You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Afternoon all.
In her latest attempt to ensure there is absolutely no room whatsoever left in any of the kitchen cupboards, Mrs Binners has bought a soup maker.
No, me neither.
But its here, so as the weather has clicked over to slow-cooker season anway, we're going to give it a go. Its one of those where you just bung everything in, turn it on, then select whether you want chunky or smooth, and it does the rest. My kind of kitchen device.
Any recipes gratefully received. So whats your soup of choice?
Mine (up to this point in my life)....
I give up, my hilarious joke image didn't work. Stupid forum.
Right. Here goes.
In to a big pot, place the following,
Chopped garlic
Chopped ginger
2 x chilli, sliced lengthways, with seeds intact
Asparagus, again sliced lengthways (for flavour this time), in 3 or 4 inch lengths
Finely sliced spring onion
Baby sweet corn, lengthways
One veg stock cubes
Lots of ground black pepper
Juice of a lemon
Soy and Fish sauce
2l of water.
Leave it to stand around for as long as you can/like
As you bring the water to the boil, chop some chicken breasts in to decent sized chunks
When boiling, add the chicken and some dried egg noodles.
Boil for a couple of minutes. Serve with freshly squeezed lime, and some chopped coriander on top.
Oasis soup.
Bob Marley donut for pudding.
My cure for man flu. Which is topical as I have it. I guess you could follow the below and just add the noodles at the last minute? I usually double the recipe.
900ml chicken or vegetable stock (or Miso soup mix, sure that will have reached Rammo by now)
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, about 175g/6oz
1 tsp chopped fresh root ginger
1 garlic clove , finely chopped
50g rice or wheat noodles
2 tbsp sweetcorn , canned or frozen
2-3 mushrooms , thinly sliced
2 spring onions , shredded
2 tsp soy sauce , plus extra for serving
basil leaves and a little shredded chilli (optional but essential if you have sniffles/manflu),
Pour the stock into a pan and add the chicken, ginger and garlic. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat, partly cover and simmer for 20 mins, until the chicken is tender. Remove the chicken and shred it with a couple of forks.
Return the chicken to the stock with the noodles, corn, mushrooms, half the spring onions and the soy sauce. Simmer for 3-4 mins until the noodles are done. Serve adding the leftover bits on top.
Slurp it up.
My wife made Sweet Potato and Butternut squash soup a few weeks ago.
It smelled rank but tasted delicious.
Weird.
These two are a good start for something easy and tasty.
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2089/spiced-carrot-and-lentil-soup
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/333614/red-lentil-chickpea-and-chilli-soup
Most of the time I just start with diced onion, carrot and celery cooked low in a bit of oil until onions are translucent, then I add rinsed red lentils, tinned chopped tomatoes and whatever other veg I have going spare. Cover with whatever stock floats your boat, for me it's usually a mix of homemade chicken and vegetable as that's what I have to hand. Bring to a boil for a few mins then simmer until lentils are cooked through. Don't really stick to any ratios or quantities of indgredients except maybe about 50g of lentil per 500ml of soup. It's hard to go wrong, I do make it on the thick and chunky side though, a typical big bowl will be 5 of the recommended 5 a day. That over anything else is it's main purpose 9 out of 10 times for me - get as much goodness into a single bowl as I can whilst still tasting fine.
I usually make my own recipes rather than relying on published ones, but this is surprisingly good and probably ideal for a machine.
https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/nanas-magic-soup.html
I swap the coconut milk for regular milk, the coconut dominates the flavour otherwise. It's nice with some ginger thrown at it too - I make ginger croutons to go with it sometimes.
It smelled rank but tasted delicious.
I love making soup because it's basically alchemy. You start with a nasty-looking pan of flavourless gubbins and wind up with something delicious.
So whats your soup of choice?
Mine (up to this point in my life)….
I'd been trying for ages to perfect home-made tomato soup. I eventually nailed it after a dozen "ok" attempts trying different things. After maybe three hours of chopping, roasting veg, stirring cauldrons, I managed to make something fairly indistinguishable from Heinz' Cream of Tomato. My glee and rejoicing lasted for about a minute before it dawned on me that I could have achieved the same results with a can opener and two and a half minutes in the microwave.
