Soup Archives - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Soup

08
Sep
2024

Nourishing Soup

categories: Cookbooks, Europe, Kindred, Soup

Recently, while enjoying a delicious bowl of German Lentil and Ham Hock Soup, I remembered a quote from Crooked House

” Josephine and Magda got out of the car. Josephine had a bandage around her head but otherwise looked remarkably well. She said at once: “I want to see my goldfish,” and started towards us and the pond. “Darling, ” ciried Magda, “You’ better some in first and lie down a little, and perhaps have a little nourishing soup.” “Don’t fuss mother, ” said Josephine. “I’m quite all right, and I hate nourishing soup”

Crooked House – Agatha Christie

***Please note, this post contains spoilers for Crooked House. If you have not read it and intend to, you might want to set this post aside until you are done!***

Also, the Dining with The Dame Book for September will now be They Came to Baghdad. A Murder is Announced will be October’s book.

Now, back to the soup.

Unlike Josephine, I love nourishing soup. And I am perfectly happy to be unlike Josephine as she was a murderous little psychopath. Possibly because she didn’t eat enough nourishing soup which is something I always find soul soothing. We’re almost done with a long, cold winter. And I was feeling a little poorly. Having a big pot of German Lentil and Ham Hock Soup helped on days when I didn’t have the energy to cook.

The soup was very hearty so was really a meal itself. It did not really need some grilled cheese on the side. But, IMHO, grilled cheese makes everything better!

Kindred: The Cokbook

The recipe comes from a cookbook called Kindred: Recipes, spices and rituals to nourish your kin by Maria and Eva Konecsny. These ladies also founded a Melbourne institution called Gewürzhaus. This is a “spice house” that sells a huge range of spices, spice blends, tea, cookware. It is a little foodie heaven and close enough to my work that I can pop in for a browse on the days when I am in the office!

I initially worried that the book was a vehicle to sell the spices and blends in the shop. However, these fears were misguided. For example, their recipe for Crunchy Chilli Oil, which is high on my agenda to make, lists all the ingredients if you want to make the oil from scratch. There is also the option to use the Gewurzhaus Crunchy Chilli Oil Blend if you do not wish to buy the individual ingredients.

Some of the other recipes I am keen to try from within the book are:

Chicken Schnitzel with Lavender Crumb*
Perfect Roast Potatoes*
Spiked Brown Cherry Cake
Sigrid’s Rhubarb Cake with Coconut Meringue Hood
Super Twix Bars*
Cherry and Thyme Liqueur
German Curry Ketchup*

Kindred is a lovely book with great photgraphy, thoughtful shortcuts and also a great success story for Maria and Eva Konecsny. I am looking forward to cooking many more recipes from it!

Nourishing Soup The Recipe

Have a great week! I hope you are also being nourished body and soul!

01
Aug
2024

July 2004 – No A’s

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Cheese, Delicious, Fish, Magazines, Muffins, Soup

Hello friends and welcome to today’s Twenty Years Ago Today Post where I am creating a meal from the pages of Delicious magazine from July 2004. But, as usual, the menu comes with a challenge – this month the challenge was to create a meal where none of the recipes contained the letter A. In the event that you ever have an Alphaphobic over to dinner, I have you covered with this one.

And, even if I do say so myself, July 2004 did not disappoint in the taste department. Last week I mentioned that the Grapefruit Oat Brulee was Top Ten in the things I have cooked this year. And this week we have another, not one but two contenders for that list! Life is good – at least in the eating department!

Pop Culture – July 2004

We’ll get along to the deliciousness soon but here’s a little reminder of what was big in July 2004 to help set the scene. Looking first at films, Spiderman, I Robot and The Bourne Supremacy where respectively 1-3 at the box office. Personally, I would have been more interested in Anchorman, Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Notebook at 4, 5 and 7.

In books, the Da Vinci code was yep, you guessed it still number 1! Will the reign of this book never end? Angels and Demons also by Dan Brown was sitting at #7 this month so we might be looking at a Dan Brown double next month! And speaking of doubles, Usher had the number 1 and 2 songs on the Billboard charts with Burn and Confessions Part II.

And now we’ve set the scene, let’s take a look at our menu!

The No A Menu – July 2004

Minestrone

This was, without a doubt the best Minestrone I have ever eaten. I made a huge pot of it and ate it everyday for my lunch for the entire week. Now usually when this happens by Thursday I am starting to get a bit bored and by Friday I am dreading the meal, Not so this time, I would have eaten this for another 5 days if I had more!

