Category: Soup

08
Sep
2020

London Peculiar

I love food that has an evocative (or just plain weird) name. So, when I found myself with a large ham hock in my freezer and some green split peas in the pantry, London Peculiar was top of my list of things to make! Who wouldn’t want to eat London Peculiar rather than plain old pea and ham soup?

London Peculiar, (aka London Particular) takes its name from the thick “pea-soup” fogs that used to cover London. You would think that these noxious swirling greeny grey fogs were a thing of the long distant past. Surely they were from the times of Dickens and Jack the Ripper? Not so! There was actually a “fog event” as late as 1952!

The 1952 Fog

The fog in ’52 was so dense and so intrusive that the opera La Traviata had to be stopped because people at the back could not see the stage! Even if they could, the actors and other audience members were coughing so much no one could hear anything over the noise. On the Isle of Dogs, the fog was so thick, people could not see their own feet!

12, 000 people died from the fog, which was full of toxic chemicals.

Just like today, (but more eerie because of the fog), the people of London took to wearing masks to protect themselves. Then, as now, wise advice was to stay home when you can and wear a mask if you couldn’t!

And of course, when times get tough, there is nothing like a warm bowl of soup to soothe the soul! There is an old Jewish proverb that says “Worries go down better with soup than without”. So true!

Soup is cheap to make, quick to reheat, and usually fairly healthy. It is great working from home lunch food but also perfect for a cold winter evening. It is also a great way to hide veggies if we have little people or even big people, who don’t love their greens! Watch the salt in this one though, ham hocks can be quite salty so I would not add more salt until you had tasted the soup to check.

London Peculiar – The Recipe

I found my recipe for London Peculiar in the July 2010 edition of Delicious Magazine. You can find that same recipe here.

PS The amazing pictures of London in 1952 and the factoids I used came from here and here. These are both amazing articles that are worth reading in full too.

Stay safe and stay peculiar friends!!!

And enjoy Shirley Bassey singing about history repeating!

20
Jul
2018

Tomato and Tarragon Soup with Sun Dried Tomato Bread

categories: Bread, Soup, Tarragon, Tomatoes

Bonjour mes amis, aujourd’hui nous faisons une soupe de tomates inspirée par un jardin d’herbes françaises.

It is actually a tomato and tarragon soup but the French word for tarragon is “estragon” which I kept reading as “oestrogen”. That’s not generally an ingredient I want in my soup so we’ll keep it English!

It also seems to be a particularly French time of year, Bastille Day just, gone, the World Cup victory and the Tour De France. And of course, nothing says celebrate like soup right? Don’t answer that.

Whatever, this soup is super! 😏

Back in the summer, I grew both tarragon and tomatoes in the backyard. But it wasn’t until late in the season after the tomatoes had finished that I came across this recipe for tomato and tarragon soup. I had never heard of that combination before – tomatoes and basil? Definitely. Chives – most certainly. Parsley – why not? But tarragon? Not so much.

Since then, I have learned that they are both ingredients in a Sauce Choron which is a tomato flavoured Bearnaise sauce. The only comment I have to make about that is “What took me so long?” Next summer, Salmon with Sauce Choron will be featuring on the menu but for the meantime as the cold of winter sets in, I will remind myself about the joys of summer produce by remembering how good this soup was!

The tarragon here is homegrown even if the tomatoes are not.

This was a lovely soup; light and very fresh. It tasted of summer! The recipe came from a book called Recipes From a French Herb Garden by Geraldene Holt.

Next month, I am heading to France. On my travels, I will be visiting the Ville Rose (Toulouse). And then on to Bordeaux. Where I definitely will not be sampling any of the local wines!!!! 😉 Given it will be the height of summer when I am there, I wonder if there will be a tomato and tarragon soup on the menu anywhere?

This was a lovely soup; light and very fresh. It tasted of summer! It is so cold and miserable here in Melbourne at the moment but even looking at these photos brought back memories of warmer days and anticipation of the warm weather ahead in Europe!

I served the soup with a sun-dried tomato bread which I feel is a very 90’s adaptation of the Spanish Pan con Tomate where bread is rubbed with olive oil, garlic and tomatoes. In this version, I chopped up some sun dried tomatoes, some garlic, added some finely chopped basil and a little bit more tarragon and mixed these through some butter. I then spread this onto some rustic, toasted bread and popped it under the grill until golden.

Teamed with the soup it was a double delight of tomato-ishness. And tarragon-yness

Here is the recipe for the soup:

And the bread:

Sun Dried Tomato Bread

Print Recipe

Delicious herby, garlicy, tomatoy bread, perfect for dunking into soup!

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

2 slices of rustic style bread
1 tsp butter
4 sun dried tomatoes, finely chopped
1/4 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp mixed chopped herbs, (I used basil and tarragon)
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Combine the butter, cheese, tomatoes and garlic. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Spread over the bread.
Transfer to a baking tray and place under the grill until golden brown.

Have a great week everyone!

