8 Onion Soup - Celebrating the glorious Allium

8 Glorious Alliums

Clockwise from top: Spring onion, red onion, white onion, chives, wild garlic, leeks, banana shallots and garlic in the centre.

A Celebration of the glorious allium is in order.  Once again I have come out of blogging inertia as I am ill.  I have the sore throat from hell.  My already deep voice is at least 2 octaves lower and I am not happy.  Yet, when I cook during such misery, I do seem to make the most delicious food.  Just lately I have made this soup for several people suffering from the same throat infection who cooed and aaaahed at the salve it brought.  So now for myself.... I hauled myself to the Farmers Market and gathered as many members of the onion family along with a bag of chicken carcasses.    

Roasting the garlic and subsequent squishing of the sweet caramalised, dark garlicness is a labour intensive job but a worthwhile investment.  However, if this is one step too far, you could simply saute the garlic in the onion line up.  Currently in season is wild garlic, rampaging through the woods and easy to collect. 

When I imbibed upon this symphony of allium I could actually feel the goodness working.  Natures's medicine chest tasted particularly nourishing and comforting.  Almost worth being ill for.  

8 Onion Soup

2 medium white onions

1 large red onion

3 leeks

2 banana shallots

A generous handfull of wild garlic leaves

6 whole bulbs of garlic 

4 spring onions (scallions)

Chives

50gms butter or olive oil

1.5 litres fresh chicken stock

Bayleaf & thyme

1. Peel and chop the first 4 onions. Separate the top of the leeks from the bottom as the whiter half cooks quicker and is more delicate. You don't want it to catch and become bitter.
2. Wash the wild garlic, prepare the spring onions and chives - reserve.
3. Place 6 whole bulbs into a foil package with a sprig of thyme and sprinkle of olive oil and bake in hot oven for about 50 minutes or until they are golden and soft right through.
4. Heat the butter in a pan until foaming and add the bayleaf and white onions, followed 3 minutes later with the red onion, then green leeks. Add the thyme.  When these are all soft add the more delicate white leeks and shallots.  
5. Stir until they begin to soften and are on the verge of turning golden.  Then add hot chicken (or vegetable) stock to just cover the onion mix.
6. Allow to simmer for about 10-15 minutes.  Then add the chopped wild garlic and spring onions, cook for just 3 or 4 minutes.
7. When the garlic has roasted right through, peel away the papery covers and squish out the golden unctuous medicine. 
8. Remove the bayleaves and any stalks from the thyme. Add the garlic puree and blitz with a stick blender. Garnish with chives.

Ready for sweating. From right to left, first in to the foaming butter :

White onions, red onions, green part of the leeks, white part of leeks & shallots

Roasted garlic, glorious & oozingly caramalised 

8 Onion soup to sooth the sorest throats.

Japanese Nourishment

Clockwise from top left:

Hijiki & roast pumpkin, seared scallops, kale and miso dressing,

turnip & wakame, green mooli, aubergine & white miso

My dear friend Yuka has just had her second baby, so I offered to visit and prepare some home cooked Japanese food for her and toddler Skyler.

Feeding Mummy, feeding baby Cosmo

Japanese cuisine, particularly traditional Japanese held a deep fascination when I first discovered it 17 years ago. I obsessively practiced classic dishes, reading and researching traditional recipes and finding authentic ingredients in pre internet days.

Every time I dip my toe into its Zen like waters I am reminded of this fascination. If I need a pick me up or I'm feeling particularly ungrounded and manic (as caterers can get), a bowl of miso soup will recalibrate the senses and restore calm almost instantly.

Namayasi, a Japanese grower based in East Sussex produces traditional Japanese vegetables and now runs a London box delivery service. Namayasi were exhibiting at the Japanese festivities at Matsuri held in London's Spitalfields. The vegetables had been harvested that morning at 2.00am. That is crazy dedication for you. The produce was so booming with vitality it was enough to make a cook weep with joy at such beauty.