This Bill Granger recipe is a little different from most other minestrones for two reasons. First, it has meatballs made from Italian sausages and second it has no pasta. It is also LOADED with veg so, outside of those little meatballs, it is also very healthy. This minestrone was definitely worthy of being on my Top Ten for the Year!

Minestrone Recipe

Smoked Fish Pie

The Smoked Fish Pie was also delicious! I used smoked trout in my pie and it was really yummy! This one is definitely something I will make again! We ate our pies on a frosty cold winter’s night and it was perfect comfort food!

Smoked Fish Pie Recipe

Lemon Meringue Muffins

Now…I could have sworn I took photos of these but no…not on my phone. Not in the cloud….and not enough time to remake them! Also, to be honest, these were probably the weakest part of the meal. They were ok but a little dry. This though, could have been my fault. I cooked the muffins until they were nearly ready but then I had to go out. I left them in the turned off oven to finish the cook and cool. Maybe they were in there a bit too long. I did however love the little secret stash of lemon curd in the muffin and the meringue top was delightful.

I thought for want of my own photo, I would include the photo from the magazine as inspiration. However, there wasn’t one. The recipe was included as a reader asked why there was a recipe for Lemon Meringue Muffins indexed in April 2004, however there was no such recipe in the magazine. The editors explained that the recipe had been pulled for space at the last minute.

There certainly seems oto be something slightly cursed about this recipe!

Lemon Meringue Muffins Recipe

My Nigella Moment – Baked Brie with Braised Cabbage

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious. In these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in because it is too good not to share.

Oh wow…this was sooo good! This was the other recipe that is Top Ten so far this year. There is so much to love in this – warm oozy cheese, salty crispy pancetta, the sweetness of the apple in the cabbage….this was luscious!

Baked Brie with Braised Cabbage Recipe

Well, for me Delicious Magazine from June 2004 was great. Shame about the muffins….but maybe they should have been left out of this issue too!

Have a great week!

31
May
2023

Food For Lovers Redux

categories: Devilled Eggs, Food For Lovers, Prunes, Rice, Salad, Soup

Hello friends, and welcome to a special series I will be running over the next 12 months. A while ago, I realised I had totally missed the 10th birthday of this blog. In fact, I was thinking about how to celebrate this and wanted to check the exact date of the first post which I thought was in 2013. Nope. It was 17 May 2012! There didn’t seem much point in celebrating eleven years but twelve sounds impressive. So in the 12 months leading up to my 12th birthday I will be featuring one of the old books I blogged about in the early years. Those old posts are mostly dire but the books are quirky and fun or just plain good. Sometimes all three. To get this party started I am revisiting one of the most bonkers books I own – Kelly Brodsky’s Food for Lovers from 1971.

Food For Lovers – The Book

Food for Lovers is broken into 15 chapters, each of which is devoted to a particular type of man and the food that their beloved should cook to keep them interested. As the old adage goes, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach! This may make it sound like this is a very conservative, conventional cookbook – the type of book you might have seen in the 1950’s on how to please your husband. But this my friends was not the conservative 50s, this was the 1970s and the birth of women’s liberation so the tone is definitely tongue in cheek. At least I hope it is because each of the men mentioned sounds awful (although also somewhat recognisable). To introduce you to the book and its characters I thought it might be fun to do a little speed dating with the gents of Food for Lovers!

Bachelor #1 Come on down!

Freddy Finikin

“Freddys who dislike food are an asexual lot who seem to get a perverse kick from driving the women in their lives to a frenzy in search of something to tempt their appetite…the woman who falls for such a man is either unaware of his finickiness, or trapped, or mad, or maybe she prefers to read in bed”

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Should you find either the picture of Freddy or his blurb attractive, or you are mad, trapped, or prefer to read in bed here is a recipe to keep your Freddy happy!

Zakusi

You’ll notice I have changed the recipe so that rather than filling the egg whites “liberally” with caviar, I have made a more traditional and certainly more economically viable devilled egg. These were AMAZING. So tasty!!!!

Let’s move on to Bachelor #2

If fussy eaters aren’t your style, maybe this likely lad is more your speed!