Basically any veg works, but I have a few specific choices too. Celeriac and apple, broccoli and stilton, did a huge pumpkin a couple of weeks ago after Halloween. Mixed beans with tomato and celery is also good. Usually make a huge pot about once a week and freeze portions for lunches. Obviously meat stock helps if I've had a roast, but Worcestershire sauce and a cube works fine too.
I once cut off the tip of my left thumb whilst quartering a potato to make soup.
True story.
Be careful out there kids!
I had beef broth for lunch.
Like a light sweaty gravy that's been knocking around for a few days.
Anyone know how to make that?
Oh, I have a stew recipe which might work. Give me a minute.
STOO! Makes two healthy portions.
Onion, carrot, parsnip, one large of each. Handful of spuds, half a swede. (All peeled, obvs.)
Bay leaf, teaspoon each of thyme, rosemary, onion granules, garlic granules.
Pinch of white pepper, 2 teaspoons of Marmite, tablespoon of tomato purée, three teaspoons of gravy granules.
Protein of choice, I use Quorn "beef" strips but you could no doubt use regular beef.
1.5L stock.
Cut onion into strips, dice all veg bar the spuds. Fry off the onions and veg with a lug of oil until the onion is soft, add the stock, boil for 5 mins. Cut the spuds into 1" lumps and chuck them in the pad with everything else. Cover and simmer until everything softens. I usually steam dumplings in there too.
If you leave it till the spuds get a bit disintegratey, you get a thick stew. If you want a runny one, stop cooking earlier.
A soup maker? You mean a big pan?
Cheers all! I shall give these a go and report back on the results.
I have to agree with Cougar about starting with far from promising ingredients and ending up with something lovely.
This sounds absolutely rank but is actually bloody lovely
Arbroath Smokie and Chedder Soup
how do you favourite a thread? CFH's suggestion sounds fab makes me hungry - and I've just eaten
I did a sweet potato soup with roast garlic and rosemary the other day. Roasted the garlic the day before when I had the oven on - cut top half cm off bulb of garlic to expose tops of cloves, drizzle with oil, wrap up in foil, 180c for an hour. Chop an onion, sweat it off in the pan, add a large chopped sweet potato, scoop out the now gooey garlic cloves and chuck them in, add a pint of stock and a bit of rosemary. Simmer until cooked, blitz with a stick blender and serve with crusty bread and some cheese on top.
Leffeboy, I make it at least once a week. Can also be done with prawns, or thin slices of sirloin instead of the chicken. Or, without meat at all.
It's a wonder cure panacea as well. A bit like Beagle's recipe, I'd imagine
Flashy, I love soups like that!
Used to love blue Dragon tinned wanton soup, adorned with all that stuff, brilliant.
Sadly it seems to no longer be available....🙄
So what's the difference between soup and stew or casserole?
I don't have mashed potatoes with my soup.
Leek and potato - some of each, one of those gelatinous stock thingummies, salt and pepper and some butter for softening the leeks. Simple and delish.
Leftover Sunday dinner with enough liquid to make it spoonable - bung it in the machine and wait until it beeps.
I boil ham in ginger beer, the resultant gingery sweet stock is used to make Hot & Sour Soup, using Jamie Oliver's recipe but leaving out honey and ginger as they are dealt with by the stock.
Love soup. Love making soup. have learned over the years that 'less is more'. Don't know what a 'soup maker' is but guess is like a blender vs slow cooker? I use an electric hand blender. If I had to offer up one recipe then this basic soup hits the spot, is moreish, and economical to boot:
Winter Greens Soup (Serves loads, store in tubs in freezer if left over)
Ingredients
Dessert spoon cooking oil
2 large or 3 small brown onions, diced
2 medium carrots, chopped
1/2 a savoy cabbage or 6 spring greens leaves, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed
1 head of broccoli, chopped
1 potato
2 heaped teaspoons stock powder (I use Marigold, low salt) or 1.5 pints of your favourite stock
1 teaspoon of cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
teaspoon of ginger powder or 1/4 inch of chopped fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
salt to taste
Squeezed lemon to taste
Method
heat oil in largest pan, then turn down to low heat
add onions and carrots and sweat, stirring occasionally until onions are soft
add garlic and stir in
add cumin and ginger
stir ocassionally on low heat for a further minute
add remainder of veg
add pepper
Fill half the pan with water/stock and stir. If using stock powder add now.
