In Good Taste #75: Two soups

A Turkish-style split pea and root veg; plus a prebiotic fibre-tastic Jerusalem artichoke, leek and white bean number; Babygirl and A Great Pain

Well, hello there! How are you?

Good I hope.

(Not up for the chitchat? Completely get it. Click the email title to go to a web-based version then jump straight to the recipes or Cultural Fun.

It is cold. Therefore: soup.

In my early twenties when I shared a flat with my best friend Ruby we would often make soup during our attempts at “health”.

Basically what we did was boil vegetables in water then whizz them with a stick blender. It was probably healthy but it definitely wasn’t delicious. It’s been more than two decades since those insipid bowlfuls and I’m pleased to say I make lovely soup these days. It’s not hard but there are a few things to bear in mind. Here are Clare’s Rules of Soup:

1. Heat must be applied to (at least sone) ingredients before liquid is added. Whether this is sweating an onion to sweetness or roasting veg to get some maillard reaction going, something other than hot water is necessary for flavour.

2. Use good stock. Homemade or shop bought. It makes all the difference.

3. Think about texture. Sometimes you want it blitzed to silky smooth. Other times some chunks are what’s required. Know in advance so you can chop accordingly.

I have mentioned the Wendy Mac drawing challenge before but I bring it up again as one of the 10-minute exercises this week was to draw something edible. Here is my interpretation of one of today’s soups.

Remember this was done in ten minutes!

Incidentally, if you use veg stock both soups are vegan (although you could use butter when sweating the veg and I have chosen to serve with a drizzle of dairy). And both use preserved lemons although only in a supporting role. If you don;t have any leave it out but add a good squeeze of lemon juice at the end.

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Recipe: Turkish-style split pea and root veg soup

I love this style of soup. Hearty but not too heavy and lightly spicy. You can get some excellent versions in the restaurants on Green Lanes but I like to make my own and freeze it in portions, ready for an easy WFH lunch. It’s traditionally made with split red lentils but last time I fancied some all there was in the cupboard was a packet of Hodmedod’s split green peas. It still worked beautifully and, with the tomato purée and the paprika, the colour was still a jolly reddy-orange.

Makes about six servings.

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 onions, sliced

• 2 carrots (approx 250g), peeled and diced

• 2 parsnips (approx 250g), peeled and diced

• 4 garlic cloves, minced

• 1 tablespoon tomato purée

• 1 tablespoon sweet paprika

• 2 teaspoons ground cumin

• 2 teaspoons dried mint

• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

• 1 teaspoon chilli flakes

• 2 tablespoons preserved lemon purée (optional)

• 250g split peas or lentils

• 2l stock

• lemon juice to taste

Method

1. Sweat the onions. Put the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan over a medium heat and add the onions. My favourite way to sweat onions is to add a generous pinch of salt and splash of water (a couple of tablespoons-worth) and put a lid on. That way they get soft in the steam. Then uncover and let any remaining water evaporate.

2. Add the root veg. Add the carrot and parsnip to the onion and turn up the heat a bit. Let the vegetables get a little bit of colour on them.

3. Add the aromatics. Add the garlic, tomato purée, paprika and cumin to the pot. Stir to combine with the veg and cook for a minute. Then add the dried mint, oregano, chilli flakes and preserved lemon purée.

4. Simmer. Add the stock and split peas and bring to a simmer. Cook gently until the pulses are tender and beginning to break down. Probably about an hour.

5. Blitz, let down and season. Use a stick or jug blender to blitz until semi-smooth. I like there to be no visible bits of lentils or veg but for there still to be some roughness in the texture. Depending on the density of your pulses the soup might need diluting with more stock to get a pourable consistency (I needed to add another 500ml you might need more if heating up the next day or eating from the freezer). Then season to taste with salt and lemon juice. If you didn’t use preserved lemons you’ll need quite a bit of lemon juice. Half a lemon’s worth at least. If you did then just a bit of acid to balance the flavours.

Notes (If Ifs And Ands Were Pots And Pans…)

• Use whatever split peas or lentils you have to hand. You could also vary the root veg. Swede would work well I think. Or chuck in a potato.

• The dried mint is crucial here. It’s the only dried soft herb that I have any time for. Dried basil/parsley/tarragon? Pah! Use it fresh or don’t bother. But dried mint has a really unique taste, menthol-y like the fresh herb but with a woodiness too. The soup is perfectly nice without it but lacking something.

