“What wonderful memories I have of soup and my Scottish mother’s kitchen. We had soup everyday and each one had it’s own character and charm”
– Margaret Fulton
To me, the character and charm of the soups in the 1977 picture are rather overwhelming. How much nicer are the modern pictures? I do however like that there is a nod to the past in the dish for the Soup Chiffonade…
Margaret Fulton Cookbook Soup Collage
And I just love the orange pumpkin soup in the blue bowl.
In fact, I have used this particular combination more than once on this blog. Once in one of my posts on Valli Little’s Slow:
Thai Style Tomato Soup
And it will shortly feature in my post on Cantina…hmm…maybe it already has?
The morning was humid and windy. Otherwise known as hell for allergies. My train was cancelled so I had to stand on the platform for 20 minutes waiting for the next one. In the humidity and wind. By the time the train finally came we were crammed in like sardines, my hair was frizzy from the humidity and my nose and eyes were streaming from the wind and the pollen / dust / mad air of Melbourne. Plus I’d left my book at home and someone had turned my charger off overnight so when I turned my phone on for entertainment it lasted about ten seconds before shutting down. No reading. No candy crush. Did I mention this was a Monday?
Libyan Chicken Soup3
So I was jammed into the train, nose streaming. And I had no tissues. I always have tissues. Except when I don’t. I became one of those really annoying people who sniffle and snuffle on public transport. I hate those people. I think the only reason someone didn’t yell at me to “Stop that goddamn sniffing” was because my eyes were also streaming like mad and people probably thought I was crying.
Which I did later in the day when I dropped my lunch box and my delicious salad fell all over the ground. So, out to buy lunch and it was no longer hot and humid. It was pouring with rain. So I got soaked to the skin because, of course, I had no coat and no umbrella. I spent the afternoon shivering. By the time I got home, I was cold and grumpy and yes, still sniffing and all I wanted to do was get my dinner on, do my yoga podcast and collapse in front of My Kitchen Rules.
Libyan Chicken Soup4
Harrrummmppphhhh…my soup calls for tomato paste. We always have tomato paste. Except when we don’t. I felt like crying again but subbed in some hefty swearing and a can of tomatoes and a couple of sun-dried tomatoes. And then I put my soup on and went upstairs to do my yoga pod.
It was now 7:02pm. MKR starts at 7:30. Which is fine. I do the YogaMazing podcast routines which are all about 20 minutes. So perfect timing really. Is it possible that one thing is going to work out for me today? I switch on the computer.
7:02 Windows is updating your computer.
7:10 Windows is still updating your computer
7:20 Windows is unfuckingbelievably still updating your computer.
The update finally finished at 7:28. I swear, it was as if they had timed it for maximum annoyance.
By now my little bit of grumpiness had turned into a full scale funk and a full blown cold. I stomped downstairs to turn on the telly and the twitter because that is now my default mechanism for watching My Kitchen Rules. Bravo MKR tweeters, you are the funniest and the best!!!
Not that I was thinking that then because I was in a pique with the world.
And then I got to the bottom step and thought “What is that gorgeous smell?”
And no, it was not the neighbour’s cooking something delish but MY chicken soup. My Libyan Chicken Soup with Thyme, or to be exact my Sharba Libiya bil Dajaj wa Alzatar. Or as I like to call it, the chicken soup of awesomeness.
This smelled wonderful. Exotic and fragrant with spices, it was instantly warming and uplifting. And it tasted amazing. Both soothing to my frayed nerves and bad temper and exciting and spicy to my tastebuds.
Libyan Chicken Soup2
Talk about chicken soup for the soul. This was life affirming. One bowl of this and my fit of pique was lifted.
This was as easy as hell to cook. And all of the ingredients should be readily available. The recipe called for “orzo” which I also didn’t have so as well as the tomatoes I subbed in risoni. I have since found out these are the same thing. Who knew? Personally, I am going to start calling it by it’s Libyan name of Bird Tongues which manages to be both incredibly poetic, a perfect description and also, a teeny bit creepy. Oh, and the thyme featured below? Straight from my garden!!!
