On Soup
I accidently made some rather bad soup yesterday. I had been musing on what kind of soup I would make all through Evensong and knew exactly what I was after - a clear broth with small even chunks of vegetables: potatoes, carrots, leeks...... then wiht some green leaves added at the end. And maybe a pistou stirred in. I went to the greengrocers and bought vegetables. I couldn't buy celery as it was wrapped in plastic and I've given plastic up for Lent.
I felt a meaty base was called for and dug some stock out of the freezer.
I chopped. I sweated onions etc. It all bubbled away and I did some work.
Then, oh disaster, I thought it would be a bit healthier and have a nice golden glow with some turmeric and before I knew what I was doing I'd added two heaped teaspoons. Aaaargh. Way too much. And then I added to the disaster by putting in too much roughly pestle'n'mortar'd pepper. (For a while I thought I'd accidently added Sichuan pepper as it was so tingly.)
I cooked it a bit more to cook out the flavours but it was no longer the soup of my dreams. To be honest I don't think it was just the turmeric. The lack of celery probably made a difference. And, thinking about it now, it would probably have benefitted from some herbs: rosemary, thyme and bay.
Anyway, I redeemed it last night by a good squeeze of lemon juice.
And the leftovers today have mellowed quite a bit so it was actually pretty tasty.
I felt a meaty base was called for and dug some stock out of the freezer.
I chopped. I sweated onions etc. It all bubbled away and I did some work.
Then, oh disaster, I thought it would be a bit healthier and have a nice golden glow with some turmeric and before I knew what I was doing I'd added two heaped teaspoons. Aaaargh. Way too much. And then I added to the disaster by putting in too much roughly pestle'n'mortar'd pepper. (For a while I thought I'd accidently added Sichuan pepper as it was so tingly.)
I cooked it a bit more to cook out the flavours but it was no longer the soup of my dreams. To be honest I don't think it was just the turmeric. The lack of celery probably made a difference. And, thinking about it now, it would probably have benefitted from some herbs: rosemary, thyme and bay.
Anyway, I redeemed it last night by a good squeeze of lemon juice.
And the leftovers today have mellowed quite a bit so it was actually pretty tasty.