Vichysoisse and Gazpacho.
Cold Soups centre stage.
Joy of Soup
Hail and welcome!
Thank you all for your kind words and encouragement over the past few weeks. This week is again a non political posting. I need time to think and heal from all the dross that fills the airwaves, for at least another week!
What better healing is there than a nutritious and delicious meal? Taking the time to select and choose the best ingredients. Then using skill to slice, dice, peel, grate, chop all of which are just so visceral and tactile that it does something to my consciousness. I feel better about myself, the world.
I have a purpose with a very real outcome. It is a place to build back from psychologically.
Searing meat in a pan; filling a hotpot with vegetables and fragrant stock; hearing and watching the satisfying bubbling of a casserole on a slow rolling simmer; the cracking of fat under heat and the sizzling of peppers as they first hit the sides in a wok. That unmistakable sight and sound of bacon strips under a grill.
Or the aroma that fills a kitchen and house when you bake bread. Obviously aroma could be a repeating burden if you like Kippers! Which funnily enough, I do!
When a person tries to follow intermediate fasting, as I try also, it is very important to get that first meal that breaks the fast, right. Nutritious and easily digested are key as you enter your eating period. My schedule is mainly a 16/8. A favourite of mine as I break the fast are simple poached eggs on toast. Mug of Tea. I feel satisfied and I know the meal has lots of goodness.
Also a really good choice and another one of my go to favourites is soup. I actually adore soup. It has a bad reputation and I was trying to figure out why?
Firstly the supermarket packets are cheap but essentially unfulfilling. Soups are supposed to be filling! Satisfying! Able to take you to the next mealtime! Emptying a packet of dried chemically enhanced powder into a bowl of water and expecting magic, is probably, a forlorn hope.
The famous branded tinned soups are better and I do use them but again I find them just filled with too much unnecessary stuff and sugar. Thirdly are the supermarket carton brands like Covent Garden. So called fresh soups. They have a limited shelf life. These are the best of these three options.
I actually enjoy Covent Garden Spiced Butternut Squash soup in those blustery, wind chapping days of autumn. However the price differential from the packet to the carton is large in relative terms.
I keep some tinned soup in my cupboard ordinarily. A good stand by. I buy the fresh cartons on occasions when you get the offers (2 for one etc). Nice way to stock up a freezer with a few handy cartons for those winter nights.
The best way to feed you and your family a delicious soup however, is to make one yourself. Indeed learn to have 3 or 4 handy ones in your mind and experience. Incidentally living in an apartment (on the 23rd Floor) in Bahrain it is clear that cooking for yourself is assumed to be the exception, not the rule.
We live in an age were food is ordered and delivered so easily that the need for a functional kitchen, is almost an after thought. My apartment has a two ring hob. That is it. No oven. No plugs. I have added those things for myself in limited space! The thinking seems to have been that if you live in an apartment like this the most you would choose to do is boil a kettle, make toast in a toaster and probably have a microwave dinner or a Talabat ( Arabian Just Eat equivalent) delivery.
Here is the thing about that. It is easy to do. It is almost a conspiracy to prevent you cooking in any meaningful way. Just instead; be in the 21st century and go the fridge for your chilled made meal or pop a ready made meal from the freezer into the microwave. Press the button. Wait for the ding. Eat at the screen of your choice!
All the healing benefits mentioned above are lost. Syphoned off to some faceless corporate cook ‘somewhere’ else. Unseen. Unknown. Unloved. Unconnected to you in any way except by an app. Now I begin to realise just how my Mother loved me and my brothers and sister and gave us the gift of service.
So here are the two soups that I am craving this week. A classic French soup and a delicious Spanish soup. Both good all year round but as Summer begins to literally bake me here in Bahrain, these soups come into their own!
Yet they are both served cold. Cold Soups are hero’s in these summer months!
Vichyssoise
Now in the winter months there are few hot soups as filling and satisfying as leek and potato soup. Add some bacon in the cooking process or diced cooked chicken at the end for variation. Sorted!
Vichyssoise however, is a cold soup. It too is simply delicious. Easy to make. A cinch to keep an extra batch for a day or two after in the fridge. Here is the thing that really sells it me: it works as a cold soup. It is creamy and satisfying with just a hint of that almost onion edge of leaks. It is smooth. Packed full of comfort on a hot day!
Topped with chopped fresh chives and served with a baguette sliced on the slant in thin slices….perfect. A glass of dry white wine actually complementing very well. Followed by a summery fruits meringue. Perfect lunch.
Gazpacho
I remember the first time I had Gazpacho. It was in Eastbourne in a newly renovated Victorian Warehouse or perhaps an old Machinery workshop kind of place. History poured into its wrought iron ribs and neat rows of brick and mortar. Next to, just behind, the mainline Eastbourne train station.
It had recently (then…some 35 years ago) been turned into units for florists and card makers and crafts people to set up their own business and of course a cafe or two. I walked through last summer (2024) just to reminisce as I waited for a train to Polegate on my way to walk to the Long Man Of Wilmington.
In that Cafe on a summers day with my first wife Janine, we had Gazpacho for the first time. It was stunning! The tomatoes were a deep red and had that balance of tartness and aromatic sweetness that is in fact, so hard to find! Tomatoes today are everywhere…..but seem bland and flavourless. Here they are the key to a good Gazpacho. Farmers market tomatoes probably the best bet. Or grow your own with all that fresh tomato vine smell. Turn all the green ones into Chutney in the autumn. Your the winner!
This is an easy soup to prepare for. One liquidiser required and your ingredients prepped! A few hours chill time in fridge….serve!
Gazpacho I like with garlic and parsley croutons. Toasted Focaccia bread and a wee salad of rocket leaves and dark kalamata olives with a lemon dressing. The Mediterranean: from Spain to Italy to Greece on your table!
Now i’m feeling better about myself and the world! Remembering that making your own food is cheaper, healthier and gives benefits to the mind as well as the body!
Have a blessed week everyone!
Syre Byrd