Soups and Stews
“In these late days, praise for a good home made soup is out of all proportion
to the effort involved-and it doesn’t cost much.”
Thus wrote Jane Grigson in her book ‘English Cookery’. Soup is an old and simple way to cook; when
you have cooked a few you will easily be able to design your own, from available ingredients, including
decent leftovers.
As always, the 2 fundamental rules of cooking apply-start with good, balanced ingredients and don't ruin
them. I make good soup from leftovers that would be binned in some homes, but some of the costliest food
I cook is soup, due to ingredients like lobster, scallops or monkfish.
Leftover chicken and vegetable soup
Leftover meat from a roast chicken or duck
2 large onions
200g carrots
500g potatoes
100g bacon scraps (optional)
2 glasses of wine or cider
Chicken stock (if you have any)
2 stalks celery (optional)
Leftover gravy, if any
Salt and pepper
The day before, you enjoyed a roast chicken (or duck-use the same recipe) but there were just 2 or 3 of
you at table so plenty of meat was left. You put the leftovers in a polythene bag in the fridge when cool.
Today, remove all meat from the bones, including the kidney from beside the backbone, with the small
paring knife and reserve. Simmer the remains gently (crack the bones with a cleaver) in a litre of water for
40 minutes with a bouquet garni (bay leaf, rosemary, and sage tied together with kitchen string), crushed
garlic, an onion, ginger and some lightly cracked black peppercorns. Strain and reserve.
Dice (i.e. cut into cubes about 1cm) the carrots and potatoes, and fry with the onions in a big saucepan
with some oil, preferably duck or goose but vegetable oil is OK. Fry for 5 minutes (add bacon scraps now if
you want) then add the wine or cider and bubble for 2 minutes. Then add the stock, cover and simmer until
the vegetables are soft, 30-40 minutes. Then add the reserved chicken meat scraps and any leftover
gravy, simmer for another 5 minutes. Serve with thick slices of wholemeal bread.
NB the quality of this soup will depend on how much meat was left on the chicken. If there wasn’t much it will
be thin, so add a chicken stock cube or more bacon. Variations Any soup can be ‘upgraded’ by stirring in
sherry or cream just before serving. You can also ‘Chinese’ the soup by using more ginger, sesame oil, or
a dollop of Hoi Sin sauce. Noodles can be added 10 minutes before the end of cooking to make the soup
more substantial. Make sure there is enough liquid for the noodles to absorb.
Shellfish soup
1 medium cooked crab To serve 4
200 grams cooked shell-on prawns
200g white fish
Salt, pepper, Tabasco
1 medium onion
Glass white wine or sherry
2 carrots
50g tomato puree
Remove the meat from the crab using secateurs, skewer or special crab claw tool, and patience-it will take
20 minutes, or you can cheat and buy dressed crab meat. Put the shell and other bits (except the 'dead
men's fingers' and gut) to one side. Shell the prawns, put the prawn meat in a dish and reserve the heads
and shells with the crab shell; they are for the stock (same idea as for the chicken soup described above)
Fillet the fish. Any white fish will do, plaice are ideal. Remove the flesh from the bones with the filleting
knife, see drawing in Fish chapter. Don't worry if the fillets aren’t neat, for a soup it doesn’t matter so it’s a
good way to improve your fish filleting skills. Cut the fillets into spoonful sized bits. Put the boned fish
carcass (minus gills and guts) and crab and prawn shells in a litre of water and simmer while you chop the
onions and carrots into 3-4mm dice. After 30 minutes, strain the stock off, put the waste in the compost.
Fry the onions and carrots in a little sesame oil for 2 minutes, then add the stock and simmer for 20
minutes. Add the tomato puree, a dash of Tabasco, salt to taste. 5 minutes before you are ready to serve,
add the pieces of white fish which cook very quickly, and the crab and prawn meat. Stir. Variation stir in a
dash of brandy and/or cream once the soup is in the bowl. For special occasions you could add scallops
(slice thinly, add at the same time as the fish pieces) or lobster instead of crab.
Cock a leekie
Chicken stock (see chicken soup recipe above)
Chicken meat (previously cooked leftovers)
Leeks, potatoes
Duck or goose fat
Clean and slice the leeks, fry with diced potatoes in duck fat in a heavy saucepan for 5 minutes. Add the
water or stock. Add chicken meat when potatoes are done (about 20 minutes) cook for a further 5 minutes
and serve. NB I omit precise quantities, by now you should be developing a sense of proportion and be
able to judge for yourself.
