Croutons

Home-made croutons are about as different from the packaged version sold to decorate your Cæsar Salad, as home-made bread is from white sliced. They only take a few minutes to make and their crunchy texture ideally complements creamy soups. If you are having soup for lunch or as a substantial starter, they add bulk without being overly filling and make a pleasant change from bread and crackers. They're also an excellent way to use up stale bread.

Serves 2 for a meal, 4 for a starter

Ingredients

 

2 slices bread, about 1 cm (1/2 in) thick

2 tbsp olive oil OR 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tsp butter

Method:

• Cut the bread into cubes.
• Heat some oil in a frying pan over a high heat. Test by dropping in one of the croutons: it should sizzle straight away. Don’t be impatient. If the oil is too cool, you will end up with oily, soggy bread cubes. Put the bread cubes into the pan and spread them out in an even layer. Cook them in batches, if needs be – they want to be one layer thick to make it easy to move them around.
• Turn them regularly until they are golden on at least two sides: lower the heat if they are threatening to burn.
• Remove with a perforated spoon – they cook far too quickly to fool around with tongs – and place in a bowl, lined with a kitchen towel, if you wish.

Notes:

• Croutons are best cooked when the soup is ready to serve, so that they retain their crispness.
• If you are happy doing so, you can deep fry them.

Variations:

• Add 1 tsp curry paste or powder to the cooking oil.
• Fry a diced garlic clove with the bread.

Carrot and lemon soup

Not a main-course soup, but a very pleasant starter. Carrots and lemons combine together beautifully and the coriander complements both.

Use 1/3 seawater to 2/3 fresh, if the sea is clean, and leave out the salt. 

Serves 4 as a starter

 

Ingredients

 

1 onion

6 carrot

2 tbsp butter OR 1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp gram flour

2 tsp ground coriander

3 cups water

1 tsp grated lemon rind

2 tbsp lemon juice

salt and pepper

chopped parsley

Method:

• Dice the onion and carrots. Fry gently in the butter for about 10 minutes in a covered pan. Stir every minute or so and don’t let them brown.
• When the vegetables are soft, add the coriander and stir it in. Mix the gram flour with 1/4 cup of water and add it to the pan, stirring it carefully so that everything is blended .
• Add 3/4 cup of water and mix again.
• Pour in the rest of the water and the lemon rind, if you have any. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer gently for 20 – 25 minutes until the vegetables are thoroughly softened.
• Mash to a purée with a potato masher, or use a stick blender, and season with salt and pepper.
• Add the lemon juice, reheat and serve sprinkled with chopped parsley, if you have any.

Cauliflower soup

I first came across this soup in Norway in 1985 and have loved it ever since. Although using a cauliflower for soup may seem rather extravagant, you can usually get two meals out of a very large one and make use of the stem, to boot. I love this soup; it has a delicate, creamy flavour, which is even more delicious if you can make it with butter rather than olive oil. I like to serve it with herb bread.

If you have any choice, try to use a floury potato for this soup; for once, it should be peeled because the soup should end up as a thick, greeny-white purée, which would be less attractive with bits of potato skin.

Use 1/3 seawater to 2/3 fresh, if the sea is clean, and leave out the salt.

 

Serves 4 to 6 as a starter, 2 for a main course

 

Ingredients

 

2 tbsp butter OR olive oil/1 onion, diced

1 large potato, peeled and chopped

1 small or half a large cauliflower

2½ cups water

1 tsp salt

2½ cups (plant) milk/pepper

grated nutmeg

 

Method: 

• Melt the butter/oil in a large saucepan.
• Add the onion and potato and cook gently until they’re softened. Don’t let them brown because the soup is meant to end up white.
• When you can easily stick the point of a knife into the potatoes, break the cauliflower into the pan. Dice the stalk. Don’t use the leaves – they’re too dark. You can, however, use their white stems.
• Add the water and salt and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes, by which time the cauliflower should be thoroughly cooked.
• Take a potato masher or stick blender and purée the soup.
• Pour in the milk and bring back to simmering point for a few more minutes, adding generous amounts of pepper.
• Pour into warmed bowls and grated nutmeg over before serving.

Variations: 

• Replace some of the milk with cream for an extra luxurious soup.
• Sprinkle the soup with toasted, flaked almonds.

Italian chickpea Soup

This is a substantial and well-flavoured soup, suitable for winter lunches or a main meal. It would go very well with sun-dried tomato bread. The ingredients are not really voyaging vegetables, but they keep reasonably well and you would still be able to make this soup a week into your passage.

 

Use 1/3 seawater to 2/3 fresh, if the sea is clean, and leave out the salt.