Joe De Go

A man with the Midas touch, Joe usually has his fingers in many pies. Often in the guise of pop star, P.R, ad-man, disc jockey, TV star or such, he wizzes from one assignment, luncheon or deal to another with a slick show of competence that belies his lingering adolescence. Bright and on the ball he mostly shoes away from anything that smacks of more than superficial know-how, for he hates to be caught out of his depth

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Intrigued by the sound of Joe? Why not tempt his palate with some

Creamed Leek and Potato Soup

This soup was delicious!

Still not found your ideal man? Let’s take a look at Bachelor #3

Champers Chas

With the carefully cultivated air of an educated debauchee and a fascinating, if largely fabricated family history to back it, Champers provides an inexhaustible supply of gossip. Whether on or off the boards, he delights in titillating his ever present audience with spicy, often malicious anecdotes and ribaldry

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Fancy chatting with Chas? Tempt his tastebuds with some

Pistachio Nut Pilau

This was really nice, the rice was light and fluffy and went perfectly with last week’s Chilli Crab!

Still not found the love of your life? Maybe you like your men a little more sleazy and possibly criminal? Bachelor #4 may be more your style!

Professor Repressor

If the name doesn’t say it all, here’s Kelly’s description

Repressor exudes the coldness of a tree frog, his sang-froid masking some Lucifer-like leanings. One kinky chink in his armour is his obsession with the Lolita-type nubiles on his campus – who usually run for their sweet lives when they see the kind of red-hot light they inspire in his eyes. Inevitably, he is forced to turn his attentions to any neglected wives of his colleagues

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Ok. We might need a palate cleanser after that so how about some

Watercress and Orange Salad

This was great and just the refreshing hit I needed after writing about the pervy professor! Let’s swiftly move to Bachelor #5!

Gad About Guy

Gad about Guys come in all shapes and sizes with ages and egos to match. They usually hover round fellow Gads with a few of the uninitiated thrown in as audience. “Remember that night in Singapore when we strolled along Bugis Street – and those fantastic little roadside stalls with the delicious Satay? ….”Lord, yes! And will you ever forget that Lamb Solanka in Moscow last winter.”…And on and on it goes, the name dropping, the reminiscences and regurgitations of past splendours”

Kelly Brodsky – Food For Lovers

If the well-travelled man is your bag, why not whip up a lovely breakfast for him with some

Wine and Song Prunes

I LOVED these. I feel so bad that prunes have such a bad rap! This was so delicious. And what a fabulous name! I served mine with a little bit of labneh, some orange zest and some pistachios left over from the pilaf and it made a heavenly breakfast!

And because all good things must come to an end, we come to our lucky last Bachelor…who out there fancies

Jack Snack

He’s strictly a non-event up to his neck in dreary day to day existence, blissfully unaware of anything outside his tight little domain…his every move as predictable as the plainness of his sitting-room with it’s enormous brick veneered fireplace above which some gypsy flamencoes wildy within a heavy gilt frame

Kelly Brodsky – Food For Lovers

I laughed out loud when I read this because growing up, we had possibly that very same flamenco dancer painting on our wall at home! I thought it was incredibly beautiful and have always wanted to learn to flamenco as a result of it!

Now, I have also not made Jack’s Snack, mostly because I quite like my life and don’t fancy being taken down by a premature heart attack any time soon. But should you wish to share your life with this homebody and are not afraid of death by overindulgence, here is the recipe for a Veal Scallopine Sandwich that will melt Jack’s heart whilst simultaneously clogging his arteries!

Okay, food lovers, I hope you have enjoyed my second journey into Food For Lovers…I LOVED revisiting this book!!! And there are so many more delicious-sounding recipes and terrible men in it that we may have to take a third look somewhere down the track!

I have searched online for other books by Kelly Brodsky and Kelly Brodsky herself and have drawn a big flat blank! At the moment there also appear to be no other copies of Food for Lovers for sale so, sadly you cannot share my delight in this book. Kelly, if you are out there, and I hope you are, I hope you read this and know that fifty-two years after the publishing of your book, you have a number one fan in me!

Have a wonderful week friends and please let me know if you make that Veal Scallopini Sandwich! Or any of the other recipes!

26
Mar
2023

Let’s Get Lit – March 2003

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Bread, Pasta, Sangria, Seafood, Soup, Tomatoes, Wine

Hello friends and welcome to March 2003! Avril Lavigne was topping the charts with I’m With You, Bringing Down the House was #1 at the box office and U.S. troops invaded Iraq looking to seek and destroy Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. No wonder, when reflecting on the events of twenty years ago, we here at Retro Foods for Modern Times felt we might need to get a little boozy! This was the theme for our menu which came from the March 2003 issue of Delicious Magazine!

