My Most Favourite Spicy Soup ©
This is my most favorite soup! All my recipes with ‘My’ in the title have been made after trying some delectable dish, not having the recipe and attempting to re-make it. I love doing this and I make this soup once a week in the winter time. It is also very good served cold in the summer time, but you want to make sure you have achieved the maximum flavor, when serving cold.
This soup combines so many wonderful flavors that your taste buds burst with excitement!! Ginger, lemon grass fresh from the garden, lime leaves, fresh coriander, chili, garlic, onion, carrot and the rich back ground of ‘home made chicken stock’…… Add to this the garnish of fresh lychees……. and say no more!
Anna this is especially for you!
Easy
6 Persons
Ingredients
1 Chicken
6 Large carrots peeled and quartered
4 Large onions, quartered
4-8 Cloves garlic, peeled and left whole
3 Lemon- grass stalks, cleaned and sliced in half, long ways
1 inch piece of ginger grated
2 Bay leaves ( Opt)
2 red chili whole, or de-seeded for less heat
Small bunch coriander, mainly stalks
2 Lime leaves, fresh or dried, if available
1 tsp brown sugar
6 Black Pepper corns
Garnish
1 -2 limes, juice and zest finely grated to be added just before serving
Coriander leaves for decoration
4 Button mushrooms halved
6 Fresh whole Lychees, stones removed (or tinned)
1 Small carrot cut into ‘ Julienne ‘
Knob of butter
salt
Method
Gather all your ingredients together first.
1. Wash chicken thoroughly under running water. Remove any extra fat inside cavity, liver, heart, neck and place in a large saucepan together with vegetables. Add water to come up to 3/4 of the way up your ingredients, (see photo. Too much water will not give a strong tasting soup.) Add 2 tsp salt and bring to a simmer. Cook with lid on for 1 hr, (mark 1) or until chicken breaks away easily from bones. Turn over half way through cooking time. ( Do not be tempted to add extra water, or the stock will not be concentrated enough and will lack flavor.)
2. Remove chicken with two slotted spoons, (Skin and de- bone and reserve for Coronation Chicken recipe, see Index.) Remove lemon grass stalks, lime leaves, bay leaves and pepper corns. Pass liquid through sieve and place remaining vegetables in blender, including the chili and ginger. Blend until silky smooth. 3-5 minutes.
3. Return vegetable purée and liquid to clean saucepan, add carrots cut into fine match-stick sized julienne, mushrooms, if large cut in half. Re-heat and simmer for two minutes. Take off heat add lime juice and very finely grated lime zest just before serving. No earlier or the zest goes brown. Taste for seasoning and serve piping hot .
4. Serve in warmed individual bowls, garnished with fresh coriander leaves and a lychee in each bowl!
N.B. In this recipe, you shouldn’t replace the lime with lemon, because the flavor of the zest is totally different.
If you want your soup less hot, add less chili. A little does enhance the other flavors.
******Cook’s Tip ! Always taste before serving two or three times, to get the perfect flavor! Just the right amount of salt, is what is needed at this stage.
Note I have not given an exact amount of water to be added, because it depend on the size of your chicken and vegetables. It is better to add less water than more. later if it is too thick, you can dilute it a very little with water.
Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan and add water to come to 1/3 from the top of your ingredients. Bring to the boil and simmer for an hour or until chicken falls off bones easily. Leave to cool slightly and remove chicken. (Use for another recipe, Coronation Chicken, or Chicken Mayonnaise, see Index.)
Pour off liquid passing it through a fine sieve. Remove lemon grass, lime leaves, bay leaves and pepper corns.
Blend vegetables in blender, until really smooth and silky.
Just delicious !
View point 2. Useful Tips For All Cooks: HYGIENE. ©
Hi everyone! A MUST READ ! It will take just two minutes !
Here are a few more tips that are most important when cooking.
We have all found that hair in our food, or suffered horribly from an upset stomach, not to mention a ‘finger nail’ I once found in my soup, in the very best Hotel Restaurant!…….. So Hygiene is very important.
“Hygiene” A Reminder…….
Hygiene is one of the most important aspects to take into consideration when cooking. It involves not only the dirt that one can see ‘visibly’ , but the microbes which are ‘invisible.’
I will remind you of the most obvious danger zones.
Microbes thrive in warm moist conditions and it is therefore important to keep produce in a well aired cool dry cupboard or for more perishable products , in the refrigerator. ( Meat, fish, poultry, dairy products and left over food.)
In Order of Importance :
1. Wash your hands with soap, before handling food and before and after handling meat, fish,poultry and eggs. A nail brush is perfect if you have been dealing with fatty things.
2. Keep nails short. Nails are a great harbinger of germs. Nail polish, which might chip off into your food should not be worn while cooking, nor jewellery, which traps food and germs!
3. Keep long hair tied back. In domestic kitchens they wear hats. You don’t want to find hair in your food!
I always think of a surgeon preparing for an operation! Your hands need to be clean and not touch anything else, but the food you are preparing. ( Not your nose, ears, head etc )
4. Wear an apron. Wash apron regularly.
5. Should you sneeze, blow your nose or use the wash room, wash your hands again!
6. Keep your surfaces wiped clean as you go along.
7. Wash up in hot soapy water, rinse and keep your ‘sink’ clean, as you go along. Always ‘scrub’ down your chopping boards with ‘stiff brush’ and ‘hot soapy water ‘on all sides, especially after cutting meat, poultry and fish. Chopping boards are no.1. harbingers of germs. Scrub sink when you have finished using it each day with hot soapy water.