Serves at least 8 as a starter, 2 or 3 for a main course

Ingredients

 

3 large sticks of celery

1 leek

1 cup chickpeas, soaked

5 cups boiling stock or water

2 bay leaves

1½ tsp oregano

3/4 tsp rosemary

1/4 tsp chilli

14 oz/400 g tin of diced tomatoes

 handful of finely chopped fresh basil or parsley, or 1 tsp dried basil

2 tsp balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper

Method:

• Thinly slice the celery.
• Trim the leek, removing the root end and any discoloured outer leaves; trim the top. Slice thinly, washing any slices that have grit or soil lodged in them.
• Drain the chickpeas and put them in your pressure cooker, together with the water/stock, celery, leek, bay leaves, oregano, rosemary and chilli.
• Bring to pressure over a high heat and then cook at high pressure for 20 minutes. Reduce pressure naturally.
• Remove the bay leaves and discard. With a slotted spoon, take out 4 or 5 spoons of chickpeas and put them in a bowl together with half the tomatoes. Mash together to thicken the soup.
• Put the tomato/chickpea mix back in the pressure cooker together with the parsley or basil and the vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.
• Simmer for a further few minutes so that the tomato flavour permeates the whole and serve hot. 

Variations:

• Add (vegan) Parmesan cheese at the table.
• Try using butter beans instead of the chickpeas

Corn Chowder

This recipe is a vegetarian replacement for fish chowder and I think that it is equally good: it’s rich and filling – definitely a main-course soup when served with hunks of bread. For all that, it would make a good starter, if you followed it with a light main course.

Use 1/3 seawater to 2/3 fresh, if the sea is clean, and leave out the salt.

 

Serves 4 to 6 as a starter, 2 for a main course

Ingredients

1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove
4 mushrooms, sliced
1 green pepper, chopped
2 potatoes, diced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp gram flour
2½ cups water OR vegetable stock
1 cup (vegan) milk
400 g (14 oz) can sweetcorn
1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
salt
1 cup (vegan) single cream

Method:

• Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and add the onion, garlic, mushrooms and green pepper. Don’t let them brown – the soup is meant to be very pale. If you prefer, you can ‛sauté’ them in a little water until they are softened, and then add the olive oil.
• While this is happening, peel and chop the potatoes. (If you prefer not to peel them that’s fine, but the bits of peel do rather spoil the appearance of the soup.) Add to the pan, stir and fry for a few minutes. Lower the heat, cover and cook for about 5 minutes.
• Put 1/2 cup of the water in a mixing cup, add the gram flour and whisk to a smooth paste.
• Add this to the pan, together with the rest of the water. Stir gently until the soup is about to boil, so that the gram flour is properly incorporated.
• Lower the heat and cook until the potatoes are tender – about 10 minutes.
• Add the sweetcorn and the milk; reheat until boiling. 
• Stir in the cream and reheat just before serving.

Variation:

• 1/2 tsp paprika or chilli adds variety
• If you can get hold of any, a handful of chopped, fresh parsley added with the cream is delicious.
• Use dried mushrooms, soaked in a little hot water for half an hour, to turn this into a voyaging soup.
  

Note: 

• Although the potatoes serve to thicken the chowder, they should not disintegrate and disappear. If you can only get very floury potatoes, this is unavoidable, but they won't spoil the flavour of your creation.

Split lentil and carrot soup

The sweetness of carrots marries well with lentils and lemon, and the soup comes out a very pretty orange colour. This recipe is intended for a starter – main course lentil soup is generally thicker than this.* 

Use 1/3 seawater to 2/3 fresh, if the sea is clean, and leave out the salt.

 

Serves 4 as a starter

Ingredients

 

1 large onion 

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp ground coriander seeds

3 medium carrots

3/4 cup split lentils

4 cups water/stock

2 tbsp lemon juice

salt and pepper

Method:

• Dice the onion.
• Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and add the onion. Cover and cook over a low heat for 5 minutes.
• Meanwhile, dice the carrots, scraping them if necessary. Add the coriander and cook for a further minute, then add the carrots and lentils and stir well.
• Pour in the water and bring to the boil, stirring occasionally. Cover, lower the heat and cook for 25 minutes, by which time the lentils should have disintegrated and the carrots should be completely softened. Give them a little longer, if necessary.
• Take off the heat and mash into a purée, using a potato masher or a stick blender. Add the lemon juice and season to taste. Add a little more lemon if you prefer it to be slightly sharper.
• Reheat before serving.

Variations:

• A tbsp of tomato purée makes a pleasant change.
• Add a swirl of cream to each bowl.
• Use lime or orange juice instead of the lemon.
• Garnish with some twists of the appropriate peel.
• Add 1/2 tsp chilli flakes to give the soup a bit of a lift.
  
• * To turn this into a main course soup, double the amount of lentils.