March 2003 – The Menu

Sangria

As if we could have a boozy menu without a starting drink! I love Sangria which despite being Spanish in origin always reminds me of our 2017 trip to Portugal where we would have a pre-dinner sangria most days!

Happy times! Here’s the one from Delicious!

Sangria Recipe:

Beer Bread with Pastrami and Relish

Due to time constraints, I didn’t make this but doesn’t it look amazing?

Spaghettini Alle Vongole

OMG, this was so good. And also when I really wished I had made the beer bread so I could mop up all the delicious sauce left in the bowl. I had never eaten Spaghettini Alle Vongole before and although this took a bit of effort to cook, it was worth it!

Spaghettini Alle Vongole Recipe:

Citrus Salad with Cointreau Cream

To finish out the meal, we have a Citrus Salad with Cointreau Cream. For an alternative dessert, but one that still uses Cointreau, you could sub in last week’s White Lady which also came from this magazine!

My Nigella Moment – Salmorejo

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious. In the context of these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in either because I made it and it was really good, or I just didn’t have time to make it but it was the most appetising thing in the mag!

This was a difficult one. I was torn between two recipes that really appealed to me. One was a pink grapefruit tart. However, as we already had a dessert containing grapefruit I decided to go with the other recipe from March 2003 which caught my eye – salmorejo.

Salmorejo is a cousin of gazpacho. Gazpacho is one of those things that I thought I would hate. Cold tomato soup? Yeccchhh!!! That is until I tried it. And from then on it was love! I will note that even though I am a garlic lover, 4 cloves of garlic was too much for this! Two would, I think have been plenty!

It looked exactly as it did in the picture too!

Salmorejo Recipe

Delicious Magazine certainly delivered on our ask for a boozy menu. We had red wine and brandy in the sangria, beer in the bread, white wine in the spaghetti and Cointreau in the dessert!

Let me know if you would like to contribute a theme to my list. I’m happy to take on any challenge!

31
Dec
2021

Detox Soup

categories: 365 Good Reasons To Sit Down and Eat, Holidays, New Year's Day, Soup, Tasty Reads, Vegetarian

Hello Friends, consider this post my public service announcement for the year. Detox Soup is my New Year’s Day present to you. For anyone who is planning to imbibe on 31st December, a large bowl of detox soup should set us on the path to recovery on 1 January!

I found the recipe for Detox Soup in 365 Good Reasons to Sit Down and Eat by Stephane Reynaud which is an excellent book on (mostly) French cooking. It was my choice for our Tasty Reads Cookbook Club for November and this is both the first recipe in the book and the first recipe I made from it.

Since then, I have made this soup a number of times, it has become my go-to meal for when I want something quick, easy and life-affirming or when I want to feel virtuous. When I am feeling not so virtuous, it goes very well with some grilled cheese on crusty bread! I don’t really believe in “detoxing” but eating this soup does make me feel like I am doing something positive for myself.

Whether or not you use the Detox Soup to ease your aching head and over worked liver or to add a moment of positive self care into the first day of the new year, can I suggest you make some early and keep it in the fridge for the first? It will be there when you need it the most!

Or it can add a moment of positive self-care into the first day of the new year.

I have already made my batch although we currently have a sick dog so I doubt I will be drinking on NYE in case I need to make (another) trip to the emergency vet. 🙁

The Recipe – Detox Soup

Complete with a picture of someone looking very hungover made from the ingredients!

Those of you with an eagle eye may have noticed that there is some sliced fennel in my soup which is not in the recipe. The second time I made this soup I had half a fennel in the fridge that needed using so I sliced it up and added it into the pot. I really liked the flavour it brought so I add it in all the time now. I also use vegetable stock instead of water in my soup.

This also explains why I have garnished my soup with a fennel frond and not the celery leaves in the original picture. Speaking of which…I think I have done not too bad a job of replicating that picture…

If the hair of the dog is more your bag, 1 January is Bloody Mary Day so you can get your vodka on with one of my favourite Bloody Mary recipes here.

I think for most of us, 2021 was not the remedy to 2020 that we were all hoping for. Lord only knows what 2022 has in store for us! Whatever it brings, I hope you and your loved ones stay safe, healthy and have a wonderful year!