Soup Construction

  • Tomato stock – from roasting tomatoes and garden herbs for passata
  • Chicken stock – from roasting chickens
  • Leek thinnings – from transplanting leeks
  • and a couple of big leeks
  • Sticks of celery – found in fridge
  • Carrots – ditto
  • Spinach – leftover from Ottolenghi chickpea and butternut squash dish
  • A handful of Cooked chickpeas – ditto
  • End of parmesan, grated

Sweat leeks, carrots and celery in a little good olive oil and butter, add stocks, throw in the chickpeas and spinach and sprinkle with parmesan.

Toast from strange sourdough that started out as being for pizza, (made with some of the tomato stock as above) but owing to major mistaken identity moment turned into this:-

Smile even though you have messed up!

Surprisingly baked up to make this:-

Look at you guys!

Close up:-

Not bad!

For the curious: the crumb shot!

Don’t you just love it when the dough forgives you?

24 thoughts on “Soup Construction”

    1. Joanna @ Zeb Bakes Post author

      The recipe is here, it’s also in their book with the Guardian recipes. Don’t be put off by their photo, it’s a much jollier looking dish than you imagine from that picture. We usually make it with the endless chard that we grow, but this time we made it with spinach…

  2. Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

    Your bread went from a :) to a :/ but a very delicious looking :/, I must say!

    Soup sounds perfect for a cool evening, especially if served with tomato flavoured sourdough smiley bread! We love tomato stock (or tomato water) – in fact, it’s my favourite bit of passata making. Oh, please bring back really great tomatoes soon! :)

  4. spiceandmore

    That soup looks delicious…and all the better for having bits and pieces from your garden I am sure.
    You are the master of dough slashing. What is your trick? I can never get my slashes to look so beautiful or the loaf to open up like that. Do you slash just before putting them in the oven or do you wait awhile? Maybe it is the dough…perhaps drier than mine?

    1. Joanna @ Zeb Bakes Post author

      These were slashed with a curved blade because I had been making baguettes and this was what I had out on the worktop. Usually I slash just before going in the oven and spray the loaves with a little water and or add steam to the oven by pouring boiling water on a hot tray below the stone.

      I don’t know how dry or wet your dough is so can’t compare? How much water to flour do you use? The wetter the dough, the faster you have to go, slashing and getting it in the oven, or the slashes will close up again. This one was half and half light rye and bread flour, with levain and about 1/3 tomato stock to water. It was all a big mistake, so I didn’t write it down…. dough with a lot of rye in, tends to slash well too if it is not too sloppy.

      Also if the dough is underproved slightly it will of course spring more in the oven. I notice some internet bakers bake their bread after a very short second prove and get huge spring and opening and I suspect this is why.

      I would say the key thing is steam and having a slightly underproved dough…

      1. spiceandmore

        Ah that is a good tip about underproving the dough. I will give that a try. I am a bit of a haphazard baker so the proving times etc are mostly about how it all fits in with the rest of my life. It mostly works for me so I am not complaining…just every now and then wish that I could perfect some aspect of it!

    1. Joanna @ Zeb Bakes Post author

      It was an outstanding stock, could have been used for a myriad of purposes; we just felt like soup, I had an evening class to go to and wanted something nourishing that didn’t fill me up too much Amanda :)

  6. heidi

    Mmm! That bread looks ever so good.
    I am making so many tea treats that a good hard sourdough isn’t on the lists.
    But I would rather have your bread than what I made for the finger sandwiches!

    1. Joanna @ Zeb Bakes Post author

      I wish I could faster than light you a loaf to sustain you in all that hard work you are doing Heidi – I bet you’re looking forward to your holiday :D

  7. Melanie Corley

    Soup looks wonderful, however my husband would protest as there is no MEAT. I am curious about the passata. Are you able to share your roast tomato passata recipe? What do you use it for? The bread looks divine, although I was sorry to hear that there was no pizza:(
    I saw the photo of the ‘bread face’ earlier today in your flickr photos and it cheered me up. Great photo!

    1. Joanna @ Zeb Bakes Post author

      Will do a passata post very soon. We use it for all sorts of things, simple sauce on pasta, on pizzas; anywhere where you want an intense rich tomato taste I guess.

      You could easily add meat to this soup. I nearly put chorizo sausage slices on the top, or you could add some cooked chicken. It’s just soup! There was a sort of pizza, but it wasn’t right. I tipped the light rye into the mixing bowl on top of the levain and water thinking it was bread flour, so then I doubled up the recipe and added bread flour and ended up with masses of dough. I tried making pizza bases with it just to see, and it was edible, but nothing I would recommend people trying unless they were curious.

  10. Joanna @ Zeb Bakes Post author

    They are the Willow pattern Gill! They came from Lilly’s (my Grandma’s) kitchen. I think it was a ubiquitous design, at one time you saw them everywhere…

  11. jan trounce

    Even your mistakes turn out well! I love the notion of ‘Joanna, the Master Slasher’ – that’s some reputation – and I too love the blue plates. Nice serving plates and dishes, etc are a huge part of food appeal aren’t they.

    1. Joanna @ Zeb Bakes Post author

      Have you seen the disaster bread thread I started on Mellow Bakers last year? Some of my finest efforts are there to encourage everyone – on the ‘if I can do it, most people probably can too’ principle.

  14. Pingback: T is for… Tarragon Tomato Passata « Zeb Bakes

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