This rather unappealing looking grey bowlful turned out to be a really delicious soup!
It was inspired by a late afternoon trip to our local Tesco. Actually we set off to go to Waitrose, now that we're allowed to go a little further than local. Unfortunately, as the Waitrose stores at Ashbourne and Leek have been closed for good, our nearest remaining are all quite a distance away at either Buxton, Sheffield or Newark. Sheffield is the nearest of those but the journey there is nowhere near as pretty as to the other two. A trip to the supermarket definitely qualifies as a run out!
We opted for Newark but when we got there found a long line of hapless shoppers queuing up outside with their trolleys. So we took an executive decision to turn around and come home - but via Tesco because we needed some shopping! We have suspended our "click and collect" shopping activity in favour of actual shopping for a while, just to see how we get on. The newfound confidence since having our first vaccination dose.
There were a lot of veg in the reduced bin and I swooped on a huge pack of mushrooms and one of baby leeks. I already had an unused bulb (is that the right word) of celeriac in the fridge so a recipe began to formulate in my mind.
One thing I have learned about the soup maker is that you need strong flavours and some of the recipes I normally use seem to produce quite a bland soup. I have needed a bit more seasoning or herbs added to pep them up and have resorted to using more stock cubes/powder/pots, or, frying some of the ingredients before they go in. That's no great hardship because if I chop the leeks or onions and put them in the frying pan with some oil to cook while I chop the other ingredients, it takes no longer to prepare than usual and the whole thing is still ready in half an hour or so. (As it happened I didn't fry the leeks for this one and it was yummy.)
Ingredients
a large chunk of celeriac
a pack of baby leeks (or one large leek)
four very large mushrooms
1 medium potato
1 Tesco garlic and thyme stock pot
1 tablespoon of olive oil
a generous splash of dry sherry
Method
Prepare the veg by washing, peeling and chopping into cubes or slicing, as appropriate. Prepare enough to fill the soup maker to somewhere between the min and max lines.
Add the stock pot, olive oil and water up to almost the max line and cook on "smooth".
When cooked, stir in the sherry and salt & pepper to taste.
Makes four good servings.
On a cold spring evening, this is just an ideal soup for me. Celeriac has become one of my favourite vegetables and just perfect for soup. I admit that there is an issue with the colour of celeriac soup and an even trickier issue with the colour of mushroom soup. Personally, I think the colour is right for a cold season.
ReplyDeletePhil, a swirl of cream and sprinkling of chopped parsley would have dressed it up but it was an excellent "kitchen soup" without!
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