luke and soup

vegetable soup sans blender

When thinking of a title for this post it initially seemed quite hard to describe what this soup really entailed without using the super gross-out word ‘chunky’. I suppose its infinitely better than ‘rustic’ which, when used to describe food, couldn’t be any more stupid. I mean vague. I mean sickening.

So when I was thinking about it I had to Google “rustic soup” just to discover what complete dross it threw up, and low and behold result number one was a complete beauty. Prepare yourself for a stomach churning rustic puke fest:

http://www.latartinegourmande.com/2008/11/07/chunky-wintry-soup/

I may not have featured in the Washington Post but at least I don’t risk making innocent recipe hunters instantly sick on arrival to my page. There is so much that bugs me about this slice of Internet, but the main annoyance is the actual recipe. It has over 30 ingredients! Explain to me how this is simple or unsophisticated?

Ah yes, maybe she means it pertains to a rural setting, a soup when in the days of yore simple farm folk might have easily cooked it up for a quick hearty meal. Hopefully these country types are well positioned to source some simple ingredients that include: coriander seeds, bay leaves, penne pasta, parmesan or pecorino cheese, smoked salmon, and a walnut and parsley pesto to serve on the side.

Nope, newsflash… rustic = chop coarsely, i.e. not a dreamy paradise of out-of-focus photographs of autumnal leaves, warming Agas and sumptuous soft furnishings lovingly designed by Laura Ashley.

Oh, and the author has ever so subtlety dropped some bits of parmesan and torn bread onto the table in some of the photos to make sure you absolutely, truly get it.

So in conclusion my top tips on the best way to make rustic soups at home are: demonstrate poor food hygiene and don’t use a blender.

Embarrassingly my original soup photograph was severely lacking in the rustic department so in order to make up for that error I quickly took some charming autumn based nature photographs in my lunch break. I’ll leaf you to enjoy them:

butterbean, cabbage and tomato

OK, so I didn’t find my photo on one of numerous hard drives but instead on a pen/drive/stick/USB/memory/USB/stick/drive/pen.  The one that Rich put in the washing machine and it came out working fine so I wrote to Samsung to congratulate them on their manufacturing prowess in a (maybe not so) surreptitious attempt to solicit free promotional products; only to receive an automated reply of thanks with no word of complimentary goods being sent in my direction.  You might argue that this display of non-gifting behavior is a KPI of the Crunch.  Well, if you did then you’d be wrong because it would mean you are one of those lunks who think that almost anything even slightly pertaining to fiscal matters is the cause of the current economic downturn.

After finding the photo I had to remember what was in this soup which is now covered by the above title.  I do remember it being a little spicy, perhaps via cayenne and regular black pepper.  If you are of the disposition that the cabbage is an inferior vegetable then at least first give it a chance by cutting it into strips and throwing those strips into a soup.

After viewing the following picture you may be somewhat alarmed by the fact that I put my croutons into the salad and NOT into the soup.  In truth, I don’t have any explanation or recollection of the actual episode.  I believe it’s just one of those terrifying, and happily rare, events whereby animal instincts fully take over and actions are executed on your behalf by your subconscious.

The salad was from a ‘ready to eat’ bag in which I found a live maggot whilst I was decanting it.  I didn’t tell Martha about it incase she got grossed out.  I advise you extend the same thoughtfulness to your own dinner guests.

a-ha-a-ha

oh yeah hello. i found my blog again. i had to look on rich’s website to find the address. it was either that or look at my own e-mail signature. what kind of a memorable word is ‘tumblr’ anyway? it’s not, it’s crap. you might have guessed that i haven’t being eating a lot of soup recently… well you’re absolutely wrong! no, you’re right. although i did make a soup with butter beans and cabbage (A+ soup action) but i don’t know where the photos are right now. i will look for them, they can only be on one of four hard drives. martha also made leek and potato soup a few weeks ago but i don’t think i took any photos, if i didn’t they will be even harder to find.

i will look for some stuff and get back to you. i hope you aren’t getting too hungry. in the meantime have some bread and butter or something. i will come back with more soup and more CAPITAL LETTERS - BECAUSE I COULDN’T BE BOTHERED THIS TIME AND THIS AIN’T NO MICROSOFT WORD, BUT AT LEAST I USED SOME FULLSTOPS AND APOSTROPHES.

timeline

The above illustrates the viewing characteristics of this very page of internet in the temporal dimension.