Clockwise from the top left

Green mouli, red shiso leaves, Japanese turnip, chili, aubergine, edible chrysanthemum

My store cupboard is well stocked with Japanese condiments, such as shoyu, mirin, sesame oil, rice vinegar and miso, so this meal was very easy. A trip to the farmers market this morning to buy some hand dived scallops from Dorset and some lovely pumpkin and kale meant that nearly all my fresh produce was little more than 24 hours from harvest.

Farmer's Market shop

I took these beautiful Japanese turnips, so fresh with their vibrant green leaves still attached, and wanted to do as little as possible to them. Slicing them paper thin and marinading in a few spoons of ume seasoning (Japanese plum condiment) with some leaves of wakame seaweed. The acid of the ume softened the turnip without losing any of its delicate young flavour. The fresh green stalks and leaves were put into the miso soup.

Sliced thinly, wakame and ume seasoning - so simple

Green Mooli

Grated finely

Hijiki seaweed with sesame roasted pumpkin

Hijiki is my favourite seaweed with a very strong taste of the sea, this dish is an old classic which I've been making for years. The Japanese consider this seaweed a tonic for strong and shiny black hair.

1. Soak in water for about 15 minutes (reserve the water), squeeze the water out as much as possible.
2. Fry briefly in sesame oil, add a little shoyu and mirin and allow to nearly evaporate, then add a few tablespoons of soaking water and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the seaweed feels soft.
3. The pumpkin has simply been roasted in sesame oil and salt in a hot oven for about 15 minutes.

Simply show scallops a smoking hot pan with some butter, sear until caramalised, serve with lemon and seasoning

Kale with Miso Dressing

A few stalks of kale shredded finely

2 Tbsp sunflower oil

1 Tbsp sesame oil

1 tsp miso paste melted with a 2 Tbsp of hot water

1 tsp honey

Blanch the kale in boiling water for just 1 minute. Drain and plunge into cold water and drain again. Mix the dressing ingredients and add the kale.

Aubergine & white miso

1. Place the aubergine in the flame of the gas until blistered and soft all the way through.
2. 1 Tbsp white miso paste mixed with 3 Tbsp hot water.
3. Peel the aubergine of its charred skin and chop the flesh. Add the miso paste and blend.

Serving suggestion

Take a tablespoon of everything and place on an oblong plate or any regular plate, giving space to each dish. Grate some of the mooli, which in this case was a variety of green mooli. Mooli is palate cleansing and holds remarkable health benefits, aiding digestion. The finest grate is best, so that the mooli is a puree. Serve with a bowl of steaming miso soup and finish with some pickles.

Steaming miso

Reishi Mushrooms

A deep red wax coverd kidney shaped cap and stalk

An exciting exchange at The Mushroom Table at Islington Farmers Market introduced me to a new mushroom, the legendary Reishi.  William and Mathew Rooney are two brothers who cultivate organic mushrooms and forage wild fungi in Essex.  A shop and chat with either of these boys is tantamount to a session with a modern day shaman. Both are knowledgable and generous with their culinary and medicinal wisdom. I wrote earlier in the year about the billowing white cloud mushroom.

The photo above does not do justice to the lacquered waxy coating. It has a kidney shaped cap. The gills show that it is not dried as the texture suggests.  I was almost afraid of cooking with this extra terrestial, which seemed to be way too knowing and aware.  Mathew advised me to make a stock out of it, then marinade the mushoom in alcohol for a couple of months for a tot every now and then when one is below par.  

The rieshi is a symbol of wisdom in Chinese culture.  The wizzened old chaps you will see in Chinese art are most likely depicted carrying a reishi mushoom. Regarded as a tonic with potent medicinal properties.  

I boiled the reishi for 2 hours as Mathew suggested. I tried a spoon and it was very bitter. I felt a strong sensation almost instantly in my sinuses. Momentarily I wondered if a scary mushroom moment was going to follow. 

