Easy recipes from Apple Tree

Category: Soups etc (Page 3 of 4)

Lebanese Fried Fish and Tarator Sauce

We seem to be on a bit of a Middle Eastern theme at the moment. I had a solitary whiting and a hungry Olwyn on her way back from Pilates so I thought why not add a quick starter to our chicken with pomegranate molasses? You can use Tarator  Sauce for falafels as well. Nutty, lemony, garlicky, good. Here are the base ratios, add your garlic and salt as you like.

Tarator Sauce:

  • 2 scoops tahini paste
  • 1 scoop lemon juice
  • 1 scoop water
  • salt
  • garlic puree

OK if it helps I used a tablespoon for a scoop, with one garlic clove and half a teaspoon of salt. Just mix it all up. You can added chopped parsley if it looks a bit ordinary without.

Fried Fish:

  • Skinned, boned fish fillets cut into chip-sized strips
  • oil for frying
  • Enough flour. OK, for a more scientific measure I used 60ml for two medium-sized whiting fillets-worth of strips
  • Season with white pepper, salt and ground cumin. For the above I used 1 tsp cumin, half tsp salt, quarter tsp white pepper

Put oil in a pan to 1 cm depth and heat until a lump of bread goes golden in 30 seconds. Mix the flour and seasonings. Dip the fish in the flour then straight into the oil for about a minute or until it looks cooked. Serve with shredded lettuce, a lemon quarter and Tarator sauce.

 

Real (ish) Tomato Soup

Quick too!

  • 2 sticks celery
  • 1 onion
  • 2 carrots
  • 2 cloves garlic

Chop and sweat in a dash of olive oil for 10 minutes

  • 2 tins good quality tomatoes (that is the -ish bit)
  • 6 proper tomatoes
  • 1 litre vegetable stock (a stock cube is fine)

Simmer 15 minutes

Add a small handful of fresh basil leaves and whizz with a stick blender. Adjust the seasoning and job done. Idea to table in 30 minutes. From a Jamie Oliver recipe. Great with our Irish Soda Bread recipe as you can see in the picture.

Caldo Verde (Chorizo and Kale)

Tastes even better than I hoped. This is a thick, rich tasty bowl of soup/stew from Portugal that is a meal in a bowl with bread on the side. Enough here for 6 small bowls or 4  full-on meals.

  • 1 onion
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 600g floury potatoes peeled and cut into small chunks
  • 220g chorizo cut into chunks
  • 1.5 litres vegetable stock
  • 300g kale finely shredded
  • olive oil
  • Dried chilli flakes

Heat the oil in a deep pan. Gently fry the onion and garlic until starting to soften. Add the chorizo to cook a bit and release their oil. Add the potato and stock, bring to the boil and simmer 20 minutes. Mush the potatoes down with a masher to make the soup thick. Add the kale, a teaspoon of salt and a mad twist of black pepper. Cook 8 minutes more. Serve in bowls and sprinkle chilli flakes on top.

Pumpkin and Sweetcorn Soup

This is made once a year in our house, using the remains of Mr Pumpkinhead above.

  • 750g to 1kg pumpkin, seeds and skin removed (and grit and candle wax) and cut into chunks.
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 500g sweetcorn, frozen is fine
  • 750ml vegetable (vegan) or chicken stock
  • 250ml milk (or vegan equivilent)
  • oil or butter for frying

Method: sweat the onion in a heavy based saucepan for 5 minutes. Add the pumpkin, sweat 5 minutes more. Add stock and milk, and 300g of the sweetcorn. Simmer very gently for 20 minutes.  Meanwhile, fry the rest of the sweetcorn on a hot pan in butter or oil or under a grill until it looks a bit tinged brown. When the soup is done, zap with a blender or stick. Adjust the seasoning, pour into bowls and top with the toasted sweetcorn.

Ham and lentil soup

Make this with the stock left after you have boiled your ham.

  • 2 litres of ham stock (remove the cloves, bay leaves and peppercorns!)
  • All the vegetables used to flavour the ham joint
  • Dried red lentils: from 420gms for thin soup to 620 gms for really thick soup.

All you do is simmer the lentils in the stock for 20 minutes, stirring from time to time to avoid it catching on the base of the pan. Whizz with a blender or stick and adjust the seasoning.

