Celery Soup

I don't know about you, but I'm not a huge fan of celery. Raw it supposedly has 'negative calories' taking more calories to consume than it provides, unfortunately it is also tough, fibrous and relatively taste free. When cooked, it often just filler, providing nothing more than bulk to dishes that work quite happily without it. This is one of the few dishes which concentrates the flavour of the celery and allows it stand alone.

To Serve 4 generously.

Soup

Hearty splash of olive oil

4 Garlic Cloves, crushed

2 Red Onions , roughly chopped
600g Celery (approx. 2 heads), roughly chopped
750ml Hot Chicken Stock

Ground Salt & Pepper

In a large saucepan or stockpot, heat the oil over a low heat, add the garlic, onion & celery, then cook for about five minutes, until the celery softens, stirring to prevent it colouring. Add the chicken stock, bring to the boil and allow to simmer for 10-12 minutes. Use a wand or transfer the soup to a blender and liquidise. Return the soup the pot, bring back to the boil and season to your taste. At this point your soup is ready to eat, but if you want something a little more refined and more visually appealing, you can do the following;

Finish

4 tbsp of Sour Cream

4 tbsp Walnuts, quartered

Lightly fry the walnuts in butter (until they are just going brown), pour the soup into a bowl, top with walnuts & drizzle with sour cream.

Thanks to the Grow Wild Organic Box Scheme for repeatedly forcing me to come up with something to do with celery and to my wife for putting up with my numerous poor attempts to do something interesting with it.

Pea & Ham Hock Soup

The ham hock is a brilliant cut of meat for soups because it is packed with flavour, cheap as chips and the longer you cook it the better it gets (it one of those borderline indestructible cuts). It's best thought of as an extreme shank; lots of fat skin, tendon & bone. That said, it does have some glorious little nuggets of meat that can be stripped out and they form an important part of this recipe.

The whole thing is divided into 3 steps; stock, soup & finish. The finish is entirely optional, but adds a nice polish if you are having people over.

To serve 8 generously.

Stock
1 Onion, cut in half
1 Carrot, cut in half
1 Celery stick, cut in half
1 Leek (white part only), cut in half
2 Garlic cloves, crushed
1 Bay leaf
4-6 sprigs of thyme & mint
4 Black peppercorns

1 Ham hock
2.5 Litres water

Good splash of Worcestershire sauce.

Whack all your ingredients into your stockpot or a large heavy saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. At this point skim any scum from the surface, reduce the heat and simmer gently, uncovered, for two hours. You'll need to skim the surface every half hour or so to get a nice clear, unfatty stock. After two hours take it off the heat & leave it to cool. Once it has cooled, remove the ham hock and put it to one side, pour the stock through a fine sieve into a large bowl. Pick out the bay leaf & use a pestle or spoon to mash the now very soft veg through into the stock. Your stock is now complete & you can freeze it as is, use a portion to make gravy or just continue on the soup below.

Soup
50g Butter
200g Shallots, sliced
75g Pancetta or streaky bacon, chopped
1 Garlic clove, crushed
500g Frozen peas or dried peas which have been soaked and blanched
Ground salt & pepper

After a quick rinse, melt the butter in the same pan you used for the stock, add the sliced shallots, pancetta and garlic. Sweat for 10-15 minutes until the shallots are tender, stirring regularly to stop them colouring. Add the stock, bring it to the boil and remove any scum from the top. Add the peas and return to the boil until the peas are just cooked. Remove from the heat and either use a wand or a couple of batches in the liquidizer. Strip the meat from the hock, discarding the skin, fat, bones & tendons, leaving you with just the flaky meat; add this to soup. Bring back to the boil, taste and correct the seasoning. If the soup is too thick, add a little water until the desired consistency is achieved. As I said above you can serve it at this point, but for a luxurious touch, see below.

Finishing Touch (amounts per person)
1/2 rasher of smoked bacon, cut into lardons (1cm dice)
30g frozen peas

Fry the smoked bacon cubes in a hot pan until crisp. Cook the frozen peas in boiling salted water until tender, then drain. Pop the peas in the bottom of each bowl, pour the soup on top, then scatter over the bacon and drizzle over a little of the bacon fat from the pan.

I'd like to give credit to Heston Blumenthal for the bones of the recipe and the quantities which should serve 6-8 people, my father for inspiring me too play with it with his far more rustic version and my wife for trying the multiple versions as I experimented and de-Hestoned it a bit (I just don't have enough pans).