Tomato Soup
Say whatever you want about Tomato soup, but it is always one of those soups that remind me of my childhood. Growing up in Scotland maybe soup seemed like a good thing to be giving us especially during the winter – or maybe my parents just liked tomato soup.
This is still one of the most popular soups – I can tell from the visitors numbers. Tomato soup does not have to be boring – it is easy to spice it up a little with some pepper or a pinch or two of chili powder.
Ingredients to serve 4
- I lb of tomatoes
- (I like onion so) 1 onion peeled and very finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped or grated
- I pint water
- 1/2 pint of milk
- 1 tbs oil
- Salt and pepper to season
Boil the tomatoes in water for about five minutes if you are using fresh tomatoes, if you are using tinned already peeled miss this step. Remove the tomatoes and peel and chop finely.
Fry the tomatoes, garlic, and onions slowly in the oil until they all go soft. Add the water and simmer for about one hour. If you don’t like bits in your soup this is the time to sieve it, otherwise add the milk. Leave it on a low heat for 3/4 minutes – don’t let the soup boil once the milk has been added.
Add salt and pepper to taste – or go way out and try the chili. Enjoy.
Potato and Leak Soup
This potato and leak recipe is meant to serve 4, but not 4 large servings – it is also one of the simplest of these recipes. When I was a sudent I would make more and just put the leftovers in the fridge for next days lunch or diner.
Ingredients
- 1 Large leak
- 2 large potatoes, peal and chop finely
- vegetable stock
- 2 tbs cream
- 1oz of butter
- salt and pepper to season
Wash the leak completely and cut off the fine roots leaving as much of the leak to eat as possible. Slice the leak thinly and lightly fry in the butter for about five minutes in a large saucepan.
Once the leaks are lightly fried add the vegetable stock and the potatoes. Bring to the boil and then let simmer for about 25 minutes. Remove from the heat and liquidise. Add salt and pepper to season to your own taste.
Before serving reheat the soup and stir in the cream. Great on a winter night when the rain is pouring outside.
Vegetable Soup
This is one of those soup where almost any vegetable can be used and I think it is best to use whatever is in season at the time. Another great thing about vegetable soup is that you can make a big pot of it and freeze it for easy cooking later.
The below is just really a guide line for vegetable soup you can add whatever you have to hand that needs to be used before it goes off. Also the way my Gran made soup was just to let it simmer for a long time and add a large bit of pork – not done so much now.
Ingredients for 4
- 1 Onion, peel and chop it
- 1 leek, slice
- 1 potato, grate or chop very finely
- 1 carrot, sliced and cleaned
- quarter of a small cabbage
- 1 tsp mixed herbs
- 2 pints vegetable stock
- salt and pepper to season
- enough oil to fry the onion
Fry the onion in the pan you will use for the soup. Let it brown a little and then add the leak and allow to fry for a few minutes letting the two mix their flavors together.
Add the stock and all the other ingredients into the pot. Bring to the boil and then let it simmer for about 30 minutes. If you use different vegetables you may have to let the soup simmer for longer.
Sometimes it is easier to liquidise the soup before feeding to children – you will know yourself for your own. Add salt and pepper to season. Enjoy.
Pho Recipes
Pho is served as a bowl of white rice noodles in clear beef broth, with thin cuts of beef (steak, fatty flank, lean flank, brisket). Variations featuring tendon, tripe, meatballs, chicken leg, chicken breast, or other chicken organs (heart, liver, tongue,[citation needed] etc.) are also available. ‘With the lot’ (made with chicken broth and all or most of the shop’s chicken and cattle offering, including chicken hearts and livers and beef tripe and tendons) is generally rendered ‘tai pin lu’ and, in Anglophonic countries, often left translated. Blood jelly is sometimes included in tai pin lu and other varieties.
The broth is generally made by simmering beef (and sometimes chicken) bones, oxtails, flank steak, charred onion, and spices, taking several hours to prepare. Seasonings include Saigon cinnamon, star anise, charred ginger, cloves, and sometimes black cardamom pods .
The noodles, called bánh phở in Vietnamese, are traditionally cut from wide sheets of fresh rice noodles similar to Chinese Shahe fen, although dried noodles (also called “rice sticks”) may also be used.
