I’ve made this recipe for “Irish Potato Soup with Bacon and Vegetables” before, and it was great, but the one I made last night possessed some serious nom.
It all started with a R9.99 soup pack from the Fruit & Veg. For those not in the know, this is a styrofoam package containing one onion, one potato, two carrots, one leek, one turnip, one tomato, and a whole bunch of parsley and celery. I think they make quite a good profit on it, but… it’s convenient.
Dragged out my recipe file, found this recipe, made it my way (I hate dirtying more than one pot, thence the sequence).
Fry half a packet of bacon in a black pot until very crispy. And I mean very. Remove bacon.
Fry one diced onion and one leek, cut lengthwise and sliced, in bacon fat. Add some white wine (I used italian bubbly, because it’s too sweet to drink and I didn’t want to waste it) to deglaze the pot. Add a heaped teaspoon “spicy” curry powder. Wait for wine to cook away, remove mix from pot.
Fry about 8 potatoes, diced, two carrots, sliced, and one turnip, diced.
Now this is where the magic started. Last Christmas, I brined a turkey in apple vinegar. This was not that great a success at the time, although the vinegary meat was damngood on sandwiches. I (as always) cooked stock using the leftover bits, and I still had about 500ml of this stock left over. That went into the soup.
I also collect vegetable leftovers into a container, cook stock now and then. I used about 200ml of my last batch of vegetable stock.
And then I just simmered all of this for around an hour, mushing some of it with a potato masher about three quarters through the process.
When I tasted this it was a bit thin, so I added five drops of fish sauce (!) and some garlic salt.
Then the onions went back in, I added 2/3 of a container of cream (left over from a previous recipe) and of course the bacon went in when serving. Didn’t bother with the nutmeg or spring onions.
Some serious nomming of soup and garlic ciabbatas (also from Fruit & Veg) ensued.
Today, I’m poaching a chicken… hafta use the left-over celery.
Well, Sir, when are you going to publish your own “signature” Retro recipe book? Your blog makes me hungry no problem, and I’ve just eaten a well-nourishing, proper meal…!!! And this is probably the time for this food philistine to admit that I’ve never done the home-made stock thing. More’s the pity on yours charmingly!