Sovay's Profile

From: Northern England,

Joined: October 7th, 2012

About me: I've embarked on a mission to cook something new from every cookery book I own - currently 260 - and am planning to use my account here to keep track (thanks to rfb from Librarything for tipping me off to the existence of this site). I've made a couple of rules for myself: to cook the recipe as given, with no substitution or variation unless suggested by the author; and to try to pick a genuinely new dish from each book - in other words, as I've cooked many Leek and Potato Soups in my time, I don't get to count Leek and Potato Soup as a new dish just because I haven't used this specific recipe before (unless it has really significant differences from the usual versions).

Hodge Podge from Mrs Beeton's Cookery Book

Beef and vegetable soup with beer - turned out disappointingly bland. The recipe had no seasoning other than salt and pepper - having tried it, I added a stock cube and some Worcester sauce, which helped... read more >

recipe reviews (241)
book reviews (5)
useful review votes (43)

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Sovay's Reviews

3 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 3Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

A Celebration of Soup: With Classic Recipes from Around the World (Cookery Library)

By Lindsey Bareham
Penguin Books Ltd - 2001

I've made the book version of this a few times (though served it hot - can't come to terms with cold soup) and it's a good first course. This time I made a few adjustments - added a handful of red lentils to give a bit more body, used a tin of coconut milk, and instead of the curry powder I used:

1/2 tbs panch phoran, roasted and ground
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp chilli flakes

Also juice of 1 lemon.

useful (0)  

It's surprising how often I find myself with a parsnip in the veg rack, considering how much I dislike them. Up to now I've hidden them in a mixed root vegetable soup, but this time I decided to try Jane Grigson's recipe for Parsnip Soup That Doesn't Taste Like Parsnip, and was delighted to find that it really doesn't taste like parsnip! I'll certainly make it again, when I shall probably: omit the flour; omit the cream unless I happen to have some in anyway; add lemon juice (everything's better with lemon); and cook the potato in larger chunks that I can fish out and sieve or mash (I processed the potato with the rest of the veg this time which made the texture a bit iffy).

eta - I made a second batch with amendments and found that: texture was much better with sieved potato - it's more work but the basic method is so quick that this didn't bother me; lemon juice (about half a small lemon) was an improvement; and I didn't miss the flour but did miss the cream (though probably not enough to buy it specially).

useful (1)  

I used a butternut squash, as I've never encountered a pumpkin that wasn't watery and tasteless, and the result was perfectly pleasant but nothing special. I probably won't make it again but if I did I'd reduce the sage and increase the fennel, or possibly reinforce it with fennel seed. I also thought it needed lemon juice, but then I think everything needs lemon juice.

The best part was the crispy squash seeds - I fried mine instead of roasting (you can tell it's a restaurant recipe when you're supposed to switch on a hot oven just for a handful of seeds).

useful (0)