Soup – Donich Website

Stuffed loaf and “Spicy Donich Soup”

donich_admin — Sun, 12 Mar 2017 13:12:48 +0000

I made this bread which featured on the bake off a few years ago. It was seriously nice – although when I make it again I think I will ditch the goats’ cheese as I am not that fond of it. It certainly looked very good and would make a nice centre piece for a buffet table.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/moroccan_plaited_loaf_51517

To go with it I made some soup – I was havering over whether to call it “Moroccan” or “Spanish” and decided on neither. Fry two large onions, a green pepper and a red pepper in some olive oil until soft. Add a chunk (10cm or so) of finely chopped chorizo sausage, a few peeled carrots and three or four garlic cloves and stir about a bit until browning. Add a heaped tsp of harissa paste and some smoked paprika. Then add two tins chopped plum tomatoes and water to taste (enough to make it soup rather than stew – unless it is stew you actually want) and simmer until the veg is fully cooked.

Very nice with the bread and associated dip. Omitting the cheese from the bread and the chorizo from the soup makes it vegan without losing much of the flavour (perhaps add a little more paprika).

The arm in the background belongs to J.

Potage Creme du Barry

donich_admin — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 20:05:34 +0000

This is a posh sounding name for what is actually a very British sort of soup – Cauliflower and Potato. The story is that Madame du Barry who was one of the Mistresses of Louis XVth liked it so much she had it for dinner every day – that would be like R and Aero chocolate mousse then….

Anyway I make a nice healthy version. Take two large onions and sweat until soft in a little olive oil. Add two or three large potatoes peeled and diced, and a large cauliflower cut into florets. Turn in the oil a bit and then add just enough vegetable stock to cover. Simmer for about 15 mins until veg is cooked through. Then puree with a stick blender until smooth and thick. Add some milk until it is at the preferred consistency then stir in some chopped parsley and ground black pepper. You could add a swirl of cream to serve if you felt decadent but if you wanted it vegan you could actually omit the milk altogether (or use a nut or soya milk).

Good served with some warm granary rolls. I am taking both to N’s house for lunch on Saturday.

Store Cupboard Soup

donich_admin — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 11:41:18 +0000

This is a ‘sort of’ minestrone which I make sometimes if I don’t have the right vegetables for one of my usual soups.

Fry two medium onions and a sweet pepper in a little olive oil. When soft, add a couple of cloves of finely chopped garlic and fry a bit more. Then add a few roughly chopped carrots and some slice celery sticks and turn over in the oil a bit more. Add a can of chopped plum tomatoes and another can of ratatouille (this may sound strange but it is a quick way of getting lots of different Mediterranean tastes in without spending hours chopping vegetables). Then mix in about 500ml veg stock and simmer for 10 mins or so.

Add some macaroni (I suppose about 100g) and a can of cannelloni or broad beans and simmer gently until the pasta is well cooked. Finally add a jar of pesto (green or red). Can be served with grated parmesan and some torn basil leaves.

I serve this with some olive rolls, which are the easiest thing to make in the world. I put a white bread mix in the bread maker with a couple of handfuls of olives, finely chopped and thoroughly dried with a paper towel and then add the amount of water recommended. I then put the breadmaker on the ‘pizza dough’ setting – which on my machine is only 45 minutes. At the end of that, it is part risen, so I empty the dough out on to a board well greased with olive oil, divide into eight rolls and prove again in a warm place (covered with a tea-towel) for about an hour. Heat the oven to 220C and then brush the rolls with milk and sprinkle with whatever nice seeds you have going. They should be ready in 15 to 20 minutes.

All pretty good, easy to make and cheap. Not vegan unless you use special pesto sauce, but I tried it the other day with a vegan pesto Asda are now selling and it was just as good as the one with the cheese.

Emergency Soup

donich_admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 11:36:49 +0000

We have been so busy it has been a real challenge to spare an evening to go to Dumbarton to shop of late. This was sort of ok because we had lots of food in the freezer which we were slowly working our way through – but we normally have soup for our lunch and last night I realized we were out. Neither R nor I are canned or packet soup fans – so I had to quickly come up with a store cupboard soup to see us through the next couple of lunchtimes.
This was what I made. Soak 500g of butter beans overnight and then cook until tender. Take one tub of homemade tomato sauce base out of the freezer and defrost (alternatively, make with one fried onion, two garlic cloves, add one can tinned chopped tomatoes, cook down a little with a tsp dried herbs). Peel dice and steam until softish whatever root vegetables you have to hand (I had a few potatoes and carrots). Add the veg to the tomato base and mix in some tomato puree and several heaped tsp curry spice paste (e.g Pratak’s ). Dilute with stock to desired consistency (should be quite thick) then add the butter beans. Simmer for ten minutes and eat with some homemade bread.
Surprisingly good – though I must observe that often these ‘just sling it together’ dishes work out brilliantly the first time but then don’t turn out to be repeatable.

Soup

marionmccune — Sun, 12 Jan 2014 22:16:54 +0000

Every lunchtime I make soup. Note I said ‘I’ because cooking isn’t something R does. For the cost of one carton from the chill cabinet in the supermarket you can make an enormous pot which will do at least three sets of lunches for the two of us. Really easy to make and combined with a fresh loaf out of the breadmaker we have a fantastic lunch.

R’s favourite is lentil. This is how I make it – it takes 10 minutes to make, 40 minutes to cook and feeds 6 normal people or 4 hungry ones.

Take one packet (1lb) red lentils and rinse in a sieve under the cold water tap. Put in a pan. Peel and chop one large onion and 5 large carrots and add to pan. Pour over 3 pints of cold water and add two stock cubes (or make with homemade stock). Bring to boil stirring occasionally. Reduce to simmer and cook for 30 to 40 minutes until lentils cooked and vegetables tender. Whizz until smooth with stick blender.

Freezes well and you can make it without the blender by grating the carrots instead of chopping them (soup is very thick this way).

Some of my other favourites are mushroom, broccoli (or cauliflower), French onion, minestrone and cock-o-leekie. None of these take more than 15 minutes prep time and they are all pretty tasty (even though I say so myself).