Spiralizer Week: Day Four: Ginger Egg Drop Soup

This was the evening of another exercise class and I knew that the very simple soup we had in mind was just not going to cut it. So I beefed it up with some extra ingredients, while keeping the rest mostly the same. I was really unsure about adding vinegar to a soup, but it worked *really* well. In fact I can't quite believe how smooth and tasty this dish was. Of course it helped that I had made a really great chicken stock with the chicken carcass I had left from jointing a chicken earlier in the week. I think that is crucial for any non-puréed soup. The photo really doesn't do this soup justice!

Ingredients

• a thumb of ginger, peeled and minced
  
• 3 tbsp dried wakame
• 4-5 spring onions, shredded
• 1/3 tsp chilli flakes
• 4 tsp sherry or apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 3 cups really good chicken stock
• 2 large eggs, gently beaten
• two chicken thighs or a chicken breast, cooked, shredded
• two grilled corn-on-the-cobs, kernels cut
• 1 zucchini, spiralized into thin noodles

Fry the ginger gently until golden and beginning to crisp, then add the wakame, spring onions, chilli flakes, vinegar, soy sauce and chicken stock. Let it come to a simmer and cook for a few minutes, then add in the eggs, stirring as they cook. Add in the shredded chicken, corn kernels, and zucchini, and bring back up to temperature. Serve!

Gazpacho

I was first served gazpacho by my family in Provence, a couple of years ago when I visited after a conference. Naturally it was achingly hot outside, which is the perfect time, perhaps the only time, for cold soup. But this gazpacho is far tastier than that sounds! I could not believe how refreshing and zingy it was, and now I've finally replicated it down under, I'm looking forward to whizzing it up whenever I need a light and refreshing lunch.

Ingredients

• 500g fresh tomatoes
• half a cucumber
• a red pepper
• a slice of bread, preferably stale
• a clove of garlic
• 1tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 50ml wine vinegar
• 50ml olive oil
• a fresh chilli (optional)
• basil leaves, Tabasco, pepper, olive oil to serve

Cut off the stem bits of the tomato, pepper, chilli if using, and skin and crush the garlic. Chuck everything in a liquidiser and pulse until well blended. Serve in little glasses with little spoons, topped with basil leaves, and with extra olive oil, black pepper and Tabasco on hand to add to taste.

Seafood Chowder

I got back from Boston with a craving for MORE CHOWDER. I really should have a go at making a cob loaf to serve this in, but homemade breadmaker sourdough will have to suffice until the weather is cool enough to switch the oven on. This is also not as heart-attack-inducing as a proper Boston seafood chowder and can be eaten as lunch or dinner without pre-charging the defibrillator. If you want to up the ante, double the flour, reduce the stock to the absolute minimum that covers the vegetables, and top up with double the listed amount of the thickest cream you can find, just before serving. I can never make just enough for two so this (with bread) will do for four people.

Ingredients:

• 1 onion or leek
• 100g lardons OR smoked fish
• 1 medium carrot
• 1 stick celery
• 3 potatoes
• a bay leaf
• 1 tbsp flour
• 750ml litre chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 corn cobs, or a tin of sweet corn
• 500g marinara mix (a mix of white fish, salmon, squid, peeled prawns, and mussels)
• 200ml thickened or double cream
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• a bunch of fresh parsley

Method:
Peel or clean and finely chop the onion or leek. Fry in a deep pan in a little butter or olive oil until translucent and soft. If using the lardons, add at the same time as the onions, so they cook and turn golden. (Don't add smoked fish at this stage!) Meanwhile, dice the carrot, celery and potatoes (no need to peel them). Add the vegetables and the bay leaf to the cooked onions, stir in the flour, then pour over the stock; bring up to a simmer and then allow the vegetables to cook to just past al dente -- about 10-12 minutes. If you like your potato to be falling apart, cook a little longer. Slice the corn off the cob (or drain the tin) and add, along with the marinara mix, and the smoked fish if using. Bring back up to temperature and allow to cook through, a matter of minutes for the fish and the corn. (Be particularly careful not to boil any squid in the marinara mix for more than 30 seconds, or it will go tough!) Once the fish is cooked through, stir in the cream and bring back up to temperature, but do not allow the chowder to boil. Serve in a cob or in bowls, scattered over with finely chopped parsley.

