Hearty white bean soup

Back trackin'

When I started this blog so many years ago, my boys were 7 and 9. The trick was to find pretty simple meals that they'd love (or at least like enough to try new things). Now that are 17 and 19 and gigantic! Which I suppose means the meals were ok. Now the question is - how to fill those bottomless bellies?

This is a tasty, filling soup or stew that works great as a lunch, side or main.

If I’m ladling over pasta, I have it more as a stew and reduce the water by 2 cups. If I’m serving it with crusty bread and a salad, the consistency I like is more like a soup.

If I were to do a vegetarian version, I’d chop and sauté a turnip, then remove and add it back in again with the chopped kale.

In this pic, I didn’t have any feta in the fridge, so used pecorino instead. This is an Italian dish, so black pepper would be more authentic I guess, but I like white pepper here.

Ingredients 

2 cups (375g) dry cannellini beans
4 cups water (for soaking)
2 or 3 Italian pork sausages with garlic and fennel, bratwurst also works well
2 chopped brown onions
2 cloves chopped garlic (reduce if your sausages have lots of garlic)
⅓ cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
2 cups veggie or chicken stock
6 (or 8) cups water
1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
4 cups chopped kale (or other leafy green)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, or to taste

To serve

Crumbled feta
A few pinches red chilli flakes
A few splashes of balsamic vinegar 
Chopped parsley

Method

1. Soak beans in cold water overnight.

2. Drain beans (retaining the liquid) and set aside.

3. Make a cut down the center of each sausage and peel off the casing. Transfer sausage into a dry, cold, 4 litre soup pot. Turn the heat to medium-low. You want to render out the fat. Once it starts to sizzle, raise the heat to medium and brown the sausage, breaking it up into small pieces with a wooden spoon, 5 to 7 minutes. Cook and stir until juices start to caramelise and stick to the bottom of the pan, creating a fond, 3 to 5 minutes.

4. Add onion and garlic and stir to coat in the rendered sausage fat. Add a little olive oil if necessary. Cook until onion starts to turn translucent, about 5 minutes. Add white wine to deglaze the pot. Add black pepper, dried chillies, bay leaf, and water.

5. Add drained beans, increase heat to high, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes. Add salt and continue to simmer until beans are tender, about 30 more minutes. Taste beans to be certain they are perfectly cooked.

6. Smash about 1/4 of the beans with a potato masher to give the soup a creamy texture. Stir in chopped kale, increase heat to medium, and cook until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. The time will depend and the greens you choose. If you choose English spinach, for instance, this can be done one minute before serving. Taste and adjust salt.

7. Ladle hot soup into bowls, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with feta and a pinch of chilli flakes and chopped parsley.

Soup - short and long

Just spent a week or so with my teenage boys. The eldest (now seriously teen garbage guts) said the food I make that he can eat “infinite” amounts of are chunky beef cottage pie, spaghetti bolognese, roast butterflied chicken, homemade pizza. To which we can now add last night’s chicken, corn and won ton soup.

I’ve enjoyed cooking for my guys, and there is a lot of hype around food and food rituals and how important it is. But amongst the worry and fuss about food as metaphor, you forget the literal - food keeps you alive. Eating good, healthy food guarantees nothing - except that things would be worse if you didn’t.

Back to the soup… You can do this with a small tin of creamed corn and a larger one of corn kernels. But fresh corn is easy to come by, and cooking the corn gives you a flavoursome soup base from which to build.

Here we go.

Ingredients

• 3 sweet corn cobs
• 3 chicken thigh fillets
• 1 225g pack frozen won tons
• 2 handfuls fresh rice noodles
• 2 cups chicken of vegetable stock
• 4 cups water
• 2 teaspoons five spice powder
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 tablespoon peanut oil
• 4 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons chopped shallots to garnish

Method

Remove husks and silk from corn. Trim stalk and tip. Place in saucepan just big enough to hold them, and the water and bring to boil uncovered.

Heat a fry pan with peanut oil to medium. Flatten out thigh fillets and fry one at a time, five minutes each side. Remove to a plate, and cover - including any pan juices for the final fillet.

Once the corn comes to the boil, continue boiling for another five minutes, then remove corn to a plate to cool.

Keep the water boiling until reduced by a third. Add stock, five spice, onion powder, pepper and soy sauce and, once it comes back to boil, reduce to simmer.

Take one corn cob and with a sharp knife slice the kernels off the cob. Pound using a mortar and pestle to a coarse mash. Add to the saucepan. Slice down the other two corns and put the kernels directly into the pan.

You’re not done with the cobs yet. Take each cob and, using a butter knife, scrape down the cob, held over the saucepan, so that the starchy juices are harvested for the soup.

Now coarsely chop the chicken a place in the saucepan along with the juices that have developed.

Turn up the heat until boiling, then add the won tons, continuing on high until boiling resumes.

