Spicy Cauliflower, Turmeric and Chickpea Soup

The Sunday Telegraph has been running a great column in the Body and Soul section Book of the Week for a while now. They print upwards of three recipes from current release cookbooks, with a new book featured each week. There is always something of interest.

In July there was an extract from Good Good Food by English GP (and much more it seems, mainly gardening) Sarah Raven. While the Spiced Beetroot Soda Bread and Stuffed Butternut with Goat's Cheese looked good, naturally I was particularly drawn to the Spicy Cauliflower, Turmeric and Chickpea Soup.

Styled recipe
Picture Source

Turmeric is having it's moment as a superfood lately. Which is fine, herbs and spices are all good for us, and tasty. Recently I tried fresh turmeric in a few recipes and so I'm still trying to get the bright orange stains out of various kitchen implements. Go the ground, I say. And I wasn't completely won over by my first Turmeric Latte in Newcastle recently.

I'm not convinced but may try one again sometime

1 medium cauliflower
1 medium onion
2.5cm piece fresh turmeric root, grated, or 1 tsp ground turmeric

1 heaped tbs coriander seeds
Seeds from 14 cardamon pods
1 heaped tsp cumin seeds

2 tbsp olive oil
4 garlic cloves
5 cm piece fresh root ginger, peeled
1 red chilli (optional )

400gm tin chopped tomatoes
1L vegetable stock
2 x 400gm tins chickpeas, drained separately
Sea salt and ground black pepper
Small bunch coriander, to serve

Preheat the oven to 180˚C.

Cut the cauliflower into florets and place in a bowl. Add the onion and turmeric.

Dry-fry all the spice seeds in a frying pain for a few minutes until fragrant, and then grind them into a coarse powder using a blender or mortar and pestle.

Add the spices and oil to the cauliflower and onion in the bowl and mix well- your hands are best for this. Place on a baking tray- don't crowd them, you may need two trays. Roast the cauliflower, onions and spice mix for 30 minutes until the edges of the cauliflower are starting to brown.

Meanwhile blitz the garlic, ginger and chilli. Put this mixture into a large saucepan and add the tomatoes. Stir, and cook over a medium heat for 4-5 minutes, then add the stock.

Blitz the first tin of chickpeas in a food processor until smooth. Add to the soup along with the other drained but unblitzed tin of chickpeas.

Bring to the boil, add the roast cauliflower, then cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Season, serve with coriander.

My non-styled version
Made slightly non-vegan with a splodge of sour cream
I probably put about a kilo more coriander on after the picture-
I love the stuff and can't get enough

This was a fabulous soup. I really liked it, with and without sour cream. I'll be making it again. It may even enter the Hall of Fame. It's an unusual method really- par-roasting the veg and then boiling them.

Notes
Naturally I made a number of modifications to the original recipe:
I had a few parsnips to use up, so put two in with the cauliflower at the roasting stage
I accidentally dry roasted the ground turmeric with the other spices, it was still fine, just a bit darker.
I'm pretty sure that I added a stem or two of celery to the ginger and garlic stage. You can always use up more veggies in soup... It's a shame to waste them.
The original recipe called for 3 tins of chickpeas, but I thought two was plenty.
I bought a chilli, but forgot to put it in.

This post is linked to Souper Sundays
(how perfect)
at Kahakai Kitchen 

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking,
 a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

Glowing Spiced Lentil Soup

Master Soup is currently vegan. It's not my choice. I've fully supported him being vegetarian for some years, but vegan is harder - especially for a non-vegan cook. A good lentil soup is always a thing of joy though and this one is lush and creamy because of the coconut cream.

Oh She Glows styled soup

I tried to make this recipe of Glowing Spiced Lentil Soup, but well I always substitute or change things, and I had pretty much everything in the cupboard, and didn't have to shop (except for the spinach as I'd finished off the last bag the day before). Too easy. This delicious soup is quick enough for a mid week dinner.


1-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 onion
2 large cloves of garlic
A decent glug of white wine (optional)
2 tsp ground turmeric
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cardamon
400gm tin crushed tomatoes
270ml tin coconut cream
1 medium sweet potato, peeled, grated
2 carrots, unpeeled, grated
4 cups "chicken" stock
3/4 cup (140gm) red lentils, rinsed and drained
Sea salt
Pepper
120gm baby spinach
Lemon juice to taste

Heat the oil in a large pot. Add onion and garlic and a pinch of salt, fry over medium heat (4-5 minutes) until onion softens and is translucent. Add the wine, let it reduce.