Roast Pumpkin and Pear Soup

I've come down with a cold after working in Melbourne for a week, so need nice bland comfort food to cheer me up. Yesterday the SO made an excellent chicken soup, which I always crave demand the first day I have a cold. Today I needed more soup, and I was inspired by Really Not Wanting to Go Shopping, so Googled what we had in the fridge, and found this recipe. It sounds like a completely bonkers combination, but somehow, it works perfectly! I put the oven on, asked the SO to cut up a huge wedge of pumpkin, then slumped under a duvet while everything roasted. A little work with the blender and, bam,  comfort food.

Ingredients:

• 1/5 large pumpkin -- about 400g
• a pear -- doesn't have to be ripe
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• chicken or vegetable stock
• dukkah -- substitute with toasted, salted sesame or sunflower seeds if you can't get hold of it
• sour cream

Preheat the oven to 220C. Peel and cut the pumpkin into 1-2" chunks. Halve and core the pear. Put the pumpkin and pear in a large roasting dish - preferably with the pear skin-side down with a little room around it, and the pumpkin in a nice big pile. Drizzle the pumpkin with a little vegetable oil and dust the cinnamon over the top of the pears. Roast for 35-40 minutes until the pumpkin is tender right through, and the pear is soft and caramelised. Blend the pumpkin with enough hot stock to make a soup of your desired consistency -- probably about 200ml. Serve the soup topped with dukkah, half a roasted pear, and a generous blob of sour cream.

Hot and Sour Chicken Broth

We spent most of the day playing board games with the Western Australian Boardgames Association, who have an ENORMOUS collection of games and loads of friendly people to play with. Learned three new games: a sailing/trading/collecting game a bit like Bohnanza, a game about trading and selling tea (my favourite! But maybe because I won :) and a game about defeating Cthulu using schoolgirl powers, like a British Buffy.

The upshot for dinner was that we didn't go shopping, and I had to use all my powers of improvisation on the remaining sad vegetables in the fridge to create a decent meal. Fortunately I had also used my power of foresight and left a chicken breast defrosting in the fridge, knowing I'd need some protein after morning Zumba.

Overall this worked pretty well, even the courgette (carefully not overcooked). Not a patch on fresh Chinese greens of course. The heart of cauliflower just needed using up; you could easily sub this for something more tasty, like some broccoli or sugar-snap peas.

Ingredients:

• a thumb of ginger
• a stick of lemongrass
• a handful of coriander stalks
• a couple of bay leaves
• 1 tsp vegetable stock powder
• a chilli (optional)
• juice of half a lemon
• a large carrot
• a heart of cauliflower
• a large courgette
• a chicken breast
• 2 x 75g bundles of dried egg noodles

Cut the ginger in half and slice perpendicular grooves into the flesh, to increase the surface area without breaking the ginger up into small pieces. Simmer with the lemongrass, coriander stalks, bay leaves, stock powder and chilli if using, in around 300ml water, for 20 minutes or until the stock is fragrant.

Meanwhile, peel and dice the carrot and cauliflower. Halve the courgette lengthwise and scoop out the soft seedy interior. Chuck, eat, or feed to the worms. Dice the remaining firm shell of courgette into the same size cubes.

Drain and reserve the stock, discarding the ginger etc. Squeeze in the lemon juice. Fry the carrot in a little vegetable oil, leaving it to sear just a tad. Add the stock and simmer for a couple of minutes. Finely shred or slice the chicken and add with the courgette, cauliflower and noodles. Bring back up to the boil and simmer for a minute or so, until the noodles are soft, the chicken is cooked through and the courgette is barely done. Top up with hot water if  the noodles have absorbed too much. Serve and drizzle over with very dark soy sauce.