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23
Sep
2015

My Year Of Cooking Slow

categories: Book Club, Books, Cheese, Duck, Slow, Soufflé, Soup, Truffles, Valli Little

It’s done, fini, that’s all folks. Nearly a year to the day I have made all of the recipes I selected from Valli Little’s book Slow. I bought this for our very first Tasty Reads bookclub meeting way back in August of 2014 and cooked the last recipe I had selected on 1 September 2015.

Recipes in book: 60

Recipes marked to cook: 34 38 39

Cooked to date 12 22 38 39

Recently Cooked

p6 Braised Beef Cheeks With Salsa Verde

Can you believe that I have lost the photos of this? I was so proud of having cooked Beef Cheeks. However, I deleted a whole heap of photos from both my camera and phone before we went on holidays and I think the Beef Cheeks and the Truffle Oil Mac and Cheese fell victim to some overzealousness on my part.

I have no really ooky factor about beef cheeks although I know many people do. My only concern with cooking mine was that everything I have read about them says you have to trim them really well. I feel I might have been a bit too meticulous in this area as I there seemed to be an awful lot of “trimmings” and not a lot of beef cheek by the time I had finished.

Also, In homage to one of my favourite Melbourne restaurants, MoVida, which does an amazing beef cheeks in red wine, I replaced the mashed potatoes suggested by Valli with a cauliflower puree which was delicious – mine was not as good as the one at MoVida but that one is sublime!

Anyway, I was so glad I made this, the beef was meltingly tender and mellow and the Salsa Verde was zingy and bright. The creamy smooth cauliflower puree contrasted beautifully with both. This was amazing. Here is Valli’s picture:

p8 Braciola

Because I am not a millionaire, I did not buy a fillet of beef for this. However because I am obsessed with little food, I made a mini version of Valli’s Braciola and it was super! I used thinly pounded steaks, rolled up the filling and quickly seared them. The stuffing, which is salami, cheese and sundried tomato is to die for. This would make a lovely canapé.

p10 Steak with Wild Mushroom Sauce

This is exactly what it says on the box. Steak with Mushroom Sauce. If you like Steak with Mushroom sauce, you will like this.

p22 Lamb & Apricot Tagine

One of the dishes Dani has brought to the bookclub meetings was a Lamb and Apricot Tagine. In my mind, it was the one from Persiana and when I made that one a while ago I was very disappointed as it was not nearly as nice as my memory of Dani’s. I mentioned this the next time I saw her and she said said had made the Valli Little one. I made this one a few weeks later and it was maybe still not as good as Dani’s but better than one in Persiana. Kudos to Valli Little for an amazing delicious recipe. Just no one tell Sabrina Ghayour. Because I love her.

p24 Massaman Curry Lamb Shanks

This is such a good dish for winter! Slow cooked, fragrant, hearty. Magnificent! I swapped out the peas in the recipe for beans and served with bread instead of rice.

p28 Lamb En Croute

This was the last recipe I made from Slow and it was a lovely way to finish. I was a little disappointed as even though I followed the recipe to the letter, by the time the pastry cooked, the lamb was over cooked for my taste. Next time I make this I will cut down the sear time on the lamb. And pray. p36 Macaroni Cheese with Truffle Oil

Sorry, this is another photo from the book. There is a story attached to this though. I went to…ok…in Australia we have two main supermarkets, and then we have the IGA’s and then we have the European Cheap Supermarket. Now I am quite fond of the European Cheap Supermarket except for one thing. The people who shop there, in my locale anyway are….ok….I’m going to sound elitist and snooty here but just between you and me…they’re all kinds of trashy.

To wit – the other day I went in there and was nearly barrelled over by some dude stealing a pack of biscuits. I think he thought that my going in through the turnstile would negate his charging out but no, Einstein, it doesn’t work like that and you triggered all the alarms anyway.

If I was more like a commando instead of totally living inside my head I could have taken him down and been a citizen’s arrest hero. Then again, he was stealing fake Tim Tams from Aldi. Hardly a master criminal. I like to think that if I was going to launch myself into a life of crime, I’d at least go for the real Tim Tams.

Anyhoo, all this is just cotton candy. I went into the cheap European….oh, WTF, I’ve already outed it as Aldi, a few months ago and they were selling truffles.

Only thing was no price on the truffles and, being Aldi, no one to ask. So, I took it up to the counter, along with my six slabs of their Fair Trade Dark Chocolate (amazing) and my six bottles of their Tudor Pinot Noir (even more amazing) and asked the price. Because you know…truffles…that bottle could be a thousand dollars. I’m kinda doubting that in Aldi but you know…c’est possible.

“Seven ninety nine” drawls the sales clerk.

“I’ll take ’em” I say.

And that should have been the end of it. Buyer. Seller. Agreement. Capitalism at it’s finest.

Until some toothless old hag who was behind me in line decided to get in on the act. I almost expected her first line to to “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes” But instead she snatched the bottle from the cashier’s hand and began shrieking

“Why are you paying eight dollars for such a small jar? What’s in that?”

“It’s truffles”

“So what’s that then?”

“Well…they’re…they taste kind of like the most mushroomy mushroom you ever ate but they grow…”

“I could buy a kilo of mushrooms for that”

“They’re not mushrooms”

“You said they were”

“No I didn’t”

“Well, I hope you know how to cook them better than you know how to explain them”.

