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.

11.01.08: Split Pea & Pumpkin

Today, I was joined by Sebastian, a new face in the Soup Kitchen, who I hope will become a regular, even though he insists he needs to get a paid job. I picked this recipe for yellow split peas and pumpkin out of Debra Mayhew's Soup Bible and purchased a bag of dried yellow split peas and a couple of nice looking chunks of pumpkin from an Afro-Carib grocery in the Heffalump shopping centre yesterday evening and soaked the split peas overnight.

This morning the weather was diabolical again but that didn't stop me dragging Sebastian down Walworth Road in the sleet and bluster to show him round the shops. In East Street, I bought a head of celery and half a kilo of carrots (onions I had), plus a couple of extra bits of pumpkin to make the total weight up to 3kg and a bunch of coriander.

Back at base, I put the split peas on to boil for twenty minutes while Sebastian cleaned, peeled and diced the pumpkin into small, bite-sized chunks. He also had a good go at roasting the pumpkin seeds, which I've never managed to do successfully. The trick, apparently, is to clean and then dry them them thoroughly before spreading them onto a roasting tray with some good quality oil and roasting slowly, turning the seeds in the pan often so that they cook evenly and adding salt, or paprika, or whatever flavouring you desire. S'nice.

Although the Soup Bible doesn't call for the full mirepoix, I made one anyway and seasoned it with two dessert spoons each of freshly ground dana (coriander seed) and jeera (ground cumin). The recipe calls for tarragon and chilli, but I didn't have any tarragon and I chose to do without chilli (although, on reflection, a couple of fresh green chillis would have been nice) and, instead, to emphasise the great flavour of coriander, both ground and fresh.

Those who tasted the soup enjoyed it, at least there were no complaints, but there weren't many of 'em and nobody wrote in the log bok. After a week in which we've consistently served 23 people every lunchtime, today there were only 17. Go figure.

I neglected to take any photographs, but in the evening, the soupers enjoyed an exeat to Dex, in Brixton, where our good neighbour and regular soup lover, Mr Natty Bo, led his Topcats once more through their rhythmic paces. So here's a couple of pics of that:

Next week's soup kitchen rota: it's Russell on Monday, serving a soup of Cauliflower, Flageolet and Fennel Seed; Lou. is on Tue, probably re-rocking the Turkish red lentil soup from day ten; on Wednesday, Russell & Sebastian plan to forage in Nine Elms for a freegan soup; Carlo will be smiling throughout Thursday and going into the evening with Pasta Night; and on Friday, a crew from Stockwell's legendary but sadly fire-damaged Café Cairo will make soup at lunchtime and go on into the evening, weaving magic carpets. See you there.

Day 23: Pumpkin

It's the last day of our October souping and I've got a stinking cold. Happily, Lou was fit to make soup and, it being Halloween, she reprised her pumpkin concoction from Day Five, when spicey was spelled as it should be rather than it actually is.

As someone wrote in the log bok: 'Halloween - pumpkin soup? Work that one out!' Evidently, the equation was simple enough people for the Soup Kitchen to achieve a record number of bowls served on our last day of operation: 30!

Lou's variation on her tried and tested formula was lashings of ginger which worked for me with my cold. As someone else wrote in the log bok: 'Damn lovely - I'm not feeling well so it's given me a lift.' And as a third person wrote, 'it's not a trick, definitely a treat.'

So ends the first chapter of the Soup Kitchen. Over the month, we've done better than break even, showing an average profit of nearly nine quid per day! Of course, we don't pay utility bills and we don't pay ourselves. We are going to have to pay about a hundred quid to service the magic wand that makes it all happen, though.

Apparently, the Soup Kitchen was favourably mentioned at last night's AGM - which I didn't attend because of my rotten cold - and our Resident Liaison Officer is enthusiastic about our innovative experiment in social cohesion. Consequently, after a short break, we will resume the daily service of soup next week.

Happy Samhain, everybody. May the Great Pumpkin shower you with Autumnal abundance.

Soup Maker: Lou

Soup: Gingery Pumpkin
No. of bowls served: 30
Expenditure: £15.78
Donations: £26.98
Final score: +£203.96

Day Five: Spicy Pumpkin

Louisa set out to make pumpkin soup today. She had a packet of creamed coconut, setting a West Indian vibe, so we went down to East Street together to shop for other ingredients and bought the biggest pumpkin we could find, a fifteen pounder. At 60p per pound, we paid nine quid, or an even tenner with the garlic and the ginger. We went to the cheerful lady in the headscarf, a bit further down the lane, for onions, green chillies and coriander and to Iceland on Walworth Road, six tins of chopped tomatoes for £2. And to Oli's, of course, for corek that was still warm.

Back at the Pullens Centre, while I peeled and cubed the pumpkin, Louisa chopped three pounds of onions and started frying them in Flora margarine for about a quarter of an hour while she minced equal quantities of garlic ginger and green chillis (roughly: one head of garlic; a couple of inches of fat fresh root ginger; five plump chillis). As the mirepoix (onion, celery, carrot) is in the West, this mix is the Holy Trinity of Eastern (and West Indian) cuisines. The proportions of spice mix to pumpkin are as shown:

Louisa added the trinity mix to the onions in the pot and continued to cook them for a further five minutes or so before adding the cubed pumpkin. She stirred the contents of the pot for a few minutes before adding the tinned tomatoes, plus enough boiling water to cover all the vegetables, put the lid on and turned up the heat. After the pot came to the boil, she turned down the heat and simmered for about half an hour, until all the pieces of pumpkin softened. Then she liquidised it. Louisa melted the creamed coconut in hot water and added it to the soup, stirring it in with the whizzer. She chopped fresh coriander to garnish the soup and also sprinkled a few pumpkin seeds over each bowl, from a packet we picked up in the market for a quid.

Emma was first to try the Spicier Pumpkin Soup and wrote in the log bok, The soup dragon hissed for more. Linda Brooker brought over a rail of clothes she had hanging around her Peacock Yard Atelier to give away. These garms. are hardly even second hand, but are mostly left over from advertising shoots. I got a perfectly decent pair of Abercrombie khaki kecks, ta very much, and there's still quite a few items left over for next week... Iraxte returned with baby Irene and wrote in the bok the soup was 'really delicious' and her 'favourite so far'. Other comments included, 'Yum, Yum, Police officer's posterior' (whatever THAT means) and, 'Wow great recipe + just right cup of tea. Thanks, I'll be back'.

Soup Maker: Louisa
Soup: Spicey Pumpkin
Other ingredients: Coconut, coriander
No. of bowls served: 22
Expenditure: £15.95
Donations: £27.17
Running balance: +£51.18