Bring to boil, cook on medium/ low for 20 minutes or until carrots are soft.
Remove from heat. Let cool for 30 mins or more
Blend until thick, smooth yet pour-able. Carefully adding more water if required.
Serve with salt to taste and a squeeze of lemon or a swirl of cream, coconut cream, etc.
Variant (if feeling flush):
Exchange 1 onion with a leek, chopped
Tip - put onion in the soup maker first, starchy stuff highest otherwise it sticks and burns to the bottom of the soup maker.
Mushroom soup - chop up; 1 onion, punnet of fav mushrooms, 1 potato, handful of basil and veg stock cube. Top up with water to max mark.
Chicken Noodle soup last week.
I'd boned out a chicken for a couple of curries, so roasted the carcass/bones and wings before making a stock by boiling it with a sliced onion, some cloves and a bit of mace for the best part of an hour. Made about a pint and a half of stock.
I then strained out the stock and picked the meat off the carcass. These went into a pan with a smidgen of ginger and garlic paste, a good slug of Oyster sauce, a slosh of light soy and four chestnut mushrooms, finely diced.
I simmered this until it was starting to reduce, then added some cornflour/water thickening paste, then a handful of capelli d'angelo strands snapped into two or three inch lengths. Once the noodles were cooked I served it with a few finely sliced spring onions.
Seeing as the first was well received, here's another.
Finely chopped onion and garlic. Soften in a little butter, and add a couple lf teaspoons of curry powder. Then, add
Two tins of chopped or plum tomatoes, posh ones, not basic!
Veg stock cube
2 pints water
In a muslin, or one of those tea strainer like things that secure - A few peppercorns, cardamom pods, bay leaves and cinnamon sticks.
Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 mins or so. Them add either fresh chopped or frozen spinach and bring back up to a simmer.
Can be served with a little double cream if you like, and/or blended to preference. It's also excellent chilled.
OP! - here's a challenge:
Buy one of these (see below) from Tesco or Mozzers or wherever. Eat. Tell me if ainten't the tastiest tinned soup ever. The bigger challenge is now see if can replicate by copying the ingredients.
Quick tip for meat-lovers, I augmented/adulterated one of these for a meatie's bowl (some of them get weird and a bit confused/sulky around lentils) by adding sliced chorizo before zapping in the microwave. What a soup.
Heinz tomato soup warmed up, can swished out with 1/4 tin of full fat milk, teaspoon of sugar maybe heaped, large pinch of salt and not forgetting freshly ground pepper
All those good things they reduced salt and sugar back in
Variation on Jamie's left over turkey chowder.
4 rashers of smoked bacon diced into smallish pieces (or chorizo, but the cayenne and paprika sort of address this point / may need adjusting)
About 500g of leftover turkey (far too good to only use leftovers, worth making from scratch / roasting a chicken for)
A bowl full of left over vegetables – carrots, squash, roasties, parsnips etc
3 sliced onions
3 cloves of garlic
1 chopped red pepper
A couple of short strands of thyme (about 10 leaves)
3 teaspoons of cayenne pepper to warm things up a bit
1 teaspoon of smoked paprika
400g sweetcorn
A big splash of gravy
About 1 litre of chicken stock
100ml cream
A handful of cheddar cheese for topping and some warm bread for dipping
I make soup pretty much every day for work. I use a stick blender and add a small teaspoon of Marigold stock per mugfull.
Recipe-wise I just wing it but usually start of frying onions, celery and carrots with a few spices (cumin coriander mustard seeds etc.).
Sweet potato, potato, leek, broccoli stalk are good for flavour and a bit of bulk.
Quinoa, lentils and noodles for extra bulk and healthiness.
Ginger and chilli for piquancy. Soy is good with spring onion and ginger and star anise for a chinese stylee. Indian spices for more of a curry/mulligatawny.
Chicken and sweetcorn is good.
I make soup pretty much every day for work.
One of the best things about soup is you can make it in bulk so you don't need to make it every day!