Bacon and Lentil Soup
400g Bacon pieces
200g Split red lentils
2 medium sized onions
4 carrots
200g Swede/parsnip/turnip according to taste, cut to 2cm cubes
2 medium potatoes
1 litre water
1 chicken stock cube
1 tbs dried mixed herb
2 tbs cooking oil
Black pepper
Chop and fry the bacon, add the herbs and continue until the bacon is cooked. Add the water, chicken
stock cube and black pepper to taste. Add the red lentils and the 2cm cubed vegetables to the saucepan,
reserving the potatoes. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add the potatoes and simmer until all the vegetables are
cooked. The red lentils should melt into and thicken the soup. (Andy Schulkins).
Oxtail soup
800gm Oxtail in segments
Butter
Carrots, onions
Bouquet garni (bay leaf, sage, rosemary tied together)
Glass red wine
50g tomato puree
Brown the oxtail pieces in some butter for 10 minutes in a heavy saucepan. Add a glass of red wine and
bubble for 2 minutes. Pour over 3 pints of water, the roughly chopped carrots and onions and simmer for 3
hours. Leave to cool (if you’re in a hurry, stand the pan in cold water), then strain off the liquid, remove
meat from bones with a small paring knife. Chop the meat finely and return to the broth, stir in 50g tomato
puree (about a quarter of a tube), bring to the boil and serve. Variations-season with 1 or 2 tsps of
Marmite, Worcester or dark soy sauce, thicken with cornflour or potatoes. Julia prefers to grind this soup
through a Mouli which gives a different, smooth texture.
Roast pumpkin soup
Pumpkin
Olive oil
Onion
Salt, pepper, nutmeg
Milk
Chop up a 2 kilo pumpkin with the cleaver, removing the hard skin by cutting the pumpkin into manageable
segments, putting them on their side and cutting down with the cleaver to shave off the skin. Roast with
some olive oil in a medium oven for an hour. It’s less effort if you roast the pumpkin pieces on the skin and
then scrape off the cooked flesh with a spoon, but it’s not so ‘toasty’. Pumpkin seeds can be washed and
air dried to sow next year (share them), or roasted with salt for tasty nibbles.
Mash the roasted pumpkin, add to a big saucepan in which you have fried some finely chopped onion in oil
or butter, add a litre of water, or vegetable stock if you have any. Add 1 tsp grated nutmeg, salt and
pepper to taste. Mash the pumpkin, simmer for a few minutes, add half a litre of milk 5 minutes before
serving. Variations-melt in some grated cheese, or add some sweetcorn either tinned or fresh toasted, or
finely chopped bacon or ham if you like. You can also adapt the above recipe by boiling the pumpkin
instead of roasting, quicker but not so tasty.
French onion soup
To serve 15-20 people, for example at a New Beaujolais evening (*) or winter bonfire party.
1 kilo of large onions sliced very thinly
500mls chicken stock (the real thing or from stock cubes)
500mls dry cider (or white wine if you can spare it)
500mls water
100g goose or duck fat
100g flour
Dessert spoonful of dried sage
2 dozen black peppercorns finely ground
3 tablespoons of dark soy sauce
Peel and halve the onions and slice as thin as possible across the rings. Fry gently in the duck fat for 30
minutes, then add the flour and fry for another 10 minutes, scraping the frying pan with the metal fish slice
to prevent sticking and burning, add water if sticking is problem. Pour into the stock and cider in a big
saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes more. Variation put a piece of toast with melted Gruyere cheese on
top of the soup in each bowl as it is served, or do garlic croutons (fried bread cubes with garlic) with grated
parmesan.
Minestrone from leftovers
Minestrone is a classic ‘leftovers’ meal, the essential ingredients are bacon, tomato, Parmesan, herbs,
beans, onions, pasta and ‘whatever’. Elizabeth David lists 5 recipes in ‘Italian Food’; so, as with cassoulet
or stir fry, the cook has a perfect right (subject to good taste and balance) to adapt a Minestrone recipe to
the available ingredients.