Pasta e fagioli

We've been enduring a spot of cold weather recently; I even had to wear trousers when cycling to work for a couple of days! Actually I think I'm just a wimp after getting back from a nice week in Brisbane where it was 21C every day. I felt like something really homely and gorgeous, but not too meaty, after a week eating out. I googled around and found this lovely Italian 'peasant' dish which seemed perfect! There are many different versions around, but I started improvising from one that mostly included ingredients I had. (Sensible.) One thing that the recipes emphasised was that this varies massively region-to-region in Italy and it's ok to be more of a soup, or more of a sauce, or anywhere in between. So here's my take - and I will definitely be making this again as it was superb!

Ingredients:

• a medium onion
• a carrot
• 3 garlic cloves
• 425g tin of tomatoes
• 1 litre of vegetable stock
• 2 dried bay leaves
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 150g tubetti, macaroni or other small soup pasta
• 400g tin of borlotti beans
• grated Parmesan (omit if vegan, obviously!)
• fresh parsley

Finely chop the onion and fry it over a medium heat until translucent (about five minutes). Peel and dice the carrot and add to the pan; peel and crush in the garlic cloves. Toss around and fry for a further minute, until the garlic is fragrant and softened. Pour in the tin of tomatoes, half of the stock, and add the bay leaves and rosemary sprig. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.

Remove a ladleful of the soup and blend with half of the beans (be careful to cool for a minute or so or use a large blender so as not to explode soup everywhere!). Return the paste to the pan along with the pasta and cook for another 10 minutes, until the pasta is soft. Add the last half of the beans to the pan, turn off the heat and allow to warm through. Divide into bowls and top with grated Parmesan and finely chopped parsley.

Sweet Potato, Carrot and Chick Pea Soup

A super-simple meal for Cambridge telecon night, cribbed from this recipe, but with a whole tsp of chilli flakes extra at the start, and leaving the chick peas until right at the end, because cooking them from the tin is totally unnecessary. Topped with  a splob of natural yoghurt, some coriander leaves, and served with a beautiful hearty fresh sourdough from our breadmaker.

Miso Soup with Shimeji Mushrooms

A slightly bulked-up variant on my previous miso soup, as I had a very long day running around getting my Indian visa sorted, suffered a flat tire on my bicycle, and had to catch up on nearly a week's worth of email. Helpful husband locked himself out of the house so I needed to put together something fairly quickly. I attempted to follow a recipe, but substituted every single ingredient. Heh.

Ingredients:

• a small handful of dried shitake mushrooms
• 3 tbsp sesame seeds
• sesame oil
• a sweet potato, daikon, carrot, or parsnip
• 1 tsp dashi or seafood stock powder
• 3 tbsp of miso paste
• a couple of pak choi or bok choi, or other leafy Chinese vegetables
• a block of shimeji or a couple of handfuls of oyster mushrooms
• two spring onions
• finely shredded nori (seaweed)

Pour enough boiling water over the shitake mushrooms to cover, and leave for at least ten minutes to fully rehydrate. Dry-fry the sesame seeds until golden, then set aside for later. Peel and cut the sweet potato (or other root vegetable) in half lengthwise, then into fat half-moons (about the only thing I kept from the original recipe). Prepare a wok with a tsp of sesame oil and a tsp of vegetable oil, and a large stock pot or sauce pan with the stock powder in the bottom. Fry the sweet potato in the wok for a few minutes, turning irregularly, so it begins to caramelise. When the half-moons have taken on a golden colour around the edges, tip them into the stock pot, and cover with boiling water. Add the miso paste, shitake mushrooms, and their soaking water (although be careful not to add any grit). Simmer for five minutes - stop as soon as the sweet potatoes begin to yield to a fork.

Meanwhile, separate the leaves from the pak choi, and cut the stalks into diagonal pieces. Stir fry for a couple of minutes, then add to the soup in the stock pot. Separate the shimeji mushrooms with your hands. Turn the wok up to a high heat, then fry the mushrooms for a minute on each side, then add them to the soup. Slice the spring onions lengthwise and roughly chop with the pak choi greens, then add them to the soup. Simmer for a minute or so to bring the soup up to temperature, finish cooking the sweet potato, and wilt the greens, then turn off the heat. Taste and add more miso or a splash of soy sauce if necessary. Serve with the sesame seeds and shredded seaweed scattered over.

