, it's hard to take exception to inappropriate expressions of familiarity, I've found, when they are made by a Breugelesque bloke of indeterminate Eastern European origin who is sorting you out with 3 kilos of parsnips, a head of celery, half a kilo of carrots and a packet of three garlic bulbs for a fiver, bruv.

I made the soup in my usual way: starting with a sweated mirepoix with garlic, ground jeera 'n' dana (cumin and coriander); adding the diced parsnips to the soup pot, covering with four litres of Marigold bouillon, boiling and simmering for twenty minutes with the de-skinned butter beans; resting the cooked soup for ten minutes and then blending it, adding a further two litres of bouillon, until smooth and silky. I garnished each bowl with a teaspoon of finely chopped Spring onion.

06.03.08: Spring Onion

Kai has been one of the Soup Kitchen's most regular customers. He comes in practically every day after 2.30, even when he's overdone it a bit and really doesn't have the stomach for any kind of food. Maybe sitting around in the soup kitchen doesn't beat sitting around at home, but at least it's a change of scenery, eh? Anyways and for whatever reason, Kai declared himself ready and willing to make soup and the Soup Kitchen accepts all levels of ability. Kai rocked up at ten o'clock this morning, as arranged.

He said he fancied Leek & Potato but East Street market was all out of leeks and full to bursting with great big fat fresh Spring onions, so that's the way it went. I got a whole box of Spring onions - 3.5kg, maybe? - for £3.50 from what's becoming my favourite stall (finally!) I also got another 3kg of white spuds from them, plus carrots and celery: a fiver, all in (that's why they're my favourites). Back at base, we got choppin' and there was a lot of choppin' to be done. Because the soup was to be only partially blended and some chunks would remain, I explained to Kai, the potatoes must be diced quite precisely into 5mm cubes. He duly complied.

Like I keep telling anyone who cares to hear, my soups follow the method I was taught a quarter of a century ago by a bloke who had read, digested and taken to heart Michel Guerard's Cuisine Gourmand: stage one, sweat a mirepoix and season it; stage two, add the main ingredient(s), cover with liquid and boil; stage three, blend. Adjust seasoning. Garnish. Serve. Simple, innit?

Kai seemed to get the hang of it. He chopped those spuds mighty fine. At stage three, I removed a third of the cooked veg before blending and returned it tot he pot after, to give texture. People loved this soup: 21 of 'em finished the pot, which is usually about 30 portions, so I guess that half had seconds. Someone wrote in the dairy: 'it put a Spring in my step'.

05.03.08: Minted Pea

This vivid green soup proved so popular that it was all gone by 2.30, when I went to try a bowl. Rhiannon says it was an easy soup, made with frozen peas a bit like the one back on Day Six and obviously it was delicious because it all got eaten up PDQ and, by the time I arrived, the Ladies Who Lunch had moved on to tea and tamarind, as seen here:

04.03.08: White Bean and Cauliflower with Turnip

This soup started out last night as a half kilo bag of haricot beans that I put in to soak over night with the vague intention of marrying them with cauliflower and maybe using gram flour as a thickener. But then, buying veg. in East Street, I picked up one of those stainless steel bowl bargains, probably a couple of kilos of turnips gone a bit soft. And then again, buying bread at Oli's, I picked up a couple of 800g cans of butter beans. So, this soup was going to be thick enough with no need for flour.

Back at base, I boiled the soaked haricots for half an hour while I chopped and cooked a mirepoix of onions, carrots, and celery - roughly half a kilo of each - with the peeled cloves of half a head of garlic and sweated the diced veg in a splash of vegetable oil in the bottom of the soup pot, keeping its lid on to preserve the moisture, but stirring frequently to prevent sticking. That's what I usually do. Then I seasoned the slowly cooking mirepoix mixture with turmeric, ground cumin and ground coriander, about a dessert spoonful of each.

I peeled and roughly diced the turnips, adding them to the pot and mixing them in with two litres of boiling Marigold bouillon. I removed the florets from four cauliflowers, discarded the outer leaves and diced the stem, adding the dice to the pot. I drained the contents of the two cans of butter beans and added them to the soup, which I brought to the boil and simmered for about ten minutes before adding a further two litres of bouillon and the cauliflower florets. I brought the soup back to the boil and simmered it for ten minutes before turning the heat off and leaving the pot to cool for ten minutes before blending.

While blending the soup, I poured in another couple of litres of Marigold bouillon - making six in total - and when the soup had achieved a smooth consistency, I added the cooked haricot beans and returned the pot to the hob. Served with copious freshly-chopped parsley, I thought this was a pretty fine soup. V. Soup Kitchen and, in our finest tradition, 23 persons were served (several of whom had seconds).