Add rice noodles and boil for two minutes. Remove from heat.

Serve in generous bowls, garnished with shallots.

Beef and rice noodle soup

My non-spicy son was off with buddies watching Thor part three, so I thought I’d treat my spicy son with a new dish.

Pretty much improvised, it worked out well. So here it is.

Ingredients

• 1 round steak
• 2 cups beef stock (or vegetable stock, or water if you’re caught short)
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 teaspoon five spice powder
• .25 cup chopped shallots
• 1 tablespoon chopped lemon grass stem
• 1 tablespoon chopped galangal root
• 2 cups frozen veggies
• 1 tablespoon Xo sauce
• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 3 birdseye chillies, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 4 tablespoons peanut oil
• Rice noodles

Method

This is a very quick dish too assemble - all you have to do is cut the beef into rectangular slabs and pop them in the freezer about three hours ahead of time.

So - take the round steak and cut it into rectangles, removing fat and connecting tissue. You are going to slice it thinly across the grain, so you want each piece no more than 4 cm wide. Lay them flat in one layer in a plastic bag and put in the freezer for three hours. You are aiming at firm, but not hard. This will enable you to slice the beef more thinly.

Once the beef is the right consistency, slice it thinly across the grain and marinate in lemon and five spice powder.

Sauté lemongrass, galangal, garlic, chilli and shallots on low-medium heat for about 10 minutes. Stir in Xo sauce.

In a new saucepan, put on water to boil.

In the soup pan, add stock, and bring to boil. Add soy sauce to taste.

Zap veggies in the microwave.

Add noodles to the boiling water. Toss sliced beef and juices into the soup pan. Beef will cook almost immediately. Add the veggies. And you are done.

Once the noodles are tender, drain, divide into bowls, and ladle over with soup.

Happy soup

Lately I’ve been trying to perfect a roast chicken meal based on Heston Blumenthal’s method of very slow, followed by very fast. So far, so good - but not yet ready for its Bachelor Food debut.

As I write this, the chicken is brining ahead of picking up my boys for an atheist Good Friday dinner.

While I’ve been experimenting, I’ve had lots of leftover chicken to make use of. And lots of beautiful stock to cook with!

I can tell I’m making progress with the roast chicken, because the last school morning the boys were with me, after breakfast, they smelled the chicken out of the fridge in the kitchen and lined up at my shoulder saying - can I have a slice now? - as I carved for their sandwiches.

But back to the soup…

Of the Chinese staples it’s the breakfast stuff I like the most. A Chinese omelette is hard to beat. Even better is the chicken and corn soup.

My bachelor food rebrands for chicken lately have been laksa, tom kha gai - and this one. So simple. And guaranteed to make you smile.

This is a bachelor food version - meaning it is more a main meal rather than an entrée or breakfast. So noodles and sliced veggies make their appearance. The dried and fresh chillies can easily be omitted if you or your kids don’t like it hot.

Chicken and corn soup

Serves two

Ingredients

• .5 chicken breast already roasted, and shredded
• 2 cups strained chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon chopped ginger
• 2 dried chillies
• 1 teaspoon corn flour
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• .5 cup sliced mushrooms
• .25 cup sliced cherry tomatoes
• .25 cup sliced carrots
• 1 small can creamed corn (310 grams)
• 2 birds eye (or similar) chillies, sliced
• 2 egg whites, beaten
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons light soy sauce
• Garnish with drizzle of 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce, some sliced shallots
• Handful of rice noodles

Method

Dissolve cornflour in water.

In a deep saucepan, sauté ginger and dried chilli until ginger softens. Then add carrots, sauté for 5 minutes, then and mushrooms for another 5.

Cook noodles in plenty of boiling water until soft, but not mushy. Err on the side of firmness, because you will be adding it to the hot soup, where it will cook further.

Add stock and raise heat to highest. Add tomatoes, creamed corn and shredded chicken. Add sesame oil and light soy.

Once the soup comes to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, and stir in the cornflour mixture (you will probably need to give the cornflour a last stir to that the mixture is even). The soup will thicken after a couple of minutes.

Then drizzle in the beaten egg whites. They will form lovely white strings through the soup.

Serve into noodles into each bowl, add enough soup to almost cover. Garnish with shallots and a drizzle of dark soy.

Seafood double

Well, it’s been a long time between blog entries!

Over the summer, smashing England 5–0, and trying to learn and teach my kids to fish and boat, took my full bachelor attention!

This photo shows why I deserve your forgiveness!

Now I have two fab recipes - one for a successful catch, and one for when you haven’t been successful, but still feel like seafood - but are too ashamed just to buy that fish you failed to catch.

So: Baked bream, and steamed mussels.

Baked bream, lemon and potato

I once saw Jamie Oliver on TV recommend barbecuing a whole fish, with its cavity absolutely stuffed with basil and other fragrant herbs. Nooo!