Add the dry spices, stir until fragrant, about one minute.

Add the crushed tomatoes, coconut cream, sweet potato, carrot, stock and red lentils. Increase the heat to high and bring it to the boil. Once the soup has boiled, reduce the heat to medium high, and simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes until lentils and vegetables are cooked.

Turn off heat, add spinach and stir through to wilt. Add lemon juice, check seasoning. Serve with bread of your choice- rye and turkish are good. 

My soup
Clearly my food stylist career will never take off
But it was delicious

Notes
I didn't really measure the amount of stock I used. I didn't think the ratio of lentils was right so I added some more about 5 minutes into the cooking time.

I whizzed the sweet potato and carrot in the thermomix, and used the water needed to wash the thermomix as part of my stock. I had some white wine lying about, and since I don't drink it I've been adding it to most everything to use it up. 

The original recipe used coconut milk but I only had coconut cream in the cupboard, it worked perfectly well. It also used lime juice, but I had a lemon, although I do think lime would work better.

I didn't check how much turmeric I had before starting and wouldn't have had 2 tsp left in the jar, I had maybe 1 tsp- but hey, it's a soup, it doesn't matter, it will still work out anyway- one of the great principles of cooking soup, and I suspect one of the reasons I love making soup so much. Actually I think I could have named the blog It's Soup, It Doesn't Matter. 

The original recipe had no veggies in it- but I had some in the fridge to use up so added the sweet potato and carrot.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking,
 a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

This post is linked to Souper Sundays
(how perfect)
at Kahakai Kitchen

Green Tea and Broccoli Soup

I love how international recipes can be now. This recipe came to me via a French magazine and a Lebanese-American blog! Now it comes to you via an Australian soup blog. It is certainly the modern way to pass a recipe about. I immediately knew that I would have to try this when I saw it on Taste of Beirut a few weeks ago.

This soup was a bit experimental for me, particularly the novel use of green tea as stock. I'm not the biggest tea drinker. I do like green tea at Thai restaurants, but have had trouble replicating that success at home. I have a cupboard full of different brands that I've tried, and then not really liked. I thought it would make a perfect antidote to hot cross buns and Easter chocolates. A nice antioxidant boost to counteract the recent badness somewhat.

I modified the recipe to cook it all in my Thermomix. It's easy to adapt back to stove top if you don't have such expensive toys.

Green Tea and Broccoli Soup

1 large brown onion
2 cloves garlic
20gm olive oil
4 Japanese green tea bags
1 litre (4 cups) boiling water
600gm fresh broccoli (1 large and 1 medium head of broccoli)
1/2 bunch coriander (cilantro)
Sea salt, freshly ground white pepper to taste


Peel onion and garlic. Chop onion into quarters. Place into Thermomix. Chop on Speed 7 for 5 seconds.

Add oil.

Cook onion and garlic at 100 degrees on Speed 1 for 3 minutes.

Steep green tea bags in boiling water for a few minutes. Remove tea bags.

Add lightly chopped broccoli. Chop on Speed 7 for a few seconds.

Add the hot green tea.

Cook for 14 minutes at 100 degrees on Speed 1 or until broccoli is cooked.

Add coriander. Season. Blitz until smooth.

Notes
Coriander is the major flavour- which is a great thing for me, as I really love coriander, and don't love broccoli all that much.

I enjoyed this for a few work lunches, and then had the last of it for dinner with a toasted chicken sandwich. It was tasty.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

Dunny Wall Philosophy

I'm a great believer that you need to take wisdom wherever you find it. Even if it is on the toilet wall.

Kenny and Ziggy's Houston Texas, Ladies Toilets

Sadly I didn't get to eat soup at Kenny and Ziggy's. I had already ordered when I found this piece of wisdom, and so I ate (some of) what appeared to be the largest Reuben in the world. 

Saturday Snapshot, is a wonderful weekly meme from at home with books.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

Catalan Potato and Broad Bean Soup

Last year I was brave and discovered that I like broad beans. After that initial success, I even made some very delicious Broad Bean Felafel Fritters. I've been eagerly awaiting this years broad bean season, and was excited to see them for $2.99 a kilo over the past few weeks. Time for another broad bean intervention.