Laksa Lemak

This is a slightly vegetable-fortified version of a very seafood-heavy Singaporean soup from my humungous Asian cooking compendium. The whole house now smells of prawns but it was worth it :)

Ingredients:

• 10 raw prawns (or more if you're hungry)
• a large handful of rice vermicelli
• 1 tsp dried shrimp paste (don't inhale, lol)
• 1 large onion, peeled and cut into big pieces
• 1 tsp galangal powder
• 6 candlenuts
• 1 stem lemongrass
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• a 200g chunk of pumpkin, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 200ml of coconut milk (or thereabouts)
• a large handful of frozen peas
• one lime
• fried tofu, cooked crab or fish cakes (add if you're very hungry)
• a quarter of a cucumber
• a small bag of beansprouts

Peel and devein the prawns; reserve the flesh in the fridge and put the heads and shells in a stockpot. Cover with at least 300ml of boiling water and boil for 30 minutes, to produce a rich prawn stock. Drain and discard the heads and shells. Soak the rice vermicelli in hot water for 10 minutes, then drain.

In a food processor, blend the shrimp paste, onion, galangal powder, candlenuts and lemongrass, then fry for 7-8 minutes, turning frequently, until the mixture has darkened and reduced a little. Add the prawn stock and simmer for twenty minutes, then add the pumpkin and cook for a further five -- or until the pumpkin is almost done. Stir in the coconut milk, frozen peas, cooked vermicelli and add the raw prawns. Bring up to a simmer and cook for a few minutes; turn off the heat as soon as the prawns are cooked. Juice in half of the lime, and cut the other half into wedges.

Slice the cucumber thinly and add to the bean sprouts in a separate bowl; add the lime wedges to decorate. Serve the soup in deep bowls, topped with the extra protein if you're very hungry. Take handfuls of salad and top the soup, add a splash of lime juice and soy sauce and eat the salad with the soup. Yum!

Miso Soup

I've been in Seattle for the last week and am absolutely knackered, jet-lagged, and confused. And did I mention tired? I probably did.

Luckily my super husband knows that after a long day's travel -- or two, I think, at least it was Friday at one point, if only for a few minutes -- all I want is something calming, nourishing and above all rehydrating. Enter the Japanese staple, fortified with a handful of udon noodles, a stir-fried pak choi and spring onion, and a handful of coriander leaves.

Now all I need to do is stay awake until 8pm and I'll be... *snore*...

Celery and Lentil Soup

And the prize for 'Most Boring Soup in the World' goes to this recipe, to which I turned only in a desperate attempt to use up a 1kg head of celery that my Most Helpful Husband had bought for 'only a dollar'. With copious amounts of blue cheese, chives and bacon topping, it was just about edible. And it's also the sort of thing you might want, if you were, say, suffering norovirus for a few days and needed something incredibly bland to ease you back into that whole eating thing again. On the plus side, I took a very pretty photo.

Less tasty than it looks.

Minestrone

Minestrone is one of those things I rarely get around to making, but when I do I always wonder why Iit's been so long since I made it! It's really easy, fast, you can make an absolute mountain of it, and it just tastes better and better after it rests in the fridge. The best thing is the way the spaghetti swells up and absorbs all the stock flavours, and then you have to add a bit more hot water to loosen it all up again. Love it!!

