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.

Sweet Corn and Basil Soup- Hall of Fame

Confession: I've never actually cooked this soup. But I've eaten it many, many times. My husband has taken this on as the only soup he cooks. I initially ate this soup back in the late 90s in that fabulous few years of full-time wage before child, when we could eat out at fancy restaurants with ease. I remember a wonderful evening at the now defunct central Sydney restaurant Banc. It was served there as an amuse geule. And it was astonishing. It can apparently be served warm or cold, but I've only had it warm, so will have to try it cold sometime. We love this soup so much we bought little cups just to serve it in. Now that's devotion.

We bought the Banc cookbook solely to get access to this recipe. It remains the only recipe we have used from the book, which is filled with time-consuming restauranty recipes for delicious things that aren't quite right for family dinners. In the recipe introduction they say they were often asked for seconds or an entree sized portion by enthusiastic diners.

Sweet Corn and Basil Soup

Serves 4 (makes 1 litre or 1 3/4 pints)
4 fresh corn cobs
200g (8 oz) diced onions
50mL (3 1/2 tbsps) cream
50gm (2 oz) diced butter
1 small bunch fresh basil
salt and freshly ground pepper


The stock.

Peel and remove all the outer leaves and stalk form the cobs. Using a knife, remove all the corn kernels from the cobs and reserve, and then cut the cobs in half.

In a heavy-based pan melt half the butter and add half of the diced onion. Sweat the onion for 5 minutes on a medium heat without allowing it to colour. Add the cobs and a good pinch of salt and cook for a further 5 minutes without browning. Add 1/5 litres (2 1/2 pints) of water and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow the stock to infuse for a further 30 minutes before passing it through a fine sieve, discarding the cobs and onions.

The soup.

The spattered picture in the book

In a heavy based pan melt the remaining butter and add the remaining diced onion. Sweat the onion for 5 minutes on a medium heat without allowing it to colour. Add the corn kernels and a good pinch of salt and continue to cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the corn stock and simmer for 20-25 minutes until the corn kernels are tender. Pour in the cream and continue to cook for 5 more minutes.

Remove from heat and blend the soup in a blender until smooth. Add roughly chopped basil, and season with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Leave the soup for an hour, or even overnight to allow the flavours to infuse, before passing the soup through a fine sieve, pressing hard on the corn to extract as much flavour as possible. Taste-check the seasoning once again. Serve either hot or chilled.

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

Roasted Garlic and Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin soup is possibly my favourite soup, but even so it comes in nearly endless varieties. I do love making my old favourites such as Dorinda's Spicy Carribean Pumpkin Soup. But then I spy a new pumpkin soup recipe and love making those too. I have made many pumpkin soups based on roasting the pumpkin and they certainly give a stronger depth of flavour. I usually use what in Australia is called Jap/Kent pumpkin for my soups, although this one specified butternut so I used that.

Butternut has a milder pumpkin flavour than Jap, and doesn't make as good as soup in my book. The colour isn't as deep and the flavour not as robust. Not that butternut soup is bad, I just know that there is better pumpkin out there. But it's nice to try alternatives every so often even if it only does serve to reinforce the prejudices.

Roasted Garlic and Pumpkin Soup

2kg butternut pumpkin, seeds removed and halved
1 brown onion, halved
1 head garlic, whole, loosely wrapped in aluminium foil
olive oil, for drizzling
3 cups water
1/2 cup pouring cream
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
sea salt and cracked black pepper

Preheat oven to 200C. Place the pumpkin, cut-side up, on a baking tray with the onion and the garlic and drizzle with oil. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until the pumpkin is golden and cooked through.

Scoop the pumpkin and onion from their skins and place in the bowl of a food processor. Squeeze the garlic cloves from their skins and add to the food processor.

Add 1 cup of water and process until smooth. Transfer the mixture to a saucepan over medium heat. Add the remaining water, cream, nutmeg, salt and pepper and cook until the soup is heated through.

Serves 4

Donna Hay
Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Magazine April 3, 2011

Notes
The original recipe separated the cloves of garlic and drizzled them with oil with the other vegies, but I like roasting garlic wrapped in foil. It took at least an hour and a half to roast the pumpkin, not 50-55 minutes.

My aging food processor wasn't really up to the job, and it would probably have been better if I had used the blender, but by the time I realised that I'd already used the food processor, and there's no way that I'm using and then cleaning both.

I wimped out and only added a 1/2 tsp of nutmeg, mainly because I wanted my 10 year old to eat it without complaint- which he did. He said that it wasn't his favourite meal, but that it was ok, and he gave it 7.5/10, which is a total success in my book.

Donna suggested that you serve the soup with cheesy leek and polenta madeleines, but I couldn't be bothered, so spread some delicious local herbed cheese on a fresh bread stick instead.

