Bertie's Blog of Food and Drink: Soup, glorious soup.

Soup on a cold day

Summer months have long since past taking with them any possibility for delicious, cold soups. Our summer was so poor that there were only a handful of days when anyone appreciated a cold bowl of soup anyway and now we are in the middle of autumn and hot soups for lunch are a good way to battle the onset of winter.

Hopefully you will have a supply of stock on your fridge or deep freeze. If you haven't, then you can use stock cubes but the taste is nowhere near as good, I don't think. Stock is the key to a decent bowl of soup. As for the rest, there are of course a hundred and one different recipes you can follow but generally speaking, soup can be thrown together from pretty much anything. This has always been known in my family as "Fridge Soup" - using up whatever leftovers are in the fridge and made into soup. Yesterday I gave up working at 12.15 because hunger swept in. There had been no time to go to the shop but there was a bowl of stock, a sad looking celeriac and half a squash that needed to be eaten. This is the great thing about soup - using up the old stuff to make something delicious - nobody need know the celeriac was reaching the end of his life and the squash had been open for a few days. To brighten up the two main ingredients, I added some extras that the squash and celeriac like to mix with. Garlic, which warms things up in a rounded friendly flavour, a pinch of cayenne which warms the inner soul quite literally [especially if you put in more than a pinch] a bit of grainy mustard which lifts the celeriac, some cream to smooth things out and a bit of earthy cumin because it tastes good. As for quantity of veg, go with what you find as there is no real rule. Here follows what would make a larger amount without having to use half a squash [the reason we had half a squash anyway is another story].

1 medium sized butternut squash

1 small celeriac

1.5 pints stock

3 cloves garlic - chopped

1 level teaspoon grainy French mustard

Glug of cream

Teaspoon of cumin

Salt and pepper

Small pinch of Cayenne

Skin the squash and chop into small bits

Peel the celeriac and chop into small bits

Put the squash into a saucepan with the stock and bring to the boil. After 5 mins, add the celeriac and the other ingredients except the cream. Bring to the boil then simmer until the veg is cooked.?

Using a stick blender, whizz it all up then add the cream and taste for seasoning. You can add more of any spices now and continue to simmer for a bit to let the flavours infuse.

As to the consistency - this is entirely your call. I like it to just coat the back of a spoon and be reasonably gloopy. Some people like it so thick it's almost a puree. Either way, start thick and you can add more stock to thin it down as you wish.

Serve with a large chunk of warm brown bread.

Source: http://bertiesfood.blogspot.com/2012/11/soup-glorious-soup.html

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