Ingredients:

• a large white or red onion
• a couple cloves of garlic
• a carrot or two
• a large handful of green beans or runner beans
• a sweet corn-on-the-cob (optional but I love it)
• a medium-sized bunch of parsley
• five ripe tomatoes
• a tin of chick peas
• 1.5 litres of vegetable stock
• a large handful of spaghetti
• parmesan cheese
• black pepper

Finely chop the onion and fry gently in olive oil for a few minutes, until it begins to soften. Meanwhile, crush the garlic cloves, chop the carrots and green beans, and slice the corn kernels from the cob. Add the vegetables to the pan and fry for a further minute or so, until the garlic starts to smell awesome. Chop the parsley and tomatoes and add to the pan, along with the chick peas and stock. Snap the spaghetti into short pieces into the pot, then cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Meanwhile, grate an enormous bowl (...or, more healthily, a small bowl) of parmesan cheese. Serve the soup with the cheese ready to scatter and the black pepper ready to grind over the top.

Cold Radish Leaf Gazpacho

The radishes we bought at the market came with a fantastic head of spicy bristly leaves, crying out to be used in something refreshing and exciting. They were too prickly to be used raw; even as I washed them, my hands began to burn from their tiny spines. So I followed a method for making chilled watercress soup, adapting it to what I had to hand. I popped the yoghurt-less base in the fridge, and it really came in handy later in the week.

Ingredients:

• the leaves of a large bunch of radishes
• 3 tbsp butter
• 5 spring onions, cleaned and tailed
• one medium white potato
• half a glass of white wine
• half a chicken stock cube
• three bay leaves
• salt
• black pepper
• strong Greek natural yoghurt

Thoroughly wash the radish leaves and blanch in boiling water for thirty seconds. Remove and leave to drain in a colander - don't worry about running any cold water over them. Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan and roughly chop the spring onions, and cube the potato. Fry the vegetables in the butter for a few minutes, until the onions have softened and begun to caramelise. Add the white wine, half a stock cube, the bay leaves, and enough hot water to cover - about 500ml. Simmer for ten minutes, until the potato is tender. Return the radish leaves to the pan and puree with a hand blender. Taste and season. Chill thoroughly, for at least 6 hours, preferably for 24-48 hours. Add more water if necessary, then stir through the yoghurt and serve.

Potato and Rocket Soup

Our shipment from the UK arrived at last, and after half a day spent supervising and unpacking, I was absolutely exhausted. This was a quick throw-together to use up the last of the chicken stock and the very spicy rocket I bought earlier in the week. It turned out ok, but like all blended potato-based soup, it was really quite bland. I cheekily spiced it up with a bit of pesto and creme fraiche.

Ingredients

• half a white onion
• three white potatoes, scrubbed
• 500ml of good chicken stock (vegetarians obviously substitute vegetable stock)
• 200g rocket
• green (basil or rocket) pesto
• creme fraiche

Finely chop the onion and potatoes and fry them in a little olive oil for five minutes. Add the stock, and simmer for ten minutes, until the potatoes are cooked. Add the rocket and blend with a hand blender. Taste and season - it may well need a fair amount of salt, and maybe a splash of lemon juice. Serve swirled with green pesto and creme fraiche.

Ham and Pea Soup

One delighted and surprised parent!

My parents dropped by after a long drive down, during which they hadn't been able to find a good restaurant to stop in. So they were hungry from the drive, but didn't want anything too heavy. Luckily I just happened to have a big vat of chicken stock boiling on the stove and in the fridge, the last few slices of a lovely ham I cooked earlier in the week.

I drained the stock, thickly diced a few slices of ham and dropped a cup of frozen peas into each bowl, then poured the stock and ham over. Popped each bowl into the microwave for a minute each, and stirred in a handful of finely chopped parsley - and made instant delicious soup!

Chicken Soup

Bad news: I have a cold. Good news: just as I felt myself coming down with symptoms, I managed to buy a chicken, make some stock, and then fall into bed. Only to get up again to be part of the yearly lab photos. But then it was back under the duvet for me.

Luckily I had some manly help chopping the vegetables; I probably wouldn't have been able to do all this in my current state. After years of training, the SO can now make chicken soup just the way I love it. He even cuts the vegetables the same size! Light years beyond his first attempt, where he blended it in a food processor, then put chicken in, and well, NOT GOOD.