I invented this recipe to use some leftover lamb and beans, bacon, pumpkin, cabbage and onions. It is not
classic Italian Minestrone; I include it as a practical example of an invented recipe for soup from leftovers. It
was very good.
150g leftover lamb and beans (see ‘lamb’ chapter)
100g leftovers from smoky bacon joint, chopped fine
1 litre water (use meat or vegetable stock if you have any)
Handful of pasta (fusilli, macaroni, or other)
50g tomato concentrate
Pinch of salt
100g cabbage sliced thin
Pinch of dried sage (or bouquet garni)
Medium onion, chopped and fried in sesame oil
250g pumpkin (butternut squash variety was used)
Chop, peel, boil and mash the pumpkin in the water. Add cabbage, pasta, sage, tomato puree and
chopped bacon to this pumpkin broth. Meanwhile fry the onion in sesame oil and add that. Finally add the
beans and lamb, cook for a further 10 minutes. Grate some Parmesan (or, more patriotically, Twyneham
Grange cheese from Hampshire Farmer’s Markets) over it when serving. Note that ingredients are added in
descending order of rawness, starting with the raw vegetables and ending with the previously cooked lamb
and beans.
It would be more authentic with bacon instead of lamb, and a can of tomatoes. Dried courgette is excellent
in minestrone, but I’ve never seen it for sale, you can make it by air drying thinly sliced summer courgettes
and finish off in a low oven. Fresh courgettes, carrots, peas etc could be added too.
Parsnip and Cinnamon soup
1 lb parsnips
1 pint stock
1 bay leaf
1 small teaspoon cinnamon
50g butter
500ml milk
Salt and pepper, parsley
Melt butter in a large pan, cut up parsnips and sweat them over a gentle heat for 5 minutes. Add stock and
bay leaf and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove bay leaf and add milk and cinnamon. Puree in electric blender.
Heat up, season with salt and pepper and serve with fresh parsley on top. (Peter Lowater)
Shin beef stew
This great winter recipe is ideal for long slow cooking.
1kg shin beef
2 big onions, coarsely sliced
Bouquet garni
2 cloves garlic
500g chopped carrots
1 litre water
60mls Oyster sauce
15mls toasted sesame oil, dash of dark soy sauce
Cut the meat into 5-6cm chunks and brown in olive oil for a few minutes. Add a glass of wine (home made
elderberry or blackberry wine will do) and bubble for 2 minutes. Add water, sliced onions, herbs, pepper,
carrots etc. Bring to the boil, add the oyster sauce, 2 tsps of toasted sesame oil, and a dash of dark soy
sauce. Simmer slowly for 2 hours. Watch the salt as Oyster and soy sauce both contain salt; taste and
adjust towards the end of cooking. Serve with boiled potatoes and cabbage. Variations-use beer, cider or
stock instead of water, or parsnips instead of carrots. Vary the seasonings to taste or availability. Add
ginger. You could also discard the above cooking sequence and put all the ingredients in a casserole in
the oven at mark 4 for 3 hours.
It is a very useful trick and an economy to cook something like this for the following day. Hugh Fearnley
Whittingstall wrote in the River Cottage Meat Book that most stews were better if cooked a day in advance
and reheated. I agree. Put the stew in the oven and cook for 2 hours, then turn the oven off and leave the
stew. It will carry on cooking slowly overnight, saving energy. This is very handy if you know you will be out
working, shopping, pruning apple trees, driving kids around etc next day and will want a good hot meal fast
when you come home. Just reheat quickly and serve with bread, pollenta or mashed potato.
Croutons enhance thinner soups, they are unnecessary with thicker meal-in-a-bowl soups and stews. Chop
slightly stale white bread into 1-2 cm cubes and fry in sunflower oil with crushed garlic and a little salt until
light brown and crisp. Drain and serve on the soup in bowls or in a separate bowl for people to serve
themselves..
Many other soup and stew recipes could be added, but if you learn to cook the above, you can cook any
other-there are plenty of recipes on the web, weekend papers, etc. and you can easily make up your own.
(*) actually we gave up on New Beaujolais evenings a few years ago after severe disappointment from
some thin, acid, not very enjoyable examples of this wine which I remember used to be a real thrill. Perhaps
I was just younger and less careworn then.....
Return to Botley Men's Cook Book menu