Spring chicken noodle soup with lemon, asparagus and parsley

This recipe is based on this one by one of my favorite cook book authors Nigel Slater. It is an ideal template recipe to play around with as it is simple, adjustable and the results will be delicious.

I used about 6 chicken wings for roughly 1 liter of water. One adjustment I would recommend is only using one half of a lemon.

Brown your wings on both sides in a little fat over medium to high heat (the darker they go, the more flavour and colour your soup will have), then the cut side of the lemon half. Add your water, let it come to the boil and let it simmer for about 45 minutes.
Now you can play around with it and adapt it to your taste... I lifted out the wings and put them to one side. Squeeze the juice and discard what is left of the lemon. Try to sieve out the pips as they are really unpleasant if you happen to bite in one. Season the bouillon to taste. It will need a lot of salt.

Regarding the meat you have the whole range of possibilities: return them to the soup whole, debone them and give them a rough chop or painstakingly remove every bit of skin and sinew and finely chop the meat before returning. It's all up to you (and maybe your guests') preference.

Think about what kind of vegetable(s) you would like to add and how long they will have to cook for. I went with asparagus (still had a few spears in the fridge), which I cut into 1 cm chunks at an angle. Add the pasta you like (I go for orzo quite often). Then add the vegetables according to how much time is left on the pasta timer. (This sounds so complicated. But I am sure you know what I mean. :-) )
At the very end sprinkle on a few chopped sprigs of your fresh herb of choice, such as the first shoots of flat leaved parsley, season for the last time and serve.

The perfect dinner for a cold spring evening!

Vietnamese Pho with Duck (the quick version)

It's been dreadfully cold, wet and gray around here lately. This made me all the more thankful to my friend Anna for teaching me how to do one of my favorite restaurant dishes at home. It's simple, easy and healthy, not to mention it tastes divine! Give it a try and you won't be disappointed. Promise.

Ingredients for two:
1 l beef stock
3 cloves
2 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
1 generous tablespoon of fish sauce
ca. 4 cm. fresh ginger, sliced
1 medium onion, peeled and halved
ca. 150 gr. rice noodles
one duck breast (without the skin) or ca. 200 gr. of beef steak
bean sprouts
spring onions
Thai basil or fresh coriander
optional: fresh chilies or hot sauce

1. Let your beef stock and the aromatics (everything up to and including the onion) come to a boil over high heat. Turn it down and let it simmer for ca. 45 minutes.
2. When your stock is done and smelling wonderfully fragrant, prepare your rice noodles according to the packet instructions. When they are done make sure to blanch them under cold water.
3. Wash your bean sprouts, pick your herbs off the stems and chop your spring onions. The duck or beef needs to be cut very thinly (it will only be cooked by the hot broth being poured over it). My duck was frozen, so I just defrosted it for a short while and pulled off the skin. It was very easy to cut afterwards.
4. From this point on it is simply a task of assembly. Layer the cold noodles over the meat and pour over the hot (boiling!) soup. The aromatics, except for the onion, can be discarded. Let every person add their own sprouts, herbs and spring onions. I like adding a bit of chili. Enjoy!

Variations: I am sure this would be delicious with halved prawns or sliced fish too. You could also leave the protein out completely.

Merci Anna!

Everything but the kitchen sink chinese style soup

Or hunger is the mother of the best recipe inventions...
This turned out to be the perfect soup for a grey autumn day. Filling and not really spicy/hot but warming instead.

ingredients:
one packet plus three rashers of bacon, cut into strips
one clove of garlic, finely chopped
half a hot chili, finely chopped
a hunk of ginger, finely chopped
one liter of chicken stock
one portion of glass noodles
one small kohlrabi, peeled and cut into juliennes
half a head of cos lettuce (outer leaves), cut into strips
ca. two teaspoons of fish sauce
a generous squeeze of lemon juice


1. Fry the bacon until it gets crispy edges. Pour off most of the fat. Add the ginger, chili and garlic and fry gently. You don't want the garlic to get brown and bitter. Add the stock and let it come to the boil. Let it boil for a couple of minutes to let the flavours develop.
2. Add the glass noodles. They take about five minutes to cook. After about two minutes add the kohlrabi. After another two to three minutes add the fish sauce, lemon juice and the lettuce. cover with a lid and let the soup heat up again and the lettuce is wilted to taste.

Enjoy!

Glorious Orange and White Asparagus Soup

Have you been enjoying the fresh tastes of Spring as much as I have?
Strawberries with sugar... cress and boiled egg sandwiches... Asparagus with Parmigiano and melted butter.
In that case; SAVE YOUR ASPARAGUS WATER!!!!

This along with a couple of leftover spears will give you a delicious meal and one of my favorite soups (of all time, I have to add).

This recipe is made with white asparagus. I think it pairs better with the sweetness of the orange juice and the delicate sharpness of the zest than its green siblings...

It's a rich, velvety soup that packs enough calorific punch to leave one satisfied as a meal on its own. It is unusual in taste as it combines the sweet aroma of the fruit with the savory freshness of the spring vegetable. Give it a try. You won't be disappointed.



ingredients:
(serves two or four, if served as a starter)

2 Tablespoons/30 grams of butter
2 Tablespoons of flour
one Orange, zest and juice separately
one litre/4 cups of asparagus cooking water
a couple of leftover asparagus spears (if on hand)
125 ml/half a cup of whipping cream
one egg yolk

1. Melt the butter over medium heat and toss in the flour. Mix with a whisk. After a minute add the orange zest. Let this mixture fry gently until it turns the slightest bit brown in colour. The smell should change towards nutty.
2. Pour in the asparagus water slowly while whisking the mixture constantly. (If this isn't done well, you will risk ending up with a lumpy soup.) Turn up the eat, whisk every couple of minutes and let it come to a gentle boil. I wouldn't recommend leaving the room as this mixture "likes" to boil over.
3. Let it boil gently for at least five minutes to thicken and get rid of any residual floury taste.
4. If you have the asparagus spears at you disposal you can either cut them into bite size pieces and put them into the soup at this stage to warm up. Or you can blend them with a little bit of the soup and add them to the dish like this.
5. In a separate bowl whip the cream into gentle peaks. Beat in the egg yolk. Beat the orange juice into this mixture slowly.
6. Take your soup off of the heat. Spoon one ladle of hot soup into the cream mixture and whisk well. Repeat two times. Add the whole mixture back into the hot soup and whisk well again. (This step is called proofing and, while slightly cumbersome, will prevent you from having scrambled egg soup.)Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. (If you didn't put salt into the asparagus water, you will have to through in an astounding amount now...)

Serve with good bread.

Warming soup for winter days

What do you do when life hands you leftovers? Lemonade is obviously out of the question.
I recently had just a dollop of mashed potatoes and two oven roasted tomato halves, from dinner the night before, at my disposal to create lunch... Invariably I will always go for some kind of soup in this situation.

I quartered the tomato halves and fried them for a couple of minutes in a little garlic chili oil. Then I added about a pint of chicken stock and let it come to a boil. The fiddly part is having to fish out the tomatoes and blend them with a couple of spoons of stock. (But that's easily managed. I'm just impatient.) Then everything goes back into the pan including the mashed potatoes. Heat up, season and stir well.
That's it.
This is what my lunch looked like.