This soup is good though. And chicken soup may in fact make your cold symptoms less troubling. Or not. The recipe serves four with bread, or two with plenty of leftovers for lunch the next day. The thighs, wings and legs are not used, so if you want to avoid jointing a chicken, you can use a couple of chicken breasts and a tub of ready-made stock (but not stock powder). I'm also implementing a lesson from Molecular Gastronomy, which is that if you cook meat in a broth of roughly cell-plasma concentration, the flavours should be retained, and indeed extra flavour can be imparted by the stock.

Ingredients:
For the stock:

• 1 chicken
• a small bunch of parlsey - stalks only
• 1 carrot, topped and tailed
• 2 sticks of celery
• half a white onion, peeled
• 3 medium bay leaves
• 5 peppercorns

For the soup:

• One and a half white onions
• 2 carrots
• 3 sticks of celery
• 3 small potatoes
• a small bunch of parsley - leaves only
• a few handfuls of frozen peas
• a tin of sweet corn

Joint the chicken, putting the thighs, wings and legs in the fridge for another day, and the breasts in the fridge for use later in the recipe. Put the feet and stripped carcass, and giblets if you have them, in a pot along with the rest of the stock ingredients, and cover with boiling water from the kettle. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook, covered, for up to five hours.

The final stages take only half an hour, so when you're ready, drain the stock and discard the cooked vegetables. Put the chicken breasts in the pot and cover with the hot stock, and cook for 15 minutes until the chicken breasts are cooked through. Meanwhile, finely chop the onions, and cut the carrots, celery and potatoes into small (~1cm) cubes. Fry the onions in a little olive oil in a deep pan for five minutes, until translucent. Add the rest of the chopped vegetables and sweat for a few minutes in their own juices. Remove the chicken breasts from the stock and add the stock to the vegetables, which should simmer for 5-10 minutes until tender.

Finely chop the parsley and shred the chicken into small pieces, then add to the pan along with the peas and sweet corn. Season to taste - it may need up to 1 tbsp of salt depending on how you like it. After a couple of minutes, the peas should be hot through and it's ready to serve, with a little more chopped parsley on top, and preferably to an ill person huddling under a duvet :)

Watercress Soup

This makes an excellent starter, which is how I serve it tonight. It might be difficult to bulk this out to a full meal, so just serve first and enjoy. Even if you don't like watercress raw, this is a delicious soup; the spiciness of the cress dims immediately on cooking, leaving an earthy, savoury yet springlike taste.

Ingredients:

• 1 small onion
• 1 small potato
• 300ml hot stock (bouillon is fine)
• 1 bunch of watercress

Finely chop the onion and sweat in olive oil or butter over a low heat for 8 minutes, until transparent. Meanwhile, finely cube the potato, then add to the pan and allow to colour, stirring every so often so it doesn't stick. It's fine if a layer of golden starch builds up on the bottom of the pan, just don't let anything burn.

Pour in the hot stock and scrape the pan to deglaze it, then cover and simmer. Meanwhile, shred the watercress - Delia likes to use only the leaves, but I have found no problem including the stalks, if shredded finely. When the potatoes are just tender, add the watercress, stir once, replace the lid, and continue to simmer for 2-3 minutes until the leaves have wilted and the colour of the stalks has brightened.

Remove from the heat and blend thoroughly using an electric blender. Remove any stringy bits if they refuse to blend. Serve with a dollop of crème fraîche and a grating of black pepper.

Smoked Mackerel Chowder

Mmmmmmmm, I love chowder! It took a long time for me to pluck up the courage to try making it, as I'd had so many good versions in restaurants and it always looked like it would be complicated, with a strong potential for ruining lots of nice seafood. The best way to start making chowder is to use a strongly-flavoured and robust fish, without messing around with different shellfish and getting all the cooking times correct.

On Saturdays there is a fishmonger in Cambridge market, and he sells an excellent range of fresh and smoked fish. We love the whole smoked mackerel, which work perfectly in this recipe - or just flaked on toast, or a baked potato. If you can't locate good smoked mackerel, you can try the vacuum-sealed fillets available from supermarkets, but they'll lack the creamy tenderness of properly smoked fish.

