Soooooop!
Tonight I made soup. This is something that always gives me great satisfaction -- akin to the food chemistry miracle of whizzing sugar and butter and eggs and flour into a sloppy mess and having it come out of the oven an hour later all golden and fragrant and cakey and delicious, the wonderful magic of soup that means you can throw all sorts of assorted things into a pot, simmer, blend and somehow wind up with a steaming hot bowl full of flavourful goodness tasting even better than its component parts is a process that never fails to yield pleasing results. (Well, except the first time I tried to make crab and sweetcorn soup and didn't know how to do the egg drop bit and wound up with big lumps of scrambled egg sitting at the bottom of the pot, but that was long ago and in another country and besides, my crab and sweetcorn soup is damn good these days.)
That crab and sweetcorn was the only soup I made for years and years (I learnt to make it properly when I was about 16) but these days I'm gradually building up a soup repertoire which now includes Generic Vegetable (usually includes orange and white root vegetables and possibly broccoli); Spicy Tomato and Chorizo (based on a recipe from seagoon, actually); Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato; Pea, Mint and Watercress/Spinach; Broccoli, (optional) Bacon and Blue Brie (my version of the English classic broccoli and Stilton soup); Minestrone; and Tom Yum. Hmm, perhaps I should have a Soup Blogging Week...
But anyway, I thought I'd post about tonight's soup because I was trying out a new idea and because it worked well enough for me to want to remember how to make it again. Inspired by a reduced-to-clear bag of sweet potatoes at the supermarket and the half-bag of carrots that has been in the fridge waiting to be used for ages, I made:
Spicy Thai Sweet Potato Soup with Kaffir Lime
Ingredients
Saute onion and curry paste with a dash of oil and a few spoonfuls of the thick part of the coconut milk, until fragrant. Add sweet potatoes, carrots and enough water to cover; bring to boil and cook gently about 20 minutes (? maybe longer) until vegetables are soft, adding stock cubes and kaffir lime leaves part-way through cooking time (translation: I chop things as I go, keeping everything cooking, and the lime leaves are the last thing to go in). Season with fish sauce and add the finely chopped lime rind, then whizz until smooth. Stir in remaining coconut milk, check for seasoning and add lime juice to taste.
Might have been even better with the addition of garlic and/or fresh ginger (and even a bit of sliced lemongrass, though that might interfere with the texture) at the sauteing stage, and perhaps with chopped fresh coriander sprinkled on top to serve (or maybe not, if you don't like coriander); but was good enough to bother posting about even with just what I had on hand!
I'm still not caught up on sleep after another frenetic week which included being very busy at work (teaching a Research Ethics tute Monday, a lecture to the med school on Tuesday and a 2-hour seminar in Sheffield on Thursday; as well as John S being in Manchester) as well as the CAOS Spring Concert with assorted dress/extra rehearsals, as well as being miserably, snottily, sneezily, coughily, sore-throatedly, voice-losingly sick. Any two out of those three I could probably have dealt with fine, but the combination all together was rather an ordeal.
The concert yesterday, though, was amazing. I don't think I've ever heard CAOS sing so well or so responsively as in the first three a cappella pieces -- I was stunned and impressed (and proud!) beyond words. winikoff's Anthem for Doomed Youth was a real challenge and, after some initial doubts on the choir's part in rehearsals, they managed to pull it off to the extent that several audience members commented on how much they were struck by the piece; and there were some fantastic moments in the Rutter as well, helped out by our mini-orchestra. And I think last night was one of the best performances I've heard from the full orchestra, too. A good showing all round!
And now, perhaps, an early night...?
That crab and sweetcorn was the only soup I made for years and years (I learnt to make it properly when I was about 16) but these days I'm gradually building up a soup repertoire which now includes Generic Vegetable (usually includes orange and white root vegetables and possibly broccoli); Spicy Tomato and Chorizo (based on a recipe from seagoon, actually); Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato; Pea, Mint and Watercress/Spinach; Broccoli, (optional) Bacon and Blue Brie (my version of the English classic broccoli and Stilton soup); Minestrone; and Tom Yum. Hmm, perhaps I should have a Soup Blogging Week...
But anyway, I thought I'd post about tonight's soup because I was trying out a new idea and because it worked well enough for me to want to remember how to make it again. Inspired by a reduced-to-clear bag of sweet potatoes at the supermarket and the half-bag of carrots that has been in the fridge waiting to be used for ages, I made:
Spicy Thai Sweet Potato Soup with Kaffir Lime
Ingredients
- 1 large onion, chopped
- ~3 generous tbsp panang/red curry paste (I use Mae Ploy brand)
- 400ml can coconut milk (the brown Amoy brand is good)
- 750g orange sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced 0.5-1cm thick
- about half a bag of carrots (7-8 smallish ones), sliced 0.5cm thick
- 4-6 cups of water (start with less and add more if needed)
- 2-3 stock cubes or heaped tsp stock powder
- 6-8 large kaffir lime leaves, finely sliced
- several shakes fish sauce (I can never judge the quantity that I've used because of the way it comes out of the bottle! perhaps 1 tbsp total?)
- rind and juice of two limes
Saute onion and curry paste with a dash of oil and a few spoonfuls of the thick part of the coconut milk, until fragrant. Add sweet potatoes, carrots and enough water to cover; bring to boil and cook gently about 20 minutes (? maybe longer) until vegetables are soft, adding stock cubes and kaffir lime leaves part-way through cooking time (translation: I chop things as I go, keeping everything cooking, and the lime leaves are the last thing to go in). Season with fish sauce and add the finely chopped lime rind, then whizz until smooth. Stir in remaining coconut milk, check for seasoning and add lime juice to taste.
Might have been even better with the addition of garlic and/or fresh ginger (and even a bit of sliced lemongrass, though that might interfere with the texture) at the sauteing stage, and perhaps with chopped fresh coriander sprinkled on top to serve (or maybe not, if you don't like coriander); but was good enough to bother posting about even with just what I had on hand!
I'm still not caught up on sleep after another frenetic week which included being very busy at work (teaching a Research Ethics tute Monday, a lecture to the med school on Tuesday and a 2-hour seminar in Sheffield on Thursday; as well as John S being in Manchester) as well as the CAOS Spring Concert with assorted dress/extra rehearsals, as well as being miserably, snottily, sneezily, coughily, sore-throatedly, voice-losingly sick. Any two out of those three I could probably have dealt with fine, but the combination all together was rather an ordeal.
The concert yesterday, though, was amazing. I don't think I've ever heard CAOS sing so well or so responsively as in the first three a cappella pieces -- I was stunned and impressed (and proud!) beyond words. winikoff's Anthem for Doomed Youth was a real challenge and, after some initial doubts on the choir's part in rehearsals, they managed to pull it off to the extent that several audience members commented on how much they were struck by the piece; and there were some fantastic moments in the Rutter as well, helped out by our mini-orchestra. And I think last night was one of the best performances I've heard from the full orchestra, too. A good showing all round!
And now, perhaps, an early night...?