Supper Soup

A vegetable drawer clean out prompted this soup; a stray spring onion, a half leek, spinach just shy of becoming limp. It was late when I began cooking, nearly 9 o’clock, and the slow steaming of leek and onions sounded so appealing. My soups very rarely follow a recipe. I go by ingredients on hand and a desire for texture and consistency; thick and creamy, or more of a thin broth.

This soup is of the broth variety with sweet cubes of kumara* and thick strips of spinach. The leek, spring onion and brown onion were cooked slowly to retain their soft green colour and gentle flavour. Red and golden kumara were simmered with the onions and chicken stock until just cooked and slightly toothsome. I tossed in half a bay leaf and a few sprigs of thyme, adding a depth of flavour to the chicken stock. A final grating of ginger cut through the richness of the stock. This very subtle heat sits snugly at the back of your mouth, a reminder that there is goodness here.

For a an extra flourish I made a yoghurt sauce with a squeeze of lemon juice, ground cumin and parsley. This could add a finishing touch to so many dishes – curries and vegetable stews, baked potatoes, a dipping sauce for vegetable crudités, even other soups of the classical sort. A swirl of this fresh yoghurt through pumpkin or roasted mushroom soup would be refreshing. Feel free to change the herb, or the spice for something more mellow, or more upbeat.

Not bad for a fridge raid supper.

Sweet Onion, Kumara and Spinach Soup
Soups are such a lovely thing to make; once you have the basic formula you can change the ingredients and quantities as you please. I like a soup that seems to stradle the lines between soup and stew but you could puree it once cooked for something most definitely in the soup camp. Like I said, I don’t really follow a recipe so the words below are more of a general guide.

Oh and, * kumara is sweet potato for all non-kiwi readers.

a knob of butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium brown onion
1-2 spring onions
3 cloves garlic
1/2 to a whole leek
3-5 kumara, red, golden or brown
chicken or vegetable stock, 500-750ml, heated
thyme sprigs, bay leaf
a thumb sized piece of ginger
a large handful or two of spinach

In a large pot heat the butter and oil over low-medium heat. Slice the leek and the onions into half rounds then into thin strips. Add to butter and oil and stir to coat. Slice the spring onion into thin rounds and add to pot. Finely dice the garlic and add to onions. Cook slowly until soft.

Dice kumara into 1-2cm cubes and add to the onions. Cover the pot and cook the kumara for a few minutes. Add the stock until barely covering the vegetables. Throw in the herbs and grate half the ginger into the soup. Place the rest of the ginger whole into the pot. Bring to the boil and simmer until the kumara is just cooked. (This will depend how finely diced the kumara is so keep checking, maybe 10-15 minutes.) Roughly chop the spinach and stir through the soup until just wilted. Remove from heat.

For the yoghurt sauce mix 4 tablespoons yoghurt, a few leaves of finely chopped parsley, a squeeze of lemon juice, a couple of pinches salt and a half teaspoon of cumin. Stir well.

Dollop a generous spoonful on top of the soup and serve with crusty bread.

A different sauce for pasta

My mother always says that if there is a can of tomatoes in the house, there is a meal in the house. I know this to be true. I would now like to add my own little kitchen adage, that maybe my children will remember one day. If there are a few onions in the house, there is a meal in the house.

Take a couple of onions, red or brown, cut in half and thinly slice. Caramelise these in a lot of butter, a grind of salt and pepper, with a diced garlic clove and a half teaspoon of honey. As they start to soften and become translucent move the onions together into a pile in the middle of the pan. Place the lid on, turn the heat down until it is low and soft and the onions will transform into something quite remarkable. This will take a while. They become silky and succulent, a little bit like noodles. They turn almost autumnal in colour.

Cooking with onions can be uncomfortable but eating these onions is something else entirely. They are more texture than taste; upon first bite there is no overwhelming sense of flavour, but then there is the lick of oil and a subtle sweetness. Long strands of al dente spaghetti are perfect with these onions. As you twirl your fork each thread of pasta is tied up with a streak of onion. When you finish your bowl, which you will, your lips glisten.

Pasta is my go-to meal when I cook for myself. It is comforting and quick. These onions stew, maybe nest is a better word, into a thick sauce. To these onions you could add almost anything: hunks of pancetta or other cured meats; mushrooms; small anchovy fillets; the flesh of a roasted aubergine. Or ripe chopped tomatoes cooked until they just begin to soften and lose their shape. Rocket or baby spinach swirled through just before serving so they barely wilt would add a little freshness. A diced pear or chopped dried figs cooked with the onions could add an interesting note. The torn off leaves of thyme and rosemary would lend a fragrant quality. I’m wondering if a slight splash of balsamic vinegar would make this meal taste too much like a jar of onion marmalade, or if a certain acidity would be a welcome addition. What about shredded chicken that was perhaps roasted in a harissa spice rub? Or what about garnishing the onions with lightly toasted walnuts to give the dish a bit of crunch?

I really could go on.

Rice cakes

I am going to tell a story about rice pilaf, or risotto. I can’t promise it to be very interesting, in fact, I suspect it to be rather dull. A story to sigh and roll your eyes at and think, “Oh dear, Harriet.”

This story started several months ago, in France, during a determined search for the ideal risotto recipe. I wrote down several variations with the intention of trying them all when I returned to New Zealand and had more people to cook for and hopefully in a kitchen where the bench was not the top of my washing machine.