8. Re-new your sponges and dishcloths frequently, or place in washing machine frequently, they again carry many germs. Always wash them through with hot soapy water at the end of the day. Replace every two weeks, or when they begin to look dirty!
9. Change your tea-towels every day, wash at 60.C. You should have one towel for drying your dishes and another for drying hands.
10. As soon as left over food has cooled, place straight away in fridge, ‘always’ covered. This reduces the spread of germs from older foods to newer ones in the fridge.
11. Keep food covered from the danger of flies, who have fed on much worse things, before eating your food and vomit, before they dig into your delicious food. That second you are absent from the kitchen, it doesn’t take long, not to mention your beloved pet who might come and lick the butter!
12. Re-heat food completely through, those microbes napping out, right in the center of your pie, will not be killed off unless you heat the pie completely through.
13. EMPTY RUBBISH BINS EVERY DAY! : All rubbish bins should have lids and be washed and scrubbed frequently.Once a week!
Now I know you all score high on this list, but a reminder is always useful, especially for you new cooks.
* Next topic FIRE AND SAFETY IN THE KITCHEN
I ‘highly’ recommend you to keep up with the washing up.
We were trained to wash up as we cooked! This was the best lesson we were ever taught.
Firstly utensils wash up much more easily.
Secondly it keeps your work space calm and uncluttered.
Thirdly you haven’t got that awful pile to do, when you are tired at the end of cooking.
Fourthly you don’t run out of equipment!
Not to mention the breading of germs when the dishes are left, sometimes for days! Then you feel like throwing it all away in the bin!
I always have a washing up bowl ready with hot soapy water to quickly wash things in, rinse and drain, dry and put away!
This may all seem obvious, but believe me I have seen some kitchens in my time!
Here is a perfect example of how one shouldn’t leave the sink…..
The visible decaying food you can see.
What you can’t see are all those germs coming up out of the trap, having a party on all that food, especially
in the dish cloth!!!!!! Nice moist environment! Not to mention all that lemon well stuck to the squeezer,
that will need soaking now to get properly clean…….. Hygiene, Hygiene, Hygiene!!!!!
* Just out of interest, I have just read an article which says the four most germ ridden places are:
1.Dish Cloths and Sponges In A Kitchen.
2. Chopping Boards
3. Elevator Buttons
4. Escalator Handrails
5. Supermarket trolley handles
Always wash your hands after being outside with warm water and soap.
Hygiene, Hygiene, Hygiene. Soap Glorious Soap!!!!!
Penne al Gorgonzola ©
Especially for those cheese lovers out there! This is an old favourite, but definitely one to have in ones collection. It is really easy and quick to make and good for a cold winter’s evening, because it is rich and overflowing with flavour. Like all Italian cooking it has that wonderful Italian flair and reminds me of the years I lived in Florence, getting to know the secrets of their delicious cuisine.
This is a classic gorgonzola sauce found in northern Italy. The gorgonzola required is ‘dolce gorgonzola,’ the creamy almost runny kind, as apposed to the drier, sharper one. Having said that I have made it with both and both are very good.
Easy
4-6 Persons
Ingredients
500 g Penne or other pasta of your choice
125 g Italian gorgonzola, preferably the “Dolce” kind.
120 ml milk
30 g butter ( unsalted )
90 ml double cream
6 tbs freshly grated parmesan cheese ( Reggiano )
Pinch of salt and freshly grated black pepper to add along side
Method
1. Place serving bowl and bowls in oven to warm at 50.C.
2. Put a generous saucepan of water onto boil, adding a tsp salt.
3. Put gorgonzola, milk, butter and a pinch of salt into a large saute pan, over a low heat. Cook breaking up the cheese with a wooden spoon until it has melted completely and formed a thick creamy sauce.
4. Pour in the cream and raise the heat to med-high. Cook, stirring frequently, until the cream has reduced to two-thirds of it’s original volume ( this will take 3-5 minutes, be careful towards the end the cheese can easily catch on the bottom of the saute pan.)
5. When the pasta is cooked ‘al dente,’ drain and transfer to the pan with the sauce. Turn heat onto low and toss the pasta over the heat with the sauce and the grated parmesan for about 30 seconds.
Serve immediately in warm pasta bowls.
Here is an example of “Dolce Gorgonzola,” that you should be able to find in the supermarket.
Ideally purchase your gorgonzola by asking the cheese counter to cut you your required amount from a whole
cheese. If this is not possible second best is to purchase the ready cut pre-packed slices.
Put pasta water onto boil with a tsp. salt. when it is boiling rapidly, add pasta, do not cover and turn down
a little to slow boil.
Place gorgonzola in saute pan together with butter and milk and a pinch of salt.
Over a low heat break up the gorgonzola with a wooden spoon, until it has melted completely and formed
a thick creamy sauce.
Pour in cream and raise heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring frequently, until the cream has reduced two-
thirds of it’s original volume, ( this will take 3-5 minutes, watch cheese doesn’t stick to the bottom of the
saucepan as the sauce thickens.)
Here the cream mixture is being boiled rapidly and thus reducing.
Here you can see the sauce has reduced and thickened.
The sauce should be reduced enough to coat the back of the spoon.
Once pasta is cooked ‘al dente’ ( see cooking terms in Index) drain well in colander, and add to sauce.
Add grated parmesan.
Over a low heat, turn pasta for 30 seconds in sauce and serve in heated bowls.
Just completely delectable……..
What's Cooking In Jane's Kitchen 