I decided to make a soup this time, and knew that I would have a recipe for a broad bean soup somewhere. Of course I did. Several. But I picked this one- I just love coriander, and can rarely resist it. I'm so glad I did- this is a fabulous soup. I'm not sure what makes it Catalan particularly, but it is simple and delicious nonetheless.

Catalan Potato and Broad Bean Soup

30mL/ 2 tblsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
3 large floury potatoes, diced
450gm/1 lb fresh broad (fava) beans
1.75 L/ 3 pints/ 7 1/2 cups vegetable stock
1 bunch coriander (cilantro) leaves only
150 mL/ 1/4 pint/ 2/3 cup thickened light cream
salt, pepper

Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the onions, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes until softened but not brown.

Add potatoes, beans, and stock to the mixture in the pan and bring to the boil, then simmer for 15-20 minutes, until vegetables are soft. Add coriander, allow to wilt.

Process the mixture in a blender or food processor, then return soup to the pan.

Stir in the cream. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and bring to a simmer.

Serves 6

based on the recipe by

Anne Sheasby in The New Soup Bible

Not a particularly pretty picture this week I'm afraid- I took this soup to work everyday for lunch, so it was only able to be photographed in traveling containers. It doesn't do it justice.

Notes
The original recipe added the coriander after 5 minutes then simmered it for 10+ minutes. I like it added fresh at the very end. It keeps the lovely green colour, and more of the flavour I think. Less stewed, less grey. As such my soup was a pale green, pretty colour, the one in the book is more of a golden brown colour.

This soup is delicious hot or cold. A bit like a vichyssoise.

The recipe didn't state it, but I took "broad beans" to mean peeled, blanched, repeeled broad beans.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

Potage St Germain (well nearly)

It's always great when a recipe combines several of your great loves, and this soup does that. Soup. Low GI goodness. France. And a friend's blog. Too good to pass up.

Split peas are a nutritional storehouse, with a fabulous low GI of 32. 

I've never really been a fan of the traditional pea and ham soup, I find it too furry on the tongue, and the colour is usually unappealing. Here, we don't have the ham, and the soup is glammed  up by addition of fresh peas at the end to give it a great colour boost. So when my friend Hannah blogged this simple French potage, I knew I would have to give it a try quite soon. So I did. And it was fab. 

Although it turns out this isn't really a traditional Potage St Germain, which is more a fresh pea soup made with stock, lettuce, onion and celery. I felt certain that Elizabeth David had a recipe for Potage St Germain in her book French Provinical Cooking, but I suddenly can't find it. The name of course brings to mind St Germain de Pres, a lovely but dilapidated church on the left bank of Paris. 

2 cups green split peas (400g)

1 litre water

1 tblsp olive oil

1 large brown onion (200gm), coarsely chopped

2 trimmed sticks celery (150gm), coarsely chopped

1.25 litres chicken or vegetable stock 

500gm frozen peas

Sea salt and freshly ground white pepper

Soak split peas in the water in a large bowl for 3 hours or overnight.

Heat oil in large saucepan; cook onion and garlic, stirring, until onion is soft. Stir in celery, cook, stirring for 2 minutes.

Add undrained peas and stock, bring to a boil; simmer, uncovered, about 1 hour or until peas are tender (skimming the surface and stirring occasionally). Stir in frozen peas; cook, for about 10 minutes until peas are tender.

Blitz soup in high speed blender, until smooth.

Return soup to pan. Heat through. Season to taste, and garnish, with mint or garnish of your choice.

Pretend you're in Paris whilst you eat. 

Notes

My 10 year old ate this without complaint- just the usual bribe of bread and butter. 

I garnished with creme fraiche and chives, as that's what I had on hand. 

I only noticed the soup was meant to be simmered uncovered when I typed the recipe here. I did it covered.

I'm cross posting this on my low GI blog.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

Butternut Pumpkin Soup with Four Cheese Dumplings

I've been terribly slack with both soup making and soup blogging this winter, but I'm back, with a fabulous effort. This soup came into being for our family dinner tonight. It arose from a wonderful mix of opportunity and circumstance. My husband moved my recipe file so that I glimpsed a pumpkin soup recipe tucked way in the back that I'd been meaning to make for two years! I combined it with the leftover 4 cheese tortellini filling in the fridge and magic was created.

