There comes a time in every girl's life when she is ready to make soup. Until now, my idea of making soup has encompassed two options - tearing open a small packet and emptying it into a mug; or opening a carton and pouring it into a saucepan. If truth be told, I always felt slightly smug about the second option, which I thought showed a certain culinary flair - no more oxtail Cup-a-Soup for me, oh no, I only ate carrot and coriander or broccoli and cheddar affairs that I had not only heated but also stirred myself.
Soup construction is one of the few culinary operations I haven't tackled (along with cheese souffles, which get very bad PR cooking-wise, and bread sauce, which is downright unnecessary).
There is something about soup that just shouts "wholesome", sings "nutritious" and croons "comfort", all in one short syllable. This is its huge attraction; recently, I realised it was make write the will, such was the evilness of a bout of flu. But with several shawls draped over my head, an unfeasibly large number of pillows stacked behind my neck and some of my mother's soup dribbling down my chin, I finally admitted that perhaps I wasn't going to die just yet. Soup is comfort food taken to the nth degree and when the weather is cold and you've got a cold, anything else just seems too, well, cold.
Making soup, however, is a whole different kettle of fish. Once you start making soup you accept that you've reached a new plateau of maturity in your life, from whence there is no return.
Having decided there was room in my existence for the manufacture of soup, life suddenly took on a whole new complexity. Stock became an issue - did I really have enough time and commitment to have a stock pot? I had a feeling chicken's feet and celery were involved somewhere along the line. Then there was the liquidising question - to blend or not to blend? And foodie fashion - can you put red chard into a soup?
It was time to seek professional advice. Leylie Hayes is the chef/ manager of the Powerscourt Terrace Restaurant in Powerscourt, Enniskerry, and has been making soup (among other things) for the Avoca Handweavers group for nine years now. Immensely capable and not the slightest bit intimidating, she was the perfect person to initiate me in the rites of soup-making.
"One, one, three," said Leylie. "All you have to remember to make soup is one, one, three." This sounded rather like a football formation but nice and simple at the same time and as it turned out, nice and simple it is. The base for any vegetable soup, from the exoticism of curried parsnip and apple to the homeliness of potato and leek, is one cup of onions, one cup of potato and three of your vegetable of choice. The potato is for thickening rather than flavouring - Leylie doesn't use any flour in Avoca soups (except in the mushroom) to avoid trouble for coeliacs and wheat-intolerant customers. By the way, if you're as ignorant of these things as I am, a cup is literally a cup that you drink beverages out of and not a mysterious measure that somebody forgot to tell us about at birth.
Leylie briskly dispelled a lot of my preconceptions: "Soup can be really quick to make. If you cut your veggies up small you can have a pot of soup ready in 20 minutes." Twenty minutes? I had been thinking I'd have to make a long-term commitment to soup-making; 20 minutes sounded more like a fling and I can't tell you how relieved I was.
We kicked off by making two soups simultaneously - something I wouldn't recommend you try at home unless you have a Leylie present. Into two big sauce pans, we chucked lumps of butter. The vegetable soup-pot was then dosed with chopped onions, closely followed by chopped potatoes (in pieces about as big as half a Marietta biscuit, if you like to know these things) while the more exotic, Thai-style soup was sprinkled with lemongrass, garlic, ginger, turmeric and ground coriander. Spices, Leylie explained, need to be fried in order to warm them to release their flavour.
With some vegetable soups, all the ingredients are added at the beginning, but with green-vegetable soups, you cook the base first and add the vegetables five minutes before the end or else you'll end up with an overdone sludge. As we were making courgette soup, we made the base first, adding a big gloop of chicken stock to the onions and spuds and allowing it to simmer away until the potato was tender and the onions opaque. When I confided my stock worries to Leylie she answered robustly that not having stock should not stop you making soup as vegetable bouillon cubes were perfectly adequate. However, she advises that you use a smaller ratio of stock cube to water than is recommended on the packet, to dilute the very high salt content.