I called brother William up to discuss and debate this fascinating new discovery. He duely indulged me for 20 minutes as I received a barrage of fresh data and mind blowing reishi history and facts. Science, medicine, art, where it grows, what it's good for; how to cook it, marinade it, eat it, make a tea, concoction.  

William told me that the sinus sensation was because I was unbalanced. I have just been ill, so the reishi knew!  If only I could recall a quarter of what I learned; I chose to bask in the wonder that is the mighty reishi; to revere the knowledge that enthusiasts such as the Rooney brothers exude. 

I delight that I know these eccentric mushroom men, who know their product in the same way an artist knows his instrument or paint brush.

Food for the Ill

This is a subject dear to my heart.

It's one of the more rewarding aspects of being the feeder to feed patients when they are ill.  Mummy's chicken soup and miso soup are healing soups when poorly.   One of rare joys of nursing ill children is the glow of  appreciation as the wounded  soldier is fortified.  I remember my mother's home made soup; a hearty broth with good things floating in it.  

I'm ill at the moment and feeling miserable and I have to rely on me to feed me.  Although I would love a delivery of some healing food, I have to do it myself!  Strangely this is satisfying.  I know exactly what I want.  My son offered and I snapped 'you don't know what I want; I want a spicy, lentil....... something'  I realise I'm an infuriating person at times like this.  The fussiness is at an all time meteoric high.  

I made my healing food like an animal in the forest.  It's a fascinating business to feed the ill, even if it is yourself.  When you have a miserable cold, as I have, the hunger is intensified.

Setting about creating that special medicine I chose onions, garlic, leek, chili, lemon grass, ginger, carrots, kale and puy lentils with chicken stock and probably way too much salt. I was so deliriously happy; it hit the spot completely, nobody else but me could have done this.  My misery is cloaked with a comfy blanket of spice and warmth.  

On the subject of healing foods, I used to make the good people of the music community when suffering from a cold or flu a tea of  cardamon, cinammon, ginger and cloves and lashings of honey.  On that note, that is what I am going to make right now.

Interesting that a cold calls for the most robost of food, spices, roots, broths with balls or the magic of miso.  Soup is a magic food which warms people deeply.

I send my culinary wishes to anyone who is feeling in need of healing food.  Get chopping the onion, garlic and chili.

Nettle Nectar and Oysters (And Be Nice to Nettles Week) 13-24 May 2009

Big Fish of the Oyster World - Richard Haward

Considers the taste of nettles with oysters

The expert conclusion is that they DO taste similar!

Excuse the delay in getting back to you with the conclusion of Oyster expert Richard Haward.

/www.richardhawardsoysters.co.uk/  Well as you can see from the photos above, Richard considered the taste and mulled over the after taste before pronouncing that indeed, the after taste of stinging nettle juice is indeed that of oysters!!

Well you can clearly see how exciting this bizarre food comparison is for me.  Next time any of you are tasting oysters and making wild and far flung flavour references, you will  be completely within your rights to drop the 'notes of nettle' in!  

Now back to business for just a moment here, between Richard, myself and Mark Thomas, we concluded that the reason for the after taste could well be the heroic portions of iron and trace minerals in both foods.

Oh how much fun  can a bunch of nettles be?  

On researching stinging nettles I came across a site called 'Be Nice To Nettles Week'  which runs from 13th - 24th May.  www.nettles.org.uk/nettles/people/food.asp

As well as it's superannuated nutritional value is also a long tradition of using them medicinally I found this quote on the above website.

"Culpeper recommended the use of nettles to ’...consume the phlegmatic superfluities in the body of man, that the coldness and moisture of winter has left behind“. He also prescribed the juice of the leaves as a treatment for gangrenes and scabies".

From now on nettles will never quite be the same again.

I hope you see this common weed/superfood in a different light.