The three main apices can be explained thus:

12:00 – People are excitably logging on for lunchtime inspiration.
14:00 – People are logging on in search of an explanation of why it all went wrong.
23:00 – Perverts.

nondescript chinese soup

Martha:

It’s not as if I’m trying to become Mrs Soup or anything, I just happened to be in the mood for Chinese soup one day and happened to be in the vicinity to make that a possibility. Just because Luke’s around that means I’m not allowed to make soup anymore???
 
Ingredients: chili, onion, garlic (though I think a stock base like this isn’t very true to Chinese recipes), Wonton soup powder, pak choi, bean curd, bean sprouts, broccoli (not pictured), spinach (a pointless addition when with pak choi), spring onion (sadly overcooked in this case). I forgot to add the 1-minute noodles, but you may be glad to know these went to good use the next day when Luke and I craaazily improvised a noodle soup out of thai curry paste and a similar stock base to this. It worked really well. Luke is really good at making seemingly depressing noodles not depressing at all.

Result: I think Chinese soups tend to be the best soups, but this was a somewhat obvious attempt of a rookie, especially evident by the bad judgement in spinach and the saddening lack of noodles. The soup’s success, though, could be seen clearly from the disheartened look on Lukes face combined with the bitter mutterings of posi feedback.

Luke:

Obviously Martha’s skills of perception aren’t as precise as she might wish, I thoroughly enjoyed this soup.  To be honest, to begin with, I did pine for noodles a little, but there was so much else going on they were quickly forgotten.

Evident from the photograph below this is far and away the most pictorially attractive soup so far.  I am deeply surprised that my flickr account hasn’t crashed from attempts to add it as a favourite.  I assume you can even do that.  I assume people are collecting pictures of soup.  I assume they are printing them out to create a tasty looking frieze.

“Never assume, for it makes an ASS out of U and ME.” – is one of my least favourite expressions.  It’s not funny and it’s not true.  Assumptions are completely necessary and valid.  Although, like most things, can be used well or incorrectly.  Shut it.

pepper, parsnip, potato, parsley & paprika

As it happens peppers are far less interesting than the mighty broccoli.  This is just another example of science fact.  Science facts are the real facts.  About two years ago a lot of people started using the word ‘factoid’ to mean trivial, interesting, amusing or something.  I think this annoyance was caused by the mainstream media skewing its definition.  Usage informs definition does it not?  Maybe so, I just don’t like the phrase “I’ve got a great factoid for you…[insert highly dubious fact]” and then I reply that I have concerns about the authenticity of the fact, which they then furiously deny having confusingly introduced it as a factoid in the first place.  Clearly this can create a minefield of ambiguity.   I’d rather people just told me straight up facts, and don’t get me wrong, I love a good fact.

Peppers are already fighting an uphill struggle thanks to Anthony Kiedis et al. giving them a disagreeable reputation.  The embattled pepper may choose to deploy a fine capsaicinoid spray in the peepers of the RHCP to elicit a modicum of tearful payback for years of excruciating funk-rock.

Ingredients:  See Photo.  If you can get some massive sweet peppers than hurrah for you.  Go you.  You the best.  All right.  Great.  Fine.  Good.  OK.

Result:  Neat.

seasoning re-fills

* posted by souper special guest martha *

Luke bought a few new packets of herbs and spices, and we really made a day out of sorting the hell out of them.

1. Luke fashioned a funnel out of A4 paper and a piece of sellotape
2. Green’s in Hove has really cheap seasoning. This packet of Paprika filled up three and a half Schwartz pots, no kidding.
3. Re-filled pots ready for use. Maybe you can spot those two big fellas at the back; they were made especially to accommodate the excellent value packs from the pre-mentioned outlet.
4. Empties lined up for a re-fill.

