friederike's Reviews
3 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 3Sort by: Title 
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Soepkalender
By Anya van der Wetering
Uitgeverij Snor - 2011
I liked it; DH complained that the recipes used too much Roux, making the soup very heavy. Also, and I have to admint he is right here, it tasted slightly sour, which I think it due to the mustard; we had added an extra tablespoon of mustard to make the flavour more pronounced, but maybe we shouldn't have done that.
Other than that, we decided to fry the leeks instead of adding them raw, used slightly less flour, and skipped cooking the soup for ten minutes - it seemed thick enough.
As you're not adding an ingredient that is a very obvious flavour-giving main ingredient, remember to use a good quality stock, you will notice the difference. Also don't add too much salt until you have added the bacon.
As all of the recipes so far, this one was simple, and very easy to prepare. I think it has potential to develop into a refined soup if you tweak it here and there - less roux, perhaps more cream, less leeks and bacon, and possibly replace some mustard with mustard powder?
Fun fact:
The title is a slightly silly pun on a Dutch expression: "to know where Abraham gets/buys mustard" (weten waar Abraham de mosterd haalt) is a common way of saying that that person is an expert in a specific area.
useful (0)
I'll admit I took a gamble with this soup, and I lost. I mainly chose this soup because I was curious how chicory would taste as a soup, and I guess 'curious' is also the best description I can find for the result.
The main problem is that it is bitter, and little else; where in other recipes you add honey to add some sweetness, or you braise it to neutralize the bitterness, there is nothing to counteract it in this recipe. You might try to save it by braising it instead of cooking, but it might be slightly bitter even then, and I'm not sure you really want to add sugar or honey to this dish...
Well, it was worth a gamble...
useful (1)
Apparently, generations of Germans are (or were) suffering from a rutabaga-trauma, as for many years during and after World War II, there was nothing else to eat but a very basic form of rutabaga stew (rutabaga cooked with nothing but water). Even if you smell a more refined soup like this one, you instantly understand why - the smell isn't very pleasing.
It tastes a lot better, though, slightly reminiscent of cabbage, though it's very hard to pinpoint the specific flavour of the rutabaga amidst the other ingredients - I guess rutabaga just doesn't have a very strong flavour in itself. The dish as such is very nice, very simple and down to earth, a typical winter soup, and at 1 euro per kilo, it's a bargain as well.
useful (2)