28.01.08: Lightly Curried Roots

Monday was becoming our day for rootling through the jetsam of New Covent Garden wholesale market, but Sebastien was otherwise engaged this morning and I didn't want to go it alone, so I mooched off to Lidl instead. Not only is Lidl the land of chocolate-with-hazelnuts and paprika crisps, but it's also the only place I know of locally where one can be reasonably sure of bagging a 'brain' of celeriac. Yer, celeriac brains. As in the roots of the celery plant. Plus, there's this sign in the car park:

At Lidl this morning, never mind the schogetten, I scored a couple of celeriac brains (@ £1.19), a cute lil' bag o' parsnips (79p) and another of leeks (£1.29), plus onions (69p) and garlic (65p). That's five-eighty: not quite a sick squid. On the way back to the Pullens Centre, I swung by Oli's for bread, plus a 200g slab o' creamed coconut (39p: they've got a new brand in) and a bunch of coriander, along with a couple of loaves of bread.

I made the soup the standard way, substituting leeks for most of the onion/celery in the mirepoix, with three diced carrots and about half a dozen crushed cloves of garlic. I peeled and roughly diced the root vegetables, adding them to the sweating mirepoix in the soup pot. Added turmeric and curry powder, about a dessert spoon of each, and mixed with the big wooden spoon. Mixed it pretty good. Mixed it down sweet and added some moisture: slowly, I filled that soup pot up with four litres of Marigold bouillon and simmered it for nigh on a half hour before I brought on Brenda the blender.

Mark was waiting to try the finished soup and he had a cup of tea to warm himself up because, silly billy, he'd locked his dumb self out of his gaff and so he slept in the park last night! I finished the soup with half a block - 100g - of creamed coconut dissolved in a litre of boiling water and garnished it with a generous sprinkling of coarsely-chopped fresh coriander. Just your common or garden hearty neighbourhood soup: I served seventeen peeps, several of whom had seconds, and had a litre left over that I took round to Jen's.

28.11.07: Organic 'Blue' Peas

This chick pea soup is apparently from Carlo's blue period, hence the name. When challenged, he said something about Andy Warhol, perhaps a reference to his Campbell Soup cans. Who can say? As a wise man might have said, unless it's clear to the bottom of the bowl, the meaning of soup may be opaque. It may be meaningless, beyond the taste experience of its consumption and the energy derived from its nutrition. One man - Sumana - was inspired by this soup to whip out his banjo and give it some strumming there and then (see below).

Carlo was less vague about how his soup - organic 'blue' peas with creamy curry coconut, cumin & coriander - to give it its full title, came to be:

1 First, wash your hands and soak your beans. 2kg of chick peas, ideally soaked overnight, but an hour with bicarbonate of soda will do. Boil them separately for an hour.

2 Heat your pan slowly with organic olive oil in the bottom. Chop 6 small white onions roughly in quarters and 6 carrots into batons. Cook slowly in the bottom of the pot until caramelised.

3 Add spice/herb mix: cumin and coriander seeds, paprika; plus two cloves of garlic.

4 Add a quarter of the part-cooked chick peas to the pot, cover with water and cook for a further 40 minutes, stirring often. Continue to cook the rest of the peas, adding a dessert spoon full of Marigold bouillon powder to the boiling water to improve the flavour.

5 When the melange (in the pot) is cooked, add the two lots of chick peas together and blend with a stick mixer.

6 Finish the soup by adding a 200g bar of coconut cream dissolved in half a litre of boiling water. Serve it with a swirl of cinnamon yoghurt.

That recipe isn't complete because tomato puree comes into it somewhere and 'crunchy appeals', which I'm guessing are actually crunchy bits of chopped apple. Kadett wrote, 'yummy, yummy, not sure what makes it so good.' Nor can anyone be sure of the secret ingredient when the soup maker won't say. Bottom line: 'a phantasmic soup and a cockle warmer'.

19.11.07: Parsnip 'n' Pear

The weather today was miserable, dark grey and damp, and I was a bit slow to get started. I'd put pears out in the fruit bowl at the end of last week and they'd been in the 'fridge all weekend, so I thought I'd put 'em in the soup. Parsnip and pear is not quite so common a combination as parsnip and apple, but it works similarly, with the creaminess of the parsnips offset by the tart fruit. In this case, I enhanced the creaminess with creamed coconut and punched up the fruity flavour with curry.

I went down to Oli's and spent eleven pounds, including three loaves of their corek bread. I bought about six kilos of parsnips, I guess, plus a head of celery and a big onion and a a handful of carrots for the mirepoix and a bunch of fresh coriander for garnish. Overnight, I'd made a litre of EasiYo Greek style yoghurt, a jug of which I put on the counter for people to add to their soup.

Back at the Pullens Centre, I trimmed the leaves from the celery and reserved them, then the onion/celery/carrot mirepoix mixture, throwing the diced vegetables into a little oil in the bottom of the soup pot over medium heat. As the soup base cooked, I added minced ginger - say, a square inch - and two dessert spoons of medium hot curry powder.

I peeled the parsnips and cubed them into roughly 2cm spares, adding them to the pot as I cut them and mixing them into the gently cooking mirepoix, keeping the pot lid on and adding a splash of bouillon from a jug to prevent sticking. Once all the parsnips were in the pot, I peeled and cut out the cores from the pears, roughly chopped and added them to the pot. Then I poured in the rest of the two litre jug of bouillon and whacked up the heat.

Adding another two litres of Marigold bouillon (four in total) and melting a 200g block of creamed coconut in two litres of boiling water, I added the leafy celery tops and simmered the soup for fifteen minutes, until the parsnips were cooked through. Then I blended the soup, pouring in the 2l coconut (making 6 litres of liquid in total) and served it with an optional swirl of yoghurt (I don't think anyone declined).

I only served sixteen people today, but they all loved it and several had seconds. I'm hoping that the numbers will pick up this week as M. brought in the fliers that his bro. has printed, which look lush.

Preview: tomorrow, Lou plans to follow this recipe for Sweet Potato & Chilli Soup; on Wednesday, Carlo is talking split peas 'n' spinach with tofu. Join us!