The dish is garnished with ingredients such as green onions, white onions, coriander leaves (cilantro), ngò gai (culantro, or long coriander), Thai basil, lemon or lime wedges, and bean sprouts. The last five items are usually provided on a separate plate, which allows customers to adjust the soup’s flavor as they like. Some sauces such as hoisin sauce, fish sauce, and the Thai hot sauce Sriracha, are popular additions as well. The herb ngò ôm (Limnophila aromatica) is sometimes added as well.
For the phở connoisseur, other garnishes which may be ordered on the side include hành trần (the white “bulb” portion of scallions, blanched in boiling broth) and hành giấm (sliced white onions with a dash of vinegar). These are only brought to the table when specifically requested, as opposed to the general platter of greens and lime wedges. The diner typically squeezes a few drops of lime juice onto the vinegared onion slices before eating them. The hành trần and hành giấm, when eaten with the beef slices, are believed to cut the fattiness and balance the strong beef aroma that some find overpowering.
Phở originated in northern Vietnam and spread to southern and central Vietnam in the mid-1950s, after the defeat of the French and the eventual partitioning of the country. It is likely that phở came into being around 1910-1912, early enough in the new century. The communist government of North Vietnam forcibly closed many private phở businesses in the 1950s, opening government-run eateries in their place. Northern Vietnamese fleeing communist rule for South Vietnam introduced phở to their southern counterparts. Unlike in Hanoi in North Vietnam, the phở business flourished in South Vietnam, especially Saigon.
There are conflicting beliefs as to how phở came to be. Some believe it originated from French methods used in bouillon or consommé cooking. Oxen were valued work animals and were rarely eaten, but the arrival of the French had probably prompted servants to prepare a dish that suited the French palate. It is even said that phở, or at least the etymological derivation of that name for the dish, came from the French beef stew dish pot-au-feu, with phở being a Vietnamization of the word feu. The broth for pot-au-feu, as it is for phở, is prepared with a bouquet garni containing spices such as cloves and black pepper. Another word for phở, used in Vietnam while Chinese was still the national written language, is hà phấn (河粉; Cantonese: ho4 fan2);[citation needed] the Chinese characters are the equivalent of the Chinese he fen, which comes from Shahe fen (沙河粉), the original name for the rice noodles originating in the town of Shahe, Guangdong.
Others believe that phở possible origins more likely lie in China. China had ruled over Vietnam for over a millennium and greatly influenced Vietnamese culture, including cuisine. Cooking ingredients used in phở, such as spices also seen in Chinese cooking (see five-spice powder and red cooking), as well as the use of rice noodles, are all Chinese influences.
With the arrival of anti-communist Vietnamese exiles and refugees (that is, hailing from South Vietnam) in the post-Vietnam War period, phở was also gradually introduced to Western countries, especially to France and the United States.There are also many phở restaurants in Australia and Canada, as these countries also received many Vietnamese refugees and immigrants. Vietnamese immigrants also brought phở noodles to the former Soviet bloc countries, including Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic.
There are several regional variants of phở in Vietnam, particularly divided between northern (Hanoi, called phở bắc or “northern phở”; or phở Hà Nội), central (Huế)[citation needed], and southern (Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon). One regional phở may be sweeter, and another variation may emphasize a bolder and spicier flavor[citation needed]. “Northern phở” tends to use somewhat wider noodles and green onions.photo 1photo 2 On the other hand, southern Vietnamese generally use thinner noodlesTemplate:Http://ninecooks.typepad.com/perfectpantry/2007/01/banh pho.html (approximately the width of pad Thai or linguine noodles), and add bean sprouts and a greater variety of fresh herbs to their phở instead.
Sorrel Soup
Sorrel soup is a soup made from water, sorrel leaves and salt. Other possible ingredients are egg yolks or boiled eggs and boiled potatoes. It is known in Polish, Lithuanian, East Slavic and Yiddish cuisines. Its other English names spelled variously schav, shchav, shav, shtshav, are borrowed via Yiddish language derived from the Polish name szczaw for sorrel. It is often served cold with sour cream.
It is characterized by its sour taste due to oxalic acid (called “sorrel acid” in Slavic languages) present in sorrel. The “sorrel-sour” taste may disappear when sour cream added, as the oxalic acid would react with calcium and casein.
In Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian cuisines sorrel soup may be prepared using any kind of broth instead of water and may be served either hot or chilled. Otherwise it may be a kosher food.