Joe (right) and Esme (left) did art today: Esme's lady with chicken is shown.

03.03.08: Freegan Auberginey

In just a few weeks, Olga a.k.a. Ola has established a signature soup style using ingredients she fetches for free from the wholesale market at New Covent Garden, where one can usually pick up sweet peppers and tomatoes-on-the-turn, as well as a variable selection of other stuff. Ola's style is a vegetable potage, thickened with potatoes in the base, perked up with tomatoes in the top and usually incorporating at least one other prominent ingredient.

Today, Olga and Eugene came back from the market with various items, including a few bulbs of fennel and eight or so big aubergines, individually packaged in cellophane. Mmm... Aubergine soup? I advised Olga to slice and roast the aubergines with quite a lot of oil to concentrate their flavour and I didn't stick around to watch, but I guess that's what she did. I know she put the fennel in the base of the soup with onion and leek, carrot and celery. Then, I expect, she added the aubergines that had been roasted with tomatoes and peppers and pureed the lot with Brenda the blender.

Garnished with chives, this was a thick, distinctly 'auberginey' (Eugene's word) concoction that went down very well with 21 people. However, it was also Ola's last go in the Soup Kitchen for the time being. Having beguiled us with her filling and zesty soups, Olga is going home to see her folks in Lithuania leaving not even a picture for us to remember her by. Eugene endures!

29.02.08: Butternut Bisque

I took a walk down East Street market and at its far end I found a stall selling two big butternut squashes for a pound, so I bought four and figured I'd refine and quantify the Carroty Gingernut recipe what I rocked on 04.02.08.

Having onion and celery for the mirepoix, I spent another pound on carrots and ginger. I also had the end of a jar of biber salçası in the 'fridge, so all I needed from Oli's when I went there to buy bread was a slab of creamed coconut and also a bunch of fresh coriander for the garnish.

1. First, make a mirepoix by chopping onions, celery and carrots - about a pound, or half a kilo of each - and sweat these chopped vegetables with a few peeled cloves of garlic in a splash of oil in the bottom of a soup pot, keeping its lid on to preserve moisture.

2. Add the ginger. If added to the base of the soup and allowed to cook down with the mirepoix, the flavour of fresh ginger will mellow and be pervasive without being over powering. It's hard to overdo it and, if you do, you can always calm down the gingery-ness with coconut. Anyway, in this instance, I used probably four fat thumbs or maybe 12cc of fresh ginger, peeled and minced and mixed into the cooking mirepoix.

3. Peel the butternut squashes. If using a speed peeler, make sure all the skin is removed, down to the orange flesh. Cut the squashes in half and remove their seeds, then chop them into roughly 2cm cubes.

4. Before adding the diced squash to the soup pot, first add 200-250g of biber salçası (red pepper paste), if you have it. If not, use tomato puree.

5. Now add the diced squashes to the soup pot and cover with four litres of Marigold bouillon (one litre per squash). Bring to the boil and simmer for twenty minutes, until the flesh is soft enough to be blended.

6. Turn off the heat and leave the pot to stand for five or ten minutes. This is particularly important in this recipe, because you want the texture of the soup to be as silky as possible and, therefore, all its contents must be thoroughly cooked before blending.

7. While the soup is cooling, before it's blended, dissolve 100g of creamed coconut in a litre of boiling water and make up another litre of Marigold bouillon. As you blend the soup, slowly pour in this extra liquid to achieve a smooth consistency.

8. Check the seasoning. If the ginger flavour is too pronounced, you can calm it down by grating more creamed coconut directly into the soup. Serve garnished with chopped coriander.

This soup went down really well, BTW, with many second and third bowls served;-)

28.02.08: Definitive Borscht

As regular readers of this blog well know, borscht has been a recurring theme. Way back on Day 12, Lou essayed a recipe so simple that we could hardly call it Borscht since it was basically a beetroot puree. Then I had a go with a recipe from the Soup Bible. Then I had another go and so did she. By now, I reckon we're about ready to settle upon a definitive recipe.

Borscht is traditionally made with beef stock, so the main issue with making a vegetarian version is how to get that flavour and the secret is: Marmite! Not just Marmite, but mushrooms, too, sweated right down in the mirepoix to surrender their bosky essence. Like this:

For the mirepoix, you will require a pound or half a kilo each of onions, carrots and celery, plus half a head of garlic. Buy five kilos of beets, four decent sized Bramley cooking apples, and a 750g punnet of field mushrooms. You'll also need cream or yoghurt and chives or dill for the garnish. I like thick Greek yogurt thinned with a little lemon juice to make it runnier and a clump of chives one can cut straight into the soup with scissors.