Meanwhile, the Thai green bean soup-pot was given all the rest of its ingredients (bar the bean sprouts, which go in at the last minute), and became a beautiful, yellow and green creation. Interestingly, Leylie added the stalks of the fresh coriander at this point, explaining that most of the flavour is in the stalks while the leaves should just be added at the last minute as they lose their pungency.
I was put on courgette-chopping detail and given a quick lesson on how to cut vegetables, (vital if you're going into the soup business). Holding the vegetable with your knuckles, Leylie explained, means that if you get a little over-enthusiastic, you only skin your knuckles rather than removing part of your hand.
The third soup, a gloriously hearty, spicy, tomatoey number, was only created by Leylie the day before and was something in the nature of an experiment. "It has all the flavours I like - really an adaptation of a French peasant soup using chorizo and peppers instead of bacon and potatoes. Chefs usually make dishes out of things they like to eat themselves." It's the kind of soup you could serve in a bread bowl - something Leylie saw in England and the US. Simply scoop out the bready part of a really crusty roll such as a cobb, pour the soup in and eat the whole lot. This one starts off with olive oil instead of butter, by the way, which is because it's a tomato-based soup rather than a creamy soup. After adding a glorious amount of ingredients including chunks of pepper, harissa (a chilli paste added to lots of Middle Eastern dishes), passata (you can use tinned tomatoes instead), stock, white wine, beans and chorizo, there was an impressive three pots of soup bubbling away on the hob. Tasting time and the soups, our soups, my soups were simply sublime. I felt I had truly arrived at the portals of sophistication; I made a mental note to inquire about sky-diving lessons. After all, I am now a person who can make soup.
Powerscourt Courgette and Almond Soup
1 1/2 ozs butter
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped, peeled onion
3 cups courgettes, finely chopped
1 pint vegetable stock
1 oz ground almonds
4 fl ozs cream
4 fl ozs milk
Salt and pepper
Melt butter, add onions and potato and sweat on a very low heat for five minutes. Add the stock, increase heat and allow to simmer until base is completely cooked.
Add the courgettes and increase heat. As soon as the courgettes are cooked, remove saucepan from the heat and add the almonds and creamy milk. Whizz up with a blender until smooth, check seasoning and serve topped with a few toasted flaked almonds and cream.
Avoca Green Bean and Coconut Cream Soup
(Serves four)
1 medium carrot
30 g butter
2 teaspoons chopped, fresh, lemon grass
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 fresh green chillies, chopped
2 green shallots, chopped
1/2 cup chopped green beans
2 400 ml cans coconut cream
1/2 large vegetable stock cube, crumbled
2 cups (125g) bean sprouts
2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
Cut carrot into fine strips. Melt butter in large saucepan, add lemon grass, garlic and ginger. Stir over medium heat for two minutes. Add turmeric and ground coriander, stir over heat for further 1 minute. Add carrots, chillies, shallots, beans, coconut cream and stock cube, mix well. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, simmer, uncovered for five minutes. Stir in bean sprouts and fresh coriander.
Prepare this soup close to serving time. This recipe is not suitable for freezing or the microwave.
Leylie's Spicy Chorizo and Bean Soup
1 large onion, finely chopped
5 cloves garlic, crushed
4 fl oz olive oil
1 teaspoon harissa
3 mixed peppers, cubed
4 ozs cooked beans (canneloni, pinto or butterbeans)
8 ozs chopped chorizo sausage
5 fl oz white wine
30 fl oz chicken stock
500 grammes passata
3 ozs pasta shells (optional)
Sweat onion and garlic in olive oil for five minutes. Add peppers and harissa and cook for further 23 minutes. Next add chorizo and white wine and allow wine to evaporate off, then add the passata and chicken stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Throw in the pasta shapes and simmer for 10 minutes. Finally, add your beans and allow to warm through. Garnish with pamresan shavings and chopped basil leaves. Serve in a bread bowl.