On the Schwartz website right now there’s a really nifty little guide called ‘The Secret of Spices’ (they really drew me in by asking the completely misleading question: ‘Do you know the secret of spices?’ Apparently they genuinely would like to know the answer themselves). Its ‘Flash Header’ is animated with spoons filled with various types of seasonings and if you move your mouse to just the right place, somewhere in-between two spoons of your choice, you can make them go up and down in accordance to each other, giving the feel of some sort of frenetic drum-roll being performed.  Also H&S naturally contain antioxidants. Or, as Luke calls them, antitoxidants. Gr8.

the fractal dimension of a broccoli is approximately 2.66

Broccoli soup is perhaps my favourite soup in the world ever.  Not only is it super tasty and simple to make but Broccoli is my favourite vegetable which is also a quasi-self-similar fractal over a finite scale.  No disrespect to the cauliflower however, and similarly the Romanesco broccoli should certainly command the utmost respect.

Whilst recursively chopping my Broccoli into smaller and smaller pieces I often find myself imagining a spatially inverted reality where Broccoli is tree sized like a giant Oak and people live off its tender Broccoli leaves.  Oh, check this - now I’m going to start talking about how all the people are green and their fences are made from asparagus and other cleverly analogous fantasy-land rhetoric.  Oh yeah, by the way, I’m a bit kooky/whacky/zany/off-the-wall.  Some of my friends introduce me as: “This is Luke; he’s a real crazy guy”.  Sometimes I skip around barefoot and keep a pencil (Derwent Charcoal Light) in my hair.  I also enjoy playing acoustic guitar in a public setting with no knowledge of rhythm and/or tuning.  F!^k.

Fractal food
http://www.fourmilab.ch/images/Romanesco/

onion with sage

Sage and Onion is classic innit?  You know like the stuffing?  Sage and Onion stuffing.  This is the first time I’d even eaten onion soup let alone made it although I was assured it tasted pretty good; from a reliable source.  The trick as you may already know is to cook the onions real slow, so they go all soft, sweet and mellow.  This can take up to an hour.   Also, mix it up (yeah, I said ‘mix it up’. Not because I have the misconceived notion that it is ‘street’ but I am merely waiting for the adage to come round again.  At the moment it is currently residing in phraseological limbo ruefully lamenting on its passed errors.) by using different kinds of onion – brown, white, yellow, red, and shallot.

Ingredients:  Lot’s of onions – 1kg to about 1.2litres of stock, a bit of leek, garlic, a good handful of fresh sage leaves.

Result: Can be made quite thin and still be tasty.  Surprisingly subtle flavour.  I made mine a bit too salty, not sure how this happened.  It might have been that I used too much salt.

roasted parsnip, carrot and coriander

What’s the reoccurring theme here?  It’s Coriander.  Not in this soup, it only occurs once, I mean in general, thus far.  Apparently Coriander is an anxiolytic which apparently has a tranquilizing effect.   Parsnips are ‘a bit like’ Carrots thus, under soup-like conditions, go together inextricably well.

“Did you know that Western Carrots are primarily orange in color due to the Dutch battle for independence and that…”  Yes I did, shut the hell up.  That is going on my list of - ‘Fascinating’ facts which, for some unknown reason, the person reciting them doesn’t realise are common knowledge.  I’m sure as William of Orange was lying bleeding on the stairs after receiving the contents of Balthasar Gérard’s pistol he didn’t actually mutter “’Mon Dieu, ayez pitié de moi et de mon pauvre peuple.”  In his last breaths, but rather “Thank the Lord I don’t have to sit at another banquet with some jerk telling me about his patriotic orange carrots.”  Why don’t you save it until your application goes through and you make it on to Come Dine With Me.

Ingredients:  Obvious.  I only used a few carrots, parsnip is the boss here.

Result:  If you can stop yourself from eating all the roasted parsnip and carrot bits after you’ve got them out the oven then you are rewarded with a hearty soup.  It is a little sweet for me however.