Fabulous colour, wonderfully pleated dumplings!

Butternut Pumpkin Soup with Four Cheese Dumplings

1 kg butternut pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and diced
1 litre chicken stock
2 tsp low GI sugar (Logicane)
1 bay leaf
150ml creme fraiche
Sea salt and freshly ground white pepper

16 cooked homemade 4 cheese dumplings

Place the pumpkin, stock, sugar and bay leaf into a saucepan, bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes, or until pumpkin is soft.

Remove the bay leaf from the pumpkin mixture, then blend in high speed blender until smooth. Return the soup to the pot and bring it to a simmer. Add creme fraiche. Season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, boil a pot of salted water. Add dumplings cook for 2-3 minutes until done.

Serve soup in bowls topped with 4 dumplings.

A mere sprinkling of truffle salt is totally MAGIC!

Notes
I'm not all that crazy on butternut pumpkin, I much prefer the sweeter more intensely flavoured Jap/Kent pumpkin. But I do like trying it in different recipes every so often, everyone else seems mad on it. This one worked really well and was totally delicious.

The soup recipe is based on a recipe by Guillaume Brahimi from Bennelong restaurant in Sydney, originally published in Good Weekend, Sydney Morning Herald, August 8 2009 (published two years ago to the day! Karma). I halved the amount of creme fraiche he used, and substituted his garlic croutons with my 4 cheese dumplings. In his recipe he passed the blitzed pumpkin through a fine sieve- I did that to be true to the recipe, but it didn't really need it, after I had blitzed it in my fab new Thermomix. The texture was amazing.

The dumpling mix was left over in the fridge from last nights dinner. A four cheese mix of ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan and blue cheese with freshly ground nutmeg. Mr Soup had made home made pasta the day before, but I can't be bothered with all that, so I used gow gee wrappers instead of pastry for the first time- it was so simple, worked really well- and none exploded. That's a win in my book.  I'll definitely be using them again. 

I used a commercial chicken stock for this recipe. One of those tetra pack ones. I think it needed some water, especially when I ate the leftovers the next day. The soup was really too thick, and probably a bit salty.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

Chestnut Soup with Bacon and Thyme Croutons

For some reason I recently became obsessed with the notion of cooking chestnuts. Not sure why particularly. I'd seen them around in the fruit and veg shops I guess, and was becoming more curious. And really wanted to give it a try. Then I remembered this recipe in my Delia Smith Soups book. I decided several years ago that I wanted to make so many of the recipes in this book, that I would make it my project to cook them all. There's been some great surprises along the way and it's taking a bit longer than I really expected- but then doesn't every project?

So, I armed myself with some chestnuts, and set to work.

Delia has thoughtfully provided the recipe online. I couldn't find any thyme for love nor money in my small town this week. Well, I gave up after 2 supermarkets and a fruit and veg shop. And made do without. So I really made Chestnut Soup with Bacon Croutons.

I decided that I would make stock for this soup, as I really wasn't sure that I'd like a chestnut soup, and wanted at least a good flavour base. Delia suggested either ham or vegetable stock. As I hadn't got myself organised to get a ham bone, I made vegetable stock. Making stock always seems so totally virtuous, even though for vegetable stock you roughly chop some veggies, cut a couple of bay leaves off the tree, and count out 12 peppercorns. Not very hard.

but worth it

So, how did the soup turn out? Better than I was expecting actually. Although, I'm not sure I knew what to expect at all. This being somewhat beyond my ken. It was thicker than I was expecting, which I think was body given to it by the chestnut flesh. I'm not sure that chestnut has a strong enough flavour to dominate anything- our local bacon is quite a powerful taste.

It is a bit of an unappealing colour, as many of Delia's winter soups have been actually. A bit dishwatery. Which is a shame. The nonsoup lovers in the house ate it, the adult one with reasonable enthusiasm, the 10 year old less so. But some minor bribery with strawberry jelly worked a treat. I'm not sure if I'd make it again. The whole chestnut process was rather lengthy and traumatic. Perhaps if we had easier access to packaged chestnuts? But then cooking them yourself adds to the appeal and the adventure of it all. 

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.