• Aleppo would be the authentic choice of chilli flakes to use, but I went with gochugaru as that’s what I had. It’s has a similar level of heat and slight sweet smokiness.

• This is nice served with a bit of yoghurt or sour cream. If you are feeling fancy you could put heat a couple of tablespoons of oil and sizzle a pinch of chilli flakes. Then drain the oil through a sieve and drizzle it on top.

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Recipe: Jerusalem artichoke, leek and white bean soup

I am not a nutritionist so I try and steer away from making wide-ranging health claims. But, I have done enough reading to know that all three principle ingredients in this soup are good sources of prebiotics: the soluble fibre that feed the bacteria in your gut associated with good health outcomes.

I absolutely love Jerusalem artichokes but used to have terrible trouble with their unfortunate side effects (what the botanist John Goodyer described in 1621 as “a filthy loathsome stinking wind within the body, thereby causing the belly to be pained and tormented.”) However, over the last few years, as I’ve been incorporating more fermented foods into my diet and concentrating on eating fibre, that has lessened. Hurrah. If you suffer, may I suggest fermenting them? The process breaks down the inulin and makes the roots more digestible.

Makes about six servings.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 onion, sliced

• 3 leeks, cut into inch-long pieces and soaked to remove any grit

• 600g Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and cut into inch-ish pieces

• 4 garlic cloves, minced

• 1 small bunch parsley

• 1 tin white beans, drained (200-250g)

• 1 litre stock

• 3 tablespoons preserved lemon purée

Method

1. Sweat the onion and leek. Put the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan and sweat the onion and leek until completely soft but not coloured. The water clinging to the leeks ought to be enough to provide steam.

2. Add the garlic and parsley stalks. Pick the leaves from the parsley, chop roughly and set aside. Chop the stalks very finely. Add the garlic and parsley stalks to the onion and leeks and cook for one minute.

3. Simmer the artichokes and beans. Put the artichoke pieces and beans in the pot and add the stock. Simmer until the artichoke is tender. About 30 mins.

4. Season and blend. Add the preserved lemon and salt to taste. Blitz to super smooth, taste and again and season as necessary. Serve, sprinkling over the chopped parsley.

Notes (If Ifs And Ands Were Pots And Pans…)

• Your bog-standard tinned cannellini beans will work here. No need to get the fancy Bold Beans out. Save them for salads or something where they shine alone.

• I also added some yoghurt and chopped, roasted hazelnuts when serving which are a very good match with the artichokes.

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Cultural Fun

This is my favourite time for year for cinema-going. Although the awards-bait of recent years has tended towards the worthy and/or dull, there’s still usually plenty of People Talking To Each Other About Interesting Stuff movies. My favourite genre.

James and I usually try and watch all the nominations in the Best Picture category for the Oscars which were announced today. So far I’ve only seen Conclave and The Substance so will have to get viewing in order to have an opinion before March…

But I think A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg’s cousins-on-a-Holocaust-tour tragicomedy which he wrote, directed and stars in with Kieran Culkin, was robbed of a place on the list. I saw it the other day and thought it was wonderful. The pain of the title could refer to the holocaust and its legacy of generational trauma, to the mental health issues that both characters live with, or to the fact that Culkin’s character is, well, quite irritating.

It’s funny without undermining the subject matter and has really stayed with me. Both actors are really good too. Eisenberg as uptight Dave and Culkin as his erratic cousin Benji. But Culkin was extraordinary. His Benjy is so exposed, so unarmoured. Intensely charismatic and sensitive to people but simultaneously oblivious to his effect on them. All that in 90 minutes. I mean, I’m sure The Brutalist is good but does any film need to be three hours and 35 minutes long?

I also went to see Babygirl which was really interesting but sparked mixed feelings. It’s sexy in places, funny in others. Sometimes both. Nicole Kidman’s CEO and her affair with a much younger intern played by Harris Dickinson asked some compelling questions about desire and honesty and control.

But some of it was quite silly and the plot’s central jeopardy never really went anywhere so it flopped towards the end.

In small-screen viewing, James and I are enjoying the new series of Severance. I love everything about this programme. The central idea that one body can effectively contain two people, the look of it, the off-kilter humour, the soundtrack. It’s all perfect in its uncannyness.

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Bye! See you next week!

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