1. Roughly chop the onions, carrots and celery and sweat them in a splash of oil in the bottom of your soup pot with the peeled and crushed garlic. Keep the lid on the soup pot to keep the moisture in, but stir the contents often.

2. Next, add the mushrooms. You don't have to bother chopping them. You'll want to sweat them right down and they will release a lot of moisture. Keep the lid on, but keep stirring.

3. Apples are a bit of a controversial ingredient, but add a delightfully fruity note. Peel, core and chop the Bramleys and add the to the pot, stirring them into the mixture.

4. As the soup pot continues to cook over low heat, peel and chop the beets. Add them to the pot, stirring them into the mirepoix, and add sufficient liquid to cover, probably two litres. You need a dark vegetable stock: Marigold bouillon mixed with a dessert spoon of Marmite per litre.

5. Boil the beets quite vigorously for half an hour until they're soft enough to be blended and then liquidise, homogenise and blend, blend, blend your borscht. Add more liquid to create a silky texture and achieve your desired consistency.

6. Serve with an optional swirl of yogurt, or cream, chopped chives or dill, and black pepper.

Dairy comment: 'borscht as good as a Porche!'

Occupational hazard: beetroot hands

27.02.08: Herby Onion

Daisy writes:
'Made with onion tears of love. While we didn't actually cry into the pot, we definitely shed enough salt water to substitute a small ocean. (The Indian Ocean, Daze?) I mean, we chopped a hell-of-a-lot of onions!
Somehow, we blindly managed to add some delicious herbaceous ingredients, including thyme and a nice amount of black pepper. The soup was served with garlic croutons and garnished with chopped parsley and Spring onions.
Hopefully our puffed-up panda eyes and slightly onionified temperament didn't frighten too many people!

Ladies Who Lunch: Sophie, Daisy, Holly

26.02.08: Baltic Freegan Soup

Food Not Bombs pacifists, Olga from Lithuania recruited Eugene from Belarus to go cotchelling down Nine Elms today. They are Baltic Freegans and their soup was well Baltic in that it was potato-based and typically Freegan in that its top note was tomato and sweet peppers (which are discarded every day at the wholesale market).

Olga, a.k.a. 'Ola' (its supposed to be a diminutive, but I don't get it) started with onions that Carlo had left over, some carrots and a leek. I saw two celeriac roots and a couple of parsnips go in the body of the soup, which was filled out by potatoes that Carlo had boiled and left in the 'fridge. I noticed that she emulated my technique of roasting the tomatoes and peppers to concentrate their flavour and passing them through a sieve to remove pips 'n' skins.

Eugene sliced courgettes, which Ola fried and added to the blended soup to give it texture and finished it with copious quantities of dill. I can't help but say it was dill-icious. I know, I know. I beg your pardon. That's the kind of thing Jen might say. Actually, she wrote in the dairy (which is the new log bok): 'Really yummy and filling - nice to have some salad, too, Friendly faces - hope you carry on'.

In other news:

* Following Carlo's frustrating experience on Monday - of which we shall never speak - he's flown to Germany to chill out with his girlfriend and so we say, arrivederci, Signor Bueno.

* Pullens Ping Pong Club's inaugural tournament was supposed to reach its climax on Friday, but not a game's been played! However, word is that the crucial first round tie, Alex vs. Alexa, is scheduled for Thursday lunch time.

21/22.02.08: 'Cornucopia'

Carlo's corn soup incorporated a couple of kilo bags of frozen sweetcorn from Iceland, melted with onion and slow cooked with spices and coconut until it achieved the desired consistency before being blended and thickened with fine polenta prepared with butter and mixed herbs. It was delicious!

Less successful, IMO, but wildly popular nontheless, was Carlo's lunch plate, comprising a 'non-Indian dal' of yellow split peas, a.k.a. jumbo lentils served with rice and salad. Friday's 'sunshine stew' comprised slow cooked carrots with organic split peas in a thick sauce the secret of which - I'm told - is to sweat down onions with potatoes before you start. I know, it's a mystery to me how he does it, too, but I'm as grateful as anyone.

This week, Carlo is making soup (and his lunch plate) on Monday. On Tuesday, Olga and a friend from Food Not Bombs will be doing their Freegan thing. Wednesday is Daisy's day, accompanied by Rhiannon from Cafe Cairo. I'll be making soup on Leap Day, next Friday and, as it turns out, on Thursday, too, probably. I'm thinking about borscht.

P.S. Re: Comments. Seems like the only peeps commenting were spammers, so I've opted for moderation and verifcation. Don't let that stop you, though.