Parsnip Soup

Another easy one.

  • 250gm parsnips, peeled and chopped
  • 1 potato, peeled and chopped
  • 1 tablespoon curry paste
  • 800ml vegetable stock
  • 120ml cream
  • Butter/oil

You know what is coming – all soups are made more or less the same way. First sweat the veg in the oil for 5 minutes. Add the curry paste and sweat another minute or two. Add the stock and simmer for 20 – 30 minutes or until the vegetables are very soft.  Blitz in a blender or with a stick. Stir in the cream, reheat and serve. You can also make this with parsnip and potato leftovers (now there’s a Christmas idea…)

Anyveg Soup

Like it says. You can make soup out of almost anything veggie, but a mixture is safest. For example, roots: carrot, onion, potato, parsnip, swede.

  • 1Kg mixed veg, cleaned and chopped roughly
  • 1 litre vegetable stock from a cube or powder
  • Oil or butter
  • salt and pepper to adjust seasonings (depends on your stock)

Method:

Heat oil gently in a large saucepan.

Sweat root vegetable for 5-10 minutes, other veg 2-5 minutes. Pour in the hot stock and simmer for 30-40 minutes. Zap with a blender or stick, then adjust the seasoning. Some stock cubes can be quite salty. You can also swirl in some cream and sprinkle on chopped fresh parsley for a posh touch.

Sour cream dip

As approved by a real American.

  • 2 cups sour cream or creme fraiche
  • 1/4 cup mayo
  • 2 tbs chopped fresh dill
  • 1 tbs chopped fresh chive
  • 1 tbs chopped fresh parsley
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

  1. Mix
  2. Dip!

Hummus

You need:

  • 1 can of chickpeas, drained
  • 2tbs olive oil
  • 1 garlic clove or equivalent (or more)
  • Lemon juice – 1/2 to 1 lemon
  • Salt
  • Optional – 1tbs tahini paste

Stick it all in a jar and blitz with a stick blender. That is all there is to it. Adjust the ratio of ingredients to find the combo you like.

Ottolenghi version:

  • 250g dried chickpeas

Wash and put in a bowl. Cover with at least twice the volume of cold water and leave overnight. Next day, drain the chickpeas and add to a pan with

  • 1.5 litres water
  • 1tsp bicarbonate of soda

cook for 40 minutes ( or Instant Pot 15 minutes). Drain, then process until you have a thick paste. Add

  • 270g tahini paste
  • 4tbs lemon juice
  • 1tsp salt
  • 4 garlic cloves crushed

Process until smooth. Drizzle in iced water (up to 100ml) to loosen and keep mixing until you get a smooth creamy paste. Refrigerate until needed, but it is best served at room temperature.

Blanker’s Broth (Prawn and Pepper Chowder)

It happens to all of us – we have great plans for a fish supper but catch nothing. It would be just too much to pay for stale fish of the species we catch, so the only thing to do is to buy something we don’t usually catch – in this case prawns, and possibly a tin of anchovies. For four people you will need:

  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 2 rashers of bacon, chopped
  • 1 clove of garlic, crushed
  • 1 large (or 2 small) red peppers, seeded and finely chopped
  • 225g tomatoes, skinned and chopped (or cheat and use a tin)
  • 900ml chicken stock
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 40g long-grain rice
  • 1 tablespoon wine vinegar
  • 50g peeled prawns, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
  • handful of whole peeled and cooked prawns
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper

Fry the onion, bacon and garlic gently in oil until soft. Add almost all of the minced peppers and continue frying for 2-3 minutes. Add the tomatoes, stock, rice, vinegar, bay leaf, salt and pepper, and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes until it is all soft and mingled. Discard the bay leaf, and add the chopped prawns and parsley. Simmer for another 6 minutes. Serve in warm bowls, garnished with whole prawns and the remaining chopped red pepper.

Where did those anchovies come in you may ask? If you like the salty flavour, try anchovy bread with it. Take a French baton loaf, and make an anchovy butter by mashing a tin of anchovies with 100g of unsalted butter. Cut slits in the bread and stuff the slits with anchovy butter, as you would for garlic bread. Wrap in foil, and bake in an oven at 180deg C for 15 minutes

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