Most fish, especially white-fleshed fish, have delicate flavours that you absolutely do not want to overpower. This recipe balances the light and wholesome flavour of fresh-caught bream, with lemon, tomato and herbs (including basil), with thinly sliced potatoes to soak up the juices and get all crispy on the outside too!

This is a simple recipe that requires just one pan. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• Two whole bream fresh from Cowan Creek, caught by your children!
• Two potatoes thinly sliced
• Two tomatoes thinly sliced
• Two lemons thinly sliced
• Juice of another lemon
• Two tablespoons chopped herb (basil and parsley in this case)
• Half cup dry white wine
• Olive oil
• Pepper

Method

Preheat oven to 200º

Scale and clean fish, and make two diagonal slits on each side (see photo) Rub the chopped herbs into the slits you’ve made in the fish, along with some of the lemon juice.

Place everything in an oven-proof dish, with the fish last. Cover with a lid or foil, and place in the oven for 20 minutes.

Uncover and return to oven for another 20 minutes for the liquid to intensify and potatoes to crisp up at the edges.

Serve on a bed of rice.

Steamed mussels

This one I made last Friday for my boys for dinner, and provided a very tasty soup lunch the following day. Best eaten with crusty slices of baguette. I prefer local black mussels to the green ones imported from NZ - but that is your call.

Ingredients

• 1.5 kilo black mussels
• 1 cup all purpose tomato salsa
• .5 cup dry white wine
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 red onion finely chopped
• 1 tomato roughy chopped
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsely
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed

Method

Some dishes can handle/demand more garlic than others, which is why I put no garlic in my all purpose tomato salsa. And in any case, garlic is so much punchier fresh.

Rinse in cold water, and de-beard the the mussels.

Place all other ingredients (except the chopped onion and parsley) in a deep sauce pan.

Bring to boil, stirring occasionally.

Add mussels, onion and parsley.

Bring to boil again drop the heart, cover, and simmer for 5–10 minutes.

Done!

Serve in deep bowls with bread on the side.

For this recipe, I sometimes toss in sliced beans and julienne carrots, or steam up some rice to fill it out. Tossing in even 4 whole prawns also gives the flavour an extra dimension.

Bachelor stockings!

There is something about the very small effort over a very long time when making stock that just works!

With my under–9 football team’s game rained out (go the mighty Wanderers!) - and a rainy weekend ahead of me - I took the opportunity to go to my local butcher and spend a couple of bucks on bones. I already have three chickens worth of backs and wingtips in the freezer. So: Saturday is beef stock; Sunday is chicken stock.

For beef stock, the best bones to choose are marrow and chuck bones - the leg and the neck.

My meal plans for the beef stock I’m making today are: slow-cooked rendang danging (Indonesian beef curry), slow-cooked osso bucco with citrus and, for when my children come back from a holiday with their mother, spaghetti bolognese. I’ll have enough for another two meals at least, but don’t want to give myself a headache from thinking too far ahead!

For this recipe, which yields 2 litres of stock, you’ll need an 7 to 8 litre stockpot.

Recipe - brown beef stock

Ingredients

• 2 kilogram beef bones
• .25 cup olive oil
• 2 carrots
• 2 onions
• 2 stick celery
• 2 portabella mushrooms
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 4 litres water
• 5 black peppercorns (lightly crushed)
• 2 bay leafs
• 2 sprigs oregano

Method

1. Have your butcher cut the marrow and chuck bones into pieces. At home, remove any excess fat
2. Preheat oven 200°C (fan-forced) and place bones in a large baking tray, drizzle with olive oil. Roast for 15 minutes. Turn, then roast another 15 minutes
3. While the bones are browning, chop vegetables into chunky pieces
4. Heat for litres of water in a stock pot
5. When bones are done, remove them to the stock pot and add some water to the roasting pan to deglaze. Add bay leafs, oregano sprigs and pepper corns
6. Place chopped vegetables into the pan and return to oven. Cook for a further 15 minutes
7. Place vegetables into the stock pot and bring to boil for about 10 minutes. Reduce to simmer a slow boil - you need more of a boil than a simmer to make sure you extract all the marrow and other goodness from the bones
8. Over the next few hours, come back every 30 minutes or so to enjoy the aroma, and to skim the froth can scum that rises to the top. A slow boil for 4 hours is best, or a little higher for 2 is also ok.
9. When you’re ready, remove the big bits from the stock pot with tongs
10. Skim and strain through a muslin lined sieve into a clean container, before dividing, stir to get an even consistency at the end
11. Cool quickly by dividing stock into small containers - about 2 cups is good, and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.
12. Remove layer of fat, under which you will have fantastic, jelly consistency, super-tasty beef stock!Reseal
13. Label and date stock and freeze for up to 3 months