Ingredients:

• 1 whole smoked mackerel or a packet of vacuum-sealed mackerel fillets
• 1 peeled onion or well-washed leek
• 1 large or 2 small potatoes
• 2 carrots
• 3 sticks of celery
• large handful of parsley
• a few bay leaves
• 500ml vegetable or fish stock
• 1 small tin of sweetcorn
• 100ml cream

Strip the skin and bones from the whole mackerel, and flake the flesh into large pieces, discarding bones as you go. You can make a very strongly-flavoured stock from the skin and bones, if you have time: just boil them in a saucepan for 10 minutes. Finely chop the onion or leek and fry in a deep pan at a low heat, until it begins to go translucent. Cube the potatoes and carrots, and dice the celery and parsley. Add the vegetables and a few bay leaves to the pan, and fry with the onions for a few minutes, scooping from the bottom so they don't stick.

Add the stock and season with pepper. Don't be tempted to add salt just yet, as smoked fish is often salty itself. Cook until the vegetables are just tender - about 10 minutes. Gently combine in the flaked mackerel, drained tin of sweetcorn and the cream. You can use double cream if you're feeling luxurious, single for a tasty midweek supper, or even reduced-fat creme fraiche if you're watching the calories. Cover for a minute or two, allowing the chowder to reheat, and remove from the heat just as it comes to a simmer. Taste for seasoning; it may need a little salt at this point. Serve with crusty bread to mop up the juices.

Pumpkin Laksah

This is adapted from a Nigel Slater recipe - which will be a common theme here! I've added some more greens, reduced the coconut and changed the spicing a little, and replaced the cherry tomatoes with tinned, as it makes a very good storecupboard meal with that swap. I've also added some greens to make it a tad more nutritious. It's a warming, spicy/sour combination which takes less than an hour to make - as little as 30 minutes if you have a helping hand to peel and chop the pumpkin! We added some sneaky pakoras from the awesome local shop for a little variety.

I could fill a page about how delicious and wonderful the pumpkin we used for this dish is, but I think I will save it for another time. Suffice to say, you should use a firm winter squash with plenty of flavour, or it will be overwhelmed by the strong spice paste. We used a Crown Prince: these can stand lots of cooking without falling apart, and have sweet and delectable flesh. Never eat a carving pumpkin!

Ingredients:

• 500g good pumpkin, or butternut squash
• A handful of coriander stems
• 1 whole red chilli or a couple of birds' eye
• A thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled
• 4 large cloves garlic
• 2 juicy whole lemongrass stems
• 4 tbsp of fish sauce
• 2x 400g tins plum (not chopped) tomatoes
• 400ml of chicken or vegetable stock (if using boullion, halve the powder)
• 1 400ml tin of coconut milk
• 200g crinkly green cabbage (e.g. Savoy), roughly shredded
• 100g dried egg noodles
• fresh coriander leaves
• fresh mint leaves
• two limes

Chop the pumpkin into large pieces and set it steaming: it will take about 20 minutes to cook through. Whiz together the coriander stems, chilli, ginger, garlic and lemongrass in a blender until you have a paste. Fry this gently in a deep pan (like the one pictured) in vegetable oil over a low heat, stirring so it doesn't burn, until the garlic is just cooked and starting to colour. Pour in the stock and coconut milk, stir and bring to a boil. Slice the tomatoes in the tins into halves or large-ish chunks using a table knife and lift the pieces into the pan with a fork. Add the fish sauce, mix very gently, and simmer for five minutes.


In the meantime, remove the steamer full of cooked pumpkin, and use the steaming water to blanche the shredded cabbage - a matter of a 90 seconds. Drain the cabbage, and cook the dried noodles, according to their packet instructions. Tip the pumpkin and cabbage into the curry pot, and add a swirl of cooked noodles into each bowl. Spoon the laksah into each bowl, top with generous handfuls of coriander and mint leaves, and squeeze over half a lime onto each bowl. Serves four; or more with pakoras or more noodles!