Friday night I pulled from my recipe folder one I had titled, ‘Soubise-French risotto.’ I can’t recall writing this title down and a quick Google search informed me that soubise is, in actual fact, a bechamel based sauce with a puree of cooked onions. I ignored the incorrect title and made it anyway. I chopped many onions, for which I donned a pair of swimming goggles, a couple of garlic cloves and cooked them in glorious amounts of butter. Adding two diced fennel bulbs, then stirring through washed basmati rice. Soon pouring in a considerable slug of white wine and a half litre of stock. The aroma of onions and garlic cooking in butter filled our little kitchen and, I thought, this might work out.

I envisaged a rice dish that was tender to the fork, each grain of rice delicate and well formed. However, the result was neither a pilaf nor a risotto, but more like a mashed potato made of rice. On a cold winter night, perhaps for a lonesome meal for one, a rice mash could be quite lovely, if ever so self-indulgent. But not a dish to serve to guests, and not a dish to show the subtle fresh flavour of fennel.

I spent today thinking how it could have been improved. I believe I have the answers now. (I sometimes worry at the state of my life that a failed rice pilaf is the first thing on my mind.) I won’t bore you with the analysis of such a matter, but rather suggest a delicious way to use up leftover rice mash-risotto-pilaf. I stirred through a beaten egg, molded the mixture into patties and fried them in a little butter until golden brown. I do enjoy a risotto cake, though normally I would add some tinned tuna or salmon, or chopped fresh coriander and sweet chilli sauce to create something akin to Thai fish cakes. All I added for extra seasoning was a little bit, merely a glistening, of lemon vinaigrette after the rice cakes were cooked. The acidity of the citrus cut the richness of the rice cakes and the butter, adding a pleasant tang. A lemon chutney would also have added a hint of a sharper flavour.

I do intend to improve the mistitled recipe, so stay tuned for the next thrilling installment…

A lentil salad for any season

When I lived in France I didn’t really live the culinary dream many expected. I didn’t dine on foie gras or steak frites or cassoulet each day, drink a bottle of Bordeaux or Burgundy each night, and buy new cheeses and interesting cuts of meat from the market each week. I did most of my own cooking and would sometimes spend 3 days living on porridge, or bread and butter, or pumpkin soup for lunch and dinner.  I rarely ate meat, mostly tofu, in fact I practically became a vegetarian.

But there were wonderful meals during trips away to my friend’s auberge, or the confit du canard we treated ourselves to during a cold December weekend in Paris. There was Christmas in Wales with the most enormous turkey and a celebratory New Year’s dinner in Barcelona with Rioja and tomato bread and octopus. There were thick winter stews and a citrus, slightly tangy, cheese-cake strudel dessert at a tavern in Innsbruck, Austria.

Then, towards the end of my travels around France I spent nearly a month living and working with two different French couples in the south-west region of France. For the first two weeks I lived on the outskirts of a small town south of Bordeaux called Pissos with Marie Hélène and Christoph. They live on pancake flat land surrounded by pine forest stretching to the horizons. They have a small river near their property where they catch trout, and make beignets from the blossom of elderflower trees hanging over the river banks. They have chickens and pigeons which cluck and coo all day, fly at the windows and have even been known to come inside the house.

The kitchen is the centre of their home. It is an eclectic kitchen with benches of different surfaces and different heights, apothecary style jars sitting on shelves holding home-made herbal teas and their “pantry” is spread throughout the house in a beautiful collection of old chests and cupboards and sideboards. But the most impressive part of the kitchen, indeed the whole house, is the 180 year old  fireplace. It is framed by a stone wall and has a white piece of lace fabric hanging around the top edges. It has a grill nestled in the bottom and a bar above the flames for hanging pots.

I ate very well during my two weeks with Marie Hélène and Christoph; Marie is an amazing cook. I was helping Marie in her organic vegetable garden so everyday we had a an apéro hour of fresh radishes, or peas still in their pods, or baby carrots. We came home from the garden around 1 o’clock for lunch which was nearly always accompanied by a bottle of wine and fresh bread. One day lunch was a whole roast chicken (complete with innards and gizzards….) with home-made fries, another day it was fish baked in the outdoor fire, or roast pork and crispy sauteed new potatoes, or chunky andouillette sausages. Every meal was followed by coffee and, maybe yoghurt. The yoghurt was made in Germany and sold by Marie’s friend at the market; it was the smoothest, creamiest, most flavoursome yoghurt I think I have ever tasted.

Every meal was memorable but one which I can most easily recreate here in my humble kitchen is the lentil salad. One day Marie Hélène rose early to cook a large pot of lentils. Before lunch she mixed through whatever she had on hand and fresh produce from her garden: tomatoes, feta, onions, chopped radish, garlic, fresh herbs and pieces of beautiful, sweet and slightly smoky cured Spanish style ham. We ate it outdoors in the sun at a table with a blue floral pattern cloth.

My lentil salad had a spring twist with asparagus and zucchini sauteed with lemon zest and juice and a pinch of chilli flakes. I used canned lentils and tossed through capers, diced tomato, cubes of Parmesan, though feta would have been nicer, small strips of bacon and slightly caramelised red onion. Shake a dressing together with olive oil, lemon juice, a crushed garlic clove, a teaspoon of mustard, salt and pepper. Then let the flavours mellow and soften together for a while.

My lentil salad was more a topping to go with a leafy green salad but if I added one or two more cans of lentils this could have been a meal on its own. A torn piece of baguette or ciabatta drizzled in olive oil and lightly toasted would have been perfect with it. In the winter add cooked lentils to a warm roast vegetable salad with some spicy chorizo sausage; wonderful for eating seasonally.

Summer is taking its own sweet time reaching us here in Wellington. I may not be able to recreate spring time in France sitting at an outdoor table surrounded by pine trees, blue skies and plentiful wine, but I do plan to coax summer forward with strawberries and Pimm’s and good, good salad.