I found this recipe via a group I joined called MENA, the Middle East and North African cooking club. Every month the host chooses a soup, a main and a dessert from a country in the region and members can cook any or all of them. I have been loving cooking from Persiana, and was very keen to learn more about this region’s food and ingredients. And if this was anything to go by, bring it on.
The recipe except for the tweaks mentioned above is here:
I guess each culture has a food they like to eat when drunk. The Brits for instance love a curry when they are five sheets to the wind. Closer to home, we in Melbourne like nothing better than a kebab or its Greek cousin, the souvlaki. Ahhhh….greasy meaty goodness wrapped in pita bread…deeelicious whatever you call it. There was also a spate, back in the 1990’s of mobile hot dog vendors but they were a passing fad. Nothing beats the 3:00am drunken kebab. Not in this town anyway.
So ubiquitous is the post pub/club kebab run that I assumed it was a national pass-time. Oh, so wrong. A few years ago I ventured across the border into South Australian territory for a wedding. Post-wedding we ventured into the casino and post-casino we ran into one of the weirdest instances of drunk food I have ever seen. Which of course, in celebration of the month of crazy and Australia Day (January 26th) I am going to replicate here. We’ll return to that in a moment.
But first, Adelaide. It’s a weird place. City of Churches and bizarre serial killings. And before anyone from South Australia gets their knicks in a knot. It is true. Dexter said so.
And…the very second I typed Adelaide and serial killers, the little app that I have that tells me about related content brought up an article on a body found in a wheelie bin. You can fool some of the people some of the time South Australia but the internet will not be fooled. I on the other hand….did I say I lived in Melbourne? I meant Sydney. Or Perth. Yeah, Perth. It’s even further away and in the opposite direction. Yep, I definitely live in Perth. Just in case you are thinking about crossing any boundaries with your serial killer ways, take a leaf from the Village People and Go West.
But I digress, we’re here to talk about food. Australian food to boot. The picture above shows one of the classic legendary Australian dishes. The Meat Pie. Second possibly only to the Vegemite Sandwich as THE Australian dish.
We love to eat our meat pies with a bit of….and now here’s some Aussie slang for you….a bit of “dead horse”. And no, not in that ooky, literal European way. “Dead horse” is Australian rhyming slang for tomato sauce. That would be ketchup to my American friends.
And in Melbourne Perth this is how we eat our pies. Just as pies. With ketchup. Lovehearts optional.
Meat Pie With Sauce
And, if we have soup…lets just say a rather hearty pea and ham soup. We have it like this. Just soup. Maybe with some crusty bread. Or a crouton.
Pea And Chorizo Soup
Let us now return to the street outside the Adelaide casino at 3:00am.
The BF had gone over to the van to get us each a kebab. He came back empty handed and shaking his head. “It’s not kebabs. It’s pies and soup.”
“Ewww…who wants soup at this time of night. But I’ll have a pie. ”
“No, it’s not pies and soup. It’s pies IN soup”
I honestly did not believe him. Until I wandered over to take a look.
And sure enough….pies in pea soup…..
This is drunk food in Adelaide. Seriously. Loveheart optional.
And if you don’t believe me, here’s some independent confirmation.
Meat Pie Floater
I told you they were freaky over there.
I would love to tell you that I tried this and despite all my Victorian West Australian prejudices it was awesome.
Meat Pie Floater jpg
Except it wasn’t.
It wasn’t as repulsive as I thought it would be. But it was definitely a whole that was a lot less than the sum of its parts. And nowhere near as good as a kebab.
Maybe you need to be drunk to enjoy it.
If you want to try this delight for yourself, you can find a recipe for a Beef and Shiraz Pie here. I have used this recipe before and it is a beauty, however I just bought the ones I used for this. I made the soup though and it was really good. I subbed in chorizo for the more traditional ham and it made the soup super tasty! Recipe below.
I am looking forward to a long weekend celebrating Australia Day. Just not with a meat pie floater….
Have a great week where ever you are!!! I would also love to know what constitutes drunk food in your neck o’ the woods. Drop me a comment….
3 chorizo sausages, removed from their casing and diced
2 carrots, peeled, diced
2 sticks of celery, peeled, diced
1 onion chopped finely
2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
300g green split peas
2litres cold water
Salt and Pepper
To Serve
Warm bread rolls or a meat pie and sauce
Instructions
Rinse the split peas under cold running water until the water runs clear. Drain.
Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the chorizo and cook until the meat is browned. Add the carrots, celery, onions and garlic and cook, stirring occaisionally, until the onions are softened.
Add the split peas and water. Bring to the boil over high heat.
Reduce heat to medium low and simmer, covered for about an hour or until the split peas are cooked.
Allow to cool slightly then process the mixture to your desired level of “chunkyness” either using a stick blender or by processing small batches of the mix in a blender.
Season with salt & pepper.
Serve with warm bread rolls if you are normal or with a pie and sauce floating in the centre if you are not.
Notes
I like my soup fairly chunky so I usually only put about a third of it in the blender.
If there’s one food Australians love, it is pumpkin.
Ethiopian Pumpkin Soup
But unlike our American pals who like to eat their pumpkins for dessert, for us it is sadly almost always served savoury as a vegetable. Just incidentally though, Australia, why don’t we have pumpkin pie? We get all the trashy American stuff – the Kardashians and ice bucket challenges to name but a few. Why can’t we get some of the yummy delicious pumpkin pie action too?
According to this, you don;t even have to cook it. It’s MAGIC…
Pumpkin Dream Pie
Sadly for us, Pumpkin Dream Pie remains just that…
We eat pumpkin as a side for a roast, in lasagné’s risottos, salads and scones. But more than eating pumpkin, we love to drink it.
How much do we love to drink it? Pumpkin soup is a, no probably the Australian ubiquitous menu item – just about every cafe, restaurant, pub bistro and hole in the wall has their own version prominently displayed on the menu – I go to a cafe where it has been the soup du jour for at least five years.
Out of curiosity I had a little look on taste.com.au for pumpkin soup recipes. There are 79 of them. Ok, so it’s not the 765 recipes they have for chocolate cake but 79 variations on a theme of pumpkin is still quite a number. There are recipes for Classic Pumpkin Soup, Creamy Pumpkin Soup, Perfect Pumpkin Soup and Smashing Pumpkin Soup (I guess that’s the soup that despite all it’s rage is still just a rat in a cage).
I did start to notice a trend though -not only do we love our pumpkin soup but we like it to be a bit of a international bright young thing. There are recipes for:
Thai, Moroccan, non – specific Asian, Tortellini (Italian), Japanese, Thai again, Thai again again, Curry x 3, South Indian, Australian (whatever that maybe…I didn’t look, possibly flavoured with beer and vegemite), two more Thai’s. The Americas are represented by one paltry entry for Maine Pumpkin soup.
Africa too is sadly missing from that list. Ok, yes, Morocco is there but…jeez…(eyeroll), if you must be pedantic, sub-Saharan Africa is completely missing. Hopefully not for much longer…because it’s time this delicious Ethiopian Pumpkin Soup adapted from Diana Henry’s Plenty took the stage!
This is gorgeous to look at, the inclusion of tomato paste and the Berbere spices gives it a real 1970’s burnt orange colour. It’s really tasty too – slightly sweet from the pumpkin, slightly smoky from the spices, slightly spicy from the chilli and cinnamon and ginger. If you leave out the yoghurt garnish it is also vegan.
Ethiopian Pumpkin Soup 2
And, whilst I don’t want to blow my own trump….actually, no, wait, it’s my blog, I can blow whatever I damn well want! The Berbere pepitas and pinenuts which were my own invention were amazing! They add some additional spice and salt and crunch. The only problem with these is that they are so good you will be hard pressed to save any for the soup. I had to make about three or four batches of them because we kept eating them before they could be used as the soup garnish. They are seriously good!
Berbere Roasted Pepitas and Pinenuts
The key to this soup is the Berbere spice mix. I bought mine but you can make your own. There are about a thousand of these on the interwebs, each of which is slightly different. I have included a recipe for Berbere here
Berbere Spice Mix
Either way you’re going to end up with a lot more Berbere than you need to make this one recipe. Of course you could make the soup more than once and you will surely make the Berbere Pepitas and Pinenuts more than once but if you want to experiment a bit more with this spice blend you can also try these:
I think it’s kind of weird that it’s taken me this long – I love to read and I love to talk about books I have read. However, this is a rather special club catering to those of fairly specific tastes. Don’t worry, I am not about to get all 50 shades of weird on you; it is a food lovers book club where, instead of novels, we discuss cookbooks.