Well, I hope you fuck off and die you nosey old bag. I’m sorry I’m not buying eye of newt or tongue of dog or any other ingredient I’m sure you are far more familiar with.

I used one truffle for something else then topped up the jar with some olive oil. After about a week it became quite truffle-y Then I used that oil on my Mac and Cheese. And it was good. But you know…Mac and Cheese = comfort food goodness with, or without, truffle oil.

p44 Meatballs with Heavenly Mash

Mmmm..meatballs. And that mash was heavenly. It contains cream, fontina cheese and butter. Need I say more?

p62 Roast Quail with Split Pea Dhal

Sounds very exotic. Tasty pretty ordinary. It was the first time I had cooked quail. It might be the last. I did not care for the curry butter at all.

p68 Duck Cassoulet

I hadn’t originally planned on making this, but I had some confit duck legs and some white beans from something else so and I thought why not? A better question would have been why? Not my favourite. By a long shot. I think it was the olives. I normally love olives but I just don’t think they worked in this dish.

p88 Mushroom Soup with Garlic Bread

This was delicious.

p92 Cauliflower Cheese Soup

I found this too much. Too much cream. Too much cheese. Who knew either of those things existed? But apparently they do.

p104 Pumpkin, Goat’s Cheese and Onion Marmalade Jalousie

This was very tasty. I am already thinking about how to do mini versions which I think would be adorable. My only problem with this is that I find most bought onion marmalades too sweet. This one was no exception. I think I will have to start making my own. Sigh. Another thing to add to my increasing list of things I need to cook from scratch!

This is one of my favourite photo’s. I think it turned out really well.

p106 Twice Baked Souffles

The Francophile in me really wanted to like these. The rest of me found them a bit heavy. Which reminds me. Back when I used to work in the hell-hole, the area I was in merged with another department. And as part of the two groups getting to know each other we had to do this dumbarse thing where we each had little cards printed up with a picture on one side and a fact about you that no one might know on the other. And you had to swap them with everyone you met. Because we were all five. I mean really? REALLY? We’re playing SWAP CARDS? FFS people! Anyway my “fun” fact was “I am a Francophile and have just read Harry Potter in French”. And I thought that was kind of cool until one of the biggest dumbarses looked at my card and said “Francophile? Is that like a Pedophile?” For a vague second I knew exactly how those people who mow down their work mates with machine guns must feel like. It was the kind of event that made me want to re-evaluate every choice I had ever made in my life that had lead me to be in that place, at that time, swapping dumbarse cards with the terminally stupid.

p110 Mushroom & Potato Tarts

These. Were. Awesome.

Damn, they were good! I need to get these on high rotation.

p116 Bagna Cauda with Baby Vegetables

Mmmmm…salty creamy dip with vegies AKA – All the good words. I loved this. And the dip with the eggs? Out of this world good.

p118 Instant Fondue with Roast Vegetables

And just when you thought the best was past, Valli goes and saves the best to last!

I went totally over the top with this. Valli’s suggestion is roast vegetables. Which I had but I also had grissini sticks, twiggy salami, roasted olives, potato chips…anything that can be dunked, should be dunked in this. This is not only super tasty but so much fun. What a fabulous appetiser, give everyone a fork and allow them to tuck in!

I don’t think it’s any surprise that I have loved cooking from this book and there are so many recipes I will cook over and over. My favorites? The fondue above, the beef cheeks, the radicchio and gorgonzola risotto, the fish pie, the feta baked mushrooms, the recipe that made me like carrot soup. This may be a little book but it is jammed with great recipes.

Hmm…our December book club was going to be a recap on all of the books we have cooked. I am so tempted to do the instant fondue….

What do you think? Anything grab your fancy? What would you make?

Previous recaps of Slow are

Here

and

Here

I feel like I have been a bit more vitriolic this time. I’m putting it down to reading that Marie Kondo book on The Magical Art of Tidying Up. Don’t even get me started on her particlular brand of insanity but I think maybe I am cleaning out my closet mentally as well as physically.

Next up, I will be focussing on cooking through Persiana which is still, to my view, the best book we have ever done at Tasty Reads even though I liked Vall’s Lamb and Apricot Tagine better. See you with the results of that in a year.

Oh, do you have a favourite post on here? In October I will be doing a LIVE reading of a post at a local literary event. I have a couple of posts that I think might go down well in front of a live audience but please let me know what you think. And if you are local, please don’t come, I am terrified enough about doing this as it is.

Have a great week!

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25
Jul
2015

Margaret Fulton Cookbook 6 – Missing from the Modern

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Bad Retro Food, Margaret Fulton Cookbook, Soup

This is worse than the trout of nightmares.

I’m voting that this has to rank pretty high in the list of three words that should never be put together.

JELLIED. TURTLE. SOUP.

W.T. F. People of 1977?

You had a lovely Olive and Onion Tart and some fabulous canapés to eat. Why on earth would you choose to eat soup made from turtles? First that’s just gross and second, they don’t even look like they’d taste good.

Don’t even try to make it better by adding some totally delicious avocado. I’m calling shenanigans on you on this one!