Soup intentions

Ideas and recipes, a new restaurant, and a delicious bit of vicarious travel.

Oct 19, 2024

Autumn has settled in and I’m looking to find a rhythm. On Sundays, I make soup.

I’ve never been able to establish any kind of routine, least of all in the kitchen. Buying vegetables particularly is a pitfall because I get what is in season and appealing today but never with a plan in mind. Five days later (or seven or ten) I still have a refrigerator drawer full of broccoli and what I really crave right now is shepard’s pie. (I did make shepard’s pie, and the broccoli ended up two weeks later in the herein celebrated ‘Sunday soup.’ Read on.).

When autumn started and the temperature dropped — astronomically right on cue — I decided that Sunday would be a good day for soup. A wintry version of German ‘Brotzeit’, with a cauldron sputtering away at the back of the hob, seemed like a relaxed way to bridge the week. The light fades, a simple meal eases into early evening. It’s a way to use up languishing vegetables (that broccoli!) and if there are leftovers — there should always be leftovers — they will carry easily to an instant weeknight lunch or dinner. It’s a way to stop agonising about what to make for dinner.

The first of the season was leek and potato, a classic which I hardly ever make. Though in a bit of a hurry I wanted to follow a recipe so looked in just two places: Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries and Margot Henderson’s You’re All Invited. I made an uneven mashup of the two — most of Margot’s recipe, with a wedge of parmesan rind as per Nigel.

RECIPE: Leek and potato soup
Barely adapted from Margot Henderson’s You’re All Invited (out of print)
Serves 6 to 8

6 leeks
2 onions
600g potatoes
Olive oil
2 bay leaves
Few sprigs of fresh thyme if available, tied with a bit of string
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 litre chicken stock
One old piece of parmesan rind

Trim the leeks, cut them in half lengthwise and each half into half moons. Wash thoroughly in a bowl of cold water and strain.
Peel and slice the onions. Smash, peel, and roughly chop the garlic.
Peel the potatoes and ‘cut into happy hunks, about 2cm.’

Heat the olive oil in a large pan (capacity of 4 to 5 litres), gently cook the onions and garlic until softened and translucent, the heat on low. Add the leeks, potatoes, bay and thyme if using and cook, stirring occasionally, until the leeks have softened. About 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, add the stock, and top up with water to just cover all the vegetables. Add the piece of parmesan rind and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove from the heat, take out the parmesan rind and the herbs, check the seasoning, and serve.

This was a very good soup.

There’s a tug of war in our house regarding soup. Thomas likes chunks and texture, I’m partial to ‘potages,’ silky smooth blended purées. The children in their wisdom try to stay neutral. For balance, after the inaugural chunky potato leek, next Sunday’s was vegetable soup of the unnamed variety, with a handful of characters that just happened to be around. It was destined to be blended to hide its perhaps haphasard composition. It was, in fact, really good!

RECIPE: Haphasard celery broccoli soup
Sadly this was just enough for one family meal

Broth — made from chicken and beef bones simmered for many hours with a generous dash of cider vinegar and black peppercorns, and finished (last few hours) with a couple of onions cut in half, a couple of bay leaves — or store-bought.
2 bunches spring onions
1 large leek
3-4 celery stalks
2 potatoes
1 large floret broccoli
Olive oil
1 bay leaf, fresh if possible

Cut off the roots and any damaged top of the spring onions. Wash briefly in cold water, cut into chunks about 2 to 3 cm in length and smash the pieces with the blunt sied of a knife.
Cut the ends of the leeks and any tough outer layer of leaves, cut into 1-cm slices and wash thoroughly in cold water so no grit remains.
Wash and cut the celery stalks into 1-cm chunks.
Peel the potatoes and cut into smallish chunks.
Wash and cut the boccoli into florets.

Drizzle some olive oil in a pot and heat up. Add the spring onions and leek and a pinch of salt and cook over low heat until just softened. Add the celery, potato, and bay, another pinch of salt, stir and cook for a few minutes more. Pour in some stock to cover the vegetables, and a little more. Cook for about 15 minutes. Add the broccoli and cook for another 10 to 15 minutes.

Remove from the heat, blend to silky smooth with a handheld mixer, and serve with a swirl of crème fraîche and freshly ground black pepper.

SOUP INTENTIONS

More soup ideas for the upcoming weeks —

Richard Corrigan’s Onion broth with kale pesto, Rachel Roddy’s take on Neapolitan minestra maritata, Alison Roman’s Broccoli and cheddar soup, and Felicity Cloake’s perfect watercress soup, which is at least as much for autumn as for summer, to me, and shall make this weekend.

As I’m re-reading this list I notice a puzzling monotony of colour. At this time of the season I seem to still be stuck on green. Not even quite ready for squash yet, unlike everyone else. I know soon I will be craving colour and spice to rouse from the lull of winter and when this happens I will delve into Nik Sharma’s soup archives. Everything is tempting.

Please tell me about your favourite soups in the comments, so I may add them to the list!

EAT OUT

Café François — This new restaurant in Borough Market is big and boisterous and not constantly sold out despite the huge immediate hype and serves seriously perfect celeriac rémoulade. I usually like to let the dust settle before trying out a new restaurant but this time I noticed it before it opened, booked a table a few days later, and by the time we went with my favourite restaurant maven a few weeks later two major reviews had already come out and every single person interested in the food world in and around London had posted about it on social media. Fascinating. Anyway, it really was great fun and very good and it’s still possible to get a table, probably thanks to its size — large and bustling but not cavernous.

READ

Please click on this gift link to a really great article/photo story/diary/memoir about the author’s trip back to Hong Kong with his mother in search of elusive ‘wok hei, the breath of the wok’ in Hong Kong’s open-air dai pai dongs, food stalls. Most tantalizing piece of vicarious travel.

FOX UPDATE

And in ongoing fox news, here is fantastic mr., chilling in the warmest spot in the garden.