I am a cook book junkie. Here is part of my collection. .
There is also another shelf in a different room that has most of the retro food books. Then there are the hundreds of magazines…..and regular trips to the local library.
So, given this problem predilection when I read in their weekly newsletter that my local book store was starting a food lovers book group, I did a little dance of joy. No, not quite like this…well…maybe a little.
The First Rule of Book Club
Each meeting will have a theme. The first theme was Winter warmers. Members have a choice of three books that they could purchase related to that theme. The books were really well chosen by the owners in terms of both variety, audience and price point.
Whoo, hoo….new cookbook fix guaranteed. And to those annoying people who ask “Don’t you have enough cookbooks?” (you know who you are) you can genuinely say. “I had to buy it, it was for book club”.
I chose Slow by Valli Little which was actually the cheapest option but I love her work in Delicious Magazine and I knew there would be plenty in here I could, and would, make outside of the group. I was not disappointed on this count – it jam packed with great ideas for everyday cooking. And, incidentally, this book was rated the best on value and practicality as well as being visually alluring.
Second Rule of Book Club
You must cook from the book you have chosen.
This is utter genius. So, not only do you get your cookbook fix but you also have none of that guilt of buying a book and never actually making anything from it.
I made the Autumn Rosti from Valli’s book, my slightly adapted version of the recipe below.
Third Rule of Book Club
You must have evidence of cooking from the book.
This could be in photographic form or, as I and some of the others chose to do, you could bring evidence of your cooking to the meeting for the group to sample.
Best. Idea. Ever.
I took along my rosti. We also had an amazing Chicken Liver and Porcini Pate, a killer Carrot and Lentil Soup, a super tasty Lamb and Apricot Tagine with couscous and we ended the evening with a delicious Carrot Cake. The following pictures of the soup and the tagine are from Valli’s book. I did not take pictures of the food on the night because “Hey, I’ve just met you and this seems crazy but I’m going to take photos of your food and put them on the internet” is no song I want to be singing. However, in both instances, as with my rosti, the actual product looked a lot like the picture.
Valli Little’s Lamb & Apricot Tagine
Working within the theme allows you to step out of your normal comfort zone and try something new and or different. And tasting other people’s goodies can also expand your horizons. I generally do not like cooked carrots and one of the worst soups I have ever eaten was full of bits of grated carrot. So I did not look twice at the Carrot and Lentil Soup recipe in Valli”s book. Not interested. Not even remotely. In fact, I could not turn the page fast enough.
Luckily for me, someone else did give it a second look.
Valli Little’s Spiced Carrot and Lentil Soup from Slow
DISH OF THE NIGHT. Who knew carrot soup could taste so good. How good? I’m making it as we speak. Damn it was good! Make it. Make it now! (Recipe below). You will not be disappointed. And even if you are? Firstly what is wrong with you? And second, get over it. By my reckoning this costs about $2.50 to make. At around 40 cents a serve even if you hate it, which I’m pretty sure you won’t, you’ve lost less than the cost of a cup of coffee.
Fourth Rule of Book Club
You must talk about your book.
This has to be the fourth pleasure of cooking – the buying, the preparing, the eating and finally, the talking. You got to speak about what you did and didn’t like about the book and learned about the good and bad of the books you didn’t buy as well. It’s really interesting to see what people do and don’t like. For instance, this was one of the other books we could choose from:
Let me tell you, this cover was controversial. People had opinions. I had opinions. I didn’t know I had opinions but it turned out I did. I quite like it but other people thought the dirty spoon was kind of gross.
The other great thing was that you got to share war stories. You know how sometimes you make something and despite following the recipe to the minutest degree it just doesn’t work? And you automatically assume it was something you did wrong? Well two people from the club made the exact same recipe and had the exact same problem with it. Coincidence? I think not.
It was awesome. I can’t wait for the next one, where the theme is Middle Eastern. I have chosen Persiana as my book and it looks amazing!!!!
