Soup | Zeb Bakes

fennel celeriac soup steps on the journey It’s cold outside and what could be nicer than experimenting with a new soup recipe?

Heidi’s Northumberland celeriac and fennel soup was at the very top of my to do list. I had a big bowl of chicken stock left over from a couple of days ago, so it was soup and risotto for supper, no question!

celeriac

I followed Heidi’s recipe, cooking the vegetables and the fruit in stock till they were soft. Then they were puréed and the liquid adjusted. Salt and pepper to taste, mixed in some ground toasted almonds and a generous spoonful of half fat creme fraiche (instead of half and half regular cream) per serving. Warmed the soup through, without letting it boil, and even remembered to warm the soup bowls!

Celeriac is very good right now, firm and fresh and one of my favourite winter vegetables. It was wonderful in this soup! I also like it

added to mashed potatoes
cut into julienne strips, blanched for a minute and slathered in mayonnaise and yoghurt with a grainy Dijon mustard: celeriac remoulade.
as a layering vegetable in a shepherd’s pie or similar.

I’m sure I read somewhere that it has loads of accessible iron too, so a good vegetable to put on your list if your iron levels are low.

It discolours on contact with the air, so acidulated water is a good idea if it is going to be used for remoulade or some assembly dish where it has to hang around for a bit before getting cooked.

I had no blanched almonds, so I went through that lovely ritual of pouring boiling water over the almonds and popping their skins off and toasting them in the oven. They’re much nicer that way anyway. That’s the smell of a Danish Christmas come early for me and I think this soup would fit right in for a Danish Christmas Eve supper.

celeriac and fennel soup

We followed up that nutty, intensely flavoured and creamy soup, scattered with ground toasted almonds and chopped fennel fronds with a mushroom risotto out of Marcella Cucina a great Italian cook book by Marcella Hazan and….

mushroom risotto … then dived into a tasting box of chocolates from Artisan du Chocolat – a gift from Tutak to Brian that I was allowed to share selectively.

Artisan du Chocolat I think they are some of the best chocolates I have ever tasted! In fact I couldn’t take an unblurry picture because I was too eager to grab another of those salted liquid caramel balls…

Coda

In the winter garden, a rogue fennel seedling has inserted itself in the patio step and is waving its little fronds defiantly against the cold. I wonder when the first fennel was grown here? I always thought it was an Italian plant, but maybe it came over with the Romans?

I wish I took better food photos because this soup represents a huge ‘Aha!’ moment for me. Celia posted the recipe for this soup a little while ago on her blog. I have to confess I was sceptical, part of me knew it was wrong to be sceptical as it clearly worked but… even so…

Put a whole chicken (I used a 1.6 kilo bird) in a stock pot, cover it completely with cold water, throw in some slices of ginger and spring onion, a tablespoon of salt. Bring it to the boil, this takes about ten minutes. Let it simmer for five minutes, throw your pinny on – it’s a splashy bit coming up next – turn the chicken over, let it simmer another five minutes, then put the lid on the pot and TURN IT OFF. That’s it for cooking the chicken. ? Yes, I thought so too. But it works. Leave it for forty minutes and come back to it after a quick glass of sherry, test for doneness by poking a sharp object into its thickest part, usually the thigh and if there is no sign of pink juice running out then remove the chicken from the stock to a plate.

Strain the bits and bobs out of the stock. Slice some onions, I used a white onion and some spring onions and some of those dinky little Chantenay carrots that look like they belong on a carrot cake made out of icing. Take the icky skin off the chicken and dismember the bird, then slice or shred the chicken into the size pieces you want for your soup. We used about a third of a chicken for two of us last night and that was more than enough.

Pop the chopped vegetables back into the stock, bring to the boil, add a sheet of egg noodles per person to the stock once it has boiled and some of the shredded chicken, simmer until the noodles are cooked. Chop some coriander or parsley with gay abandon and ladle into a big bowl and slurp away.

Anyway it is absolutely delicious. Oh so delicious. I think I might have to make it every week now. This soup is my new best friend. At the risk of being completely disloyal, I used to dread my Grandma’s chicken soup with its matzo balls and half inch of golden chicken fat on the top.

It isn’t particularly quick, (apart from the assembly part) and the bit where you do battle with the hot chicken removing the skin and the layer of surface fat isn’t the easiest, but I defy any cold or flu germs to get through the aromatic pleasures of a huge bowl of this translucent broth steaming away on your supper table.

There’s a bowl of clear quivering set stock sitting in the fridge right now. I think we’ll have it again tonight.

For the definitive version of this recipe please visit Celia’s blog. She’s made a lovely .pdf file for it too. I’ve got another wonderful soup recipe to try from Heidi : Fennel and Celeriac with toasted almonds… I’m going to make that one next. I learn so much from my blogging friends. Thank you all!

PS. There is no spot the ball in this little post, but I suspect quite a few foodie clichés so along with the bad photos I apologise for the ‘quivering stock’ as well.

Carrots and two sorts of onions in stock coming to the boil before the noodles and chicken meat are added

I just had a thought, having had my second meal from this, this time with some finely sliced chestnut mushrooms added and a little fresh lemon grass. Would cooking your chicken this way count towards reducing your carbon footprint? It must use considerably less energy than having the electric oven on for an hour or more. Maybe I should call this post 10:10 chicken?