Couscous and Vegetable Soup

It's heading into autumn in Australia, so this post is about a soup I last made a few months ago now. Actually I've been making this soup regularly for over 10 years. I usually tweak it a bit, but it always smells fragrant and fabulous. I've tried it as a Quinoa and Vegetable Soup, but it wasn't as good, so I think I'll stick with using couscous.

I've always made this with regular couscous, but have recently discovered that it has a medium GI of 61-65. Israeli pearl couscous is lower GI (52), so I'll have to try it with that next time. I've only used pearl couscous once, it was quite a few years ago, and don't remember it very well.

Couscous and Vegetable Soup

Looks like I used a kumara this time as well

2 tblsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 chicken breast fillets, cut into 1cm pieces
2 cinnamon sticks
1/2 tsp ground cardamon
1/2 tsp paprika
2 tblsp tomato paste
425gm can diced tomatoes
1.5L hot chicken stock
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
4 yellow button squash, quartered
90gm (1/2 cup) couscous
2 tblsp coarsley chopped coriander

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan, add onion and cook over low heat until soft, then add chicken and cook a further 3 minutes. Add cinnamon sticks, cardamon and paprika and stir over low heat for 3 minutes until fragment.

Add tomato paste, tomato and chicken stock and season to taste. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook over low heat for 10 minutes.

Add carrots, cook for  5 minutes, then add zucchini and squash and cook a further 10 minutes, or until vegetables are just tender. Gradually pour in couscous and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Remove cinnamon sticks and serve in warm soup bowls sprinkled with coriander.
Serves 6

Notes
Adapted from a recipe in Australian Gourmet Traveller August 1997

The original recipe includes 1/4 tsp chili powder with the other spices. My family don't like chili heat, so I've never added it, but I'm sure it would be nice.

I love pumpkin, so often add a chunk of that with the carrots.

The quinoa wasn't awful in the soup, but there just wasn't as much compared to the couscous and it changed it somehow. It might be worth trialling adding more quinoa.

Cross posted to Adventures in A Low GI World

Creamy Vegetable and Barley Soup

I've been wanting to make this soup for a few years now. A combination of a snowy weekend (in Spring!) and my low GI leanings finally spurred me on. I'd wondered about it before- lots of vegies, and using skim milk powder for the Creamy part is unusual and something I hadn't used before. My version is  based on a recipe from diabetes 2 by Jody Vassallo, part of the Health for Life series.

For some reason I seem to forget to take photos of meals that I mainly make for lunch. So this is the very last time I ate it, when I added some left over creamed corn to it to pad it out. Not exactly representative of the soup, but you get the idea.

Barley has one of the lowest GI values of any carbohydrate food (25), and it actually lowers the GI of any meal. It's not a food that I have eaten all that frequently, but I can sense that it may be in my future. I have used it in soups a few times, but not regularly, and have never tried it as a side dish. There is a recipe for Pesto Barley in the same book that might be tasty.

Creamy Vegetable and Barley Soup

1 cup (195g/6 1/2 oz) pearl barley

2 tsp canola oil

4 eschallots

2 large carrots, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

1 medium parsnip, chopped

2 medium zucchini (courgette), thickly sliced

300 g (10oz) pumpkin, chopped

Sea salt, freshly ground pepper

2 large sprigs thyme

6 cups (1.5L/48 fl oz) hot reduced salt vegetable stock

1 cup (150g/5 oz) fresh or frozen peas

1 cup (200g/6 1/2 oz) fresh or frozen corn kernels

1 cup (100g/ 3 1/3 oz) skim milk powder

2 tblsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 Put the barley into a large pan, cover with water and cook over medium heat for 40 minutes or until the barley is soft. Add extra water during cooking if the barley is drying out. Drain well.

2 Heat the canola oil in a large pan, add the eschallots, carrot and celery. Cover and sweat over low heat for 10 minutes until soft.

3 Add the parsnip, pumpkin, thyme and stock and bring to the boil. Season to taste. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add zucchini. Cook for a further 15 minutes until vegetables are soft.

4 Add the peas, corn, and barley and simmer for 5 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked. Add skim milk powder and parsley.

Serves 6

per serve fat 4.5 g, protein 17.5 g, carbohydrate 48.5g, fibre 10.5g, cholesterol 5.5mg, energy 1280 kJ (305 cal), gi 38 low

Notes

I made quite a few modifications to the recipe, with ingredients and technique.

The recipe called for leek but as there were no leeks available when I made this,  I substituted 4 eschallots. For some reason onion terminology is very confusing in different countries, this is what an Australian means by eschallot or french shallot.

Even though the zucchini were thickly sliced, I didn't want to cook them for half an hour so I added them 15 minutes in.

I'm always suspicious of recipes with no seasoning, and don't think they taste all that good, so I added salt, pepper and a couple of large sprigs of thyme (just because I'd bought some for something else so had it on hand)

The original recipe added the peas, corn and milk powder at the same time. The milk powder bubbled up and looked lumpy. I would add it at the end, after the peas and corn had cooked.

It was quite nice, I'd be happy to make it again.

Update 2016 I have indeed made this soup many times over the years. It's a little bit different each time depending on the veggies I have available to me, or  in the fridge, but it's perfectly adaptable.

Crossposted from adventuresinalowgiworld

Lemon and Broccolini Chicken Soup

I made this soup the week before I renewed my efforts to eat a low GI diet. Happily this soup is something I would eat anyway, but just happens to be low GI. I used the batch for my work lunches that week and felt very virtuous.

This is a Donna Hay recipe from the Sunday Telegraph Magazine 22/8/2010

Broccolini is perhaps an under-utilised vegetable. At least in our house. Not sure why, I guess I'm just not in the habit of buying it. Somehow I don't think of it. Even though it is nice. It's a relatively new vegetable, a cross between broccoli and kai-lan (Chinese broccoli), not simply young broccoli- despite the fact that my local supermarket had it labelled as baby broccoli. Although I note wiki  tells us that it's "generic name" is baby broccoli, whatever that means.

Green vegetables usually have such small amounts of carbohydrate that their GI can't be measured. Pasta generally has a low GI (30-60), portion size is important, and the pasta needs to be al dente.

Lemon and Broccolini Chicken Soup

1 1/2 litres chicken stock
2 x 200g chicken breast fillets, trimmed
2 tblsp olive oil
150g fennel, thinly sliced
1 brown onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tblsp finely grated lemon rind
150g risoni
2 bunches broccolini, trimmed and chopped
1/2 cup basil leaves

Place the stock in a large saucepan over high heat and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low. Add the chicken and cook for 15 minutes or until cooked through. Remove the chicken from the pan and shred the meat. Remove the stock from the heat and set aside. Heat the oil in a saucepan over high heat. Add the fennel, onion and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes or until the onion is softened.

Add the lemon rind and stock and bring to the boil. Add the pasta and cook for 8 minutes. Add the broccolini and cook for a further 3 minutes or until the pasta is al dente and the broccolini is tender.

Stir through the shredded chicken and basil to serve. Serves 4.

Notes
Nice and quick to make, tasty and nutritious.
There was not nearly enough liquid in my soup. I added more water and it still wasn't enough.
The overwhelming flavours were from the fennel and broccolini, and occasionally the basil.
The basil immediately went black and looked unappealing.
Also posted on my adventures in a low GI world blog

Carrot, Honey and Ginger Soup- Soup Hall of Fame

This is a fantastic recipe that I've made once a year or so for many years. Carrots aren't my favourite vegetable it must be said, but I do like this soup.

 It's from one of Nick Nairn's earliest books Wild Harvest. I don't think I've ever managed to make another recipe from this book, I just keep making this one, over and over again. 

Nick Nairn has six Basic Soup Rules

1) Use a ratio of approximately 25% onion to the main vegetable ingredient

2) Cut the vegetables into the smallest pieces practicable- a 5mm (1/4 in) dice. This reduces cooking time. 

3) Always add boiling water to the vegetables as this reduces the time that the soup is off the boil where it can "stew" and lose its freshness.

4) Once cooked, liquidise the soup and cool it as quickly as possible- this keeps its quality and flavour.

5) It's much easier to make a big batch of soup. That way you can freeze it in handy-size portions and then reliquidise it one defrosted and re-heated. 

6) The soup is cooked once the vegetables are soft and tender. Timing varies for different vegetables. 

The rule that I've really taken to heart is #3. I always had hot water or stock now to every soup. It does really make it taste fresher and less "stewed". Brilliant. So simple.

Carrot, Honey and Ginger Soup

Fabby colour. Easy to make. Tastes great. Cheap. What more do you want?

80g (3 oz) unsalted butter
150g (5oz) onion, thinly sliced
20g (3/4 oz) root ginger, peeled
750g (1 1/2 lb) carrots, peeled and grated
1 tblsp (15mL) clear honey
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsps Maldon salt
5 turns fresh ground white pepper
900mL (1 1/2 pints) boiling water

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the onions and stir to coat- don't let the onions go brown. Using the flat edge of a heavy knife, crush the ginger (this releases the oil). Add this to the onions and let them sweat for ten minutes.

Now add the grated carrot, honey, lemon juice and seasoning. Stir well. Pour in the boiling water and bring it back to the boil. Simmer for 45 minutes. (You may have to add a little more water during this time to allow for evaporation).

Remove the pan from the heat and liquidise the contents (with a hand-held blender or in the liquidiser) until smooth and creamy.

Notes
I have always grated the ginger for the recipe as I like the texture better, and don't trust my hand blender to be able to cope with bigger chunks of ginger.

I had run out of Maldon this time, and substituted an Australian sea salt, and found it to be much too salty. I did think about cutting down on the salt, but then added the two teaspoons whilst on autopilot. Oops.

I used the blender this time, and it gave a lighter, fluffier consistency. I really must either work out how to sharpen my hand blender blades, or it's time for a new one I suspect.