Purely for medicinal reasons

The “purely for medicinal reasons” excuse is often wheeled out in our house.  However, not in regard to the tot of whisky or a glass of wine – but with regard to food.

I’ve spoken in the past, about how Shepherd’s Pie and Cottage Pie are magical things that can resurrect the erstwhile flagging Jenny into pink-cheeked health.  There has been more than one occasion when that has happened.

It doesn’t take much examination before you turn up the long-held belief that chicken soup will heal almost as much as a cup of tea will.

After all, just think how many times you’ve reached for the kettle in times of stress.  Okay, maybe you’re a coffee person, but the premise is the same – a hot drink will provide comfort and soothe a troubled soul.

I remember when (on far too many occasions) I’ve come round from a spell of being unconscious in hospital (after anaesthesia or on one spectacular occasion when I went to sleep at home and woke up 24 hours later in hospital) and have heard those words “would you like a cup of tea?”  Would I ever, yes please!

So it ever has been, for the cup of tea.  How many cups have been supped by wartime refugees who have been bombed out of their homes and supplied with a cup of comfort by the WRVS?  Or between women, sat at their kitchen tables and chewing the cud over their inconsiderate men or troublesome teenagers.

But food.  When did we start associating food with situations?  I suppose since the first Jewish mama insisted that her chicken soup would cure all known ills – or even before.  Think about the “soul food” of the Southern United States that originated with the black Africans.  Food that reminded them of where they came from originally, that took them back home for those few moments as they savoured those flavours.  True comfort food.

Summer in the U.K. (when we get a summer, that is) means being able to spend few weeks eating fresh foods in salads.  Lighter bites that take care of hunger but leave you able to enjoy a mild evening spent taking a walk, or just enjoying the sunset, with strawberries or ice cream for dessert.  Rarely does a requirement for comfort food arise during these times – unless something unusual happens.  (Although I would argue that strawberries & cream is the ultimate summer comfort food!).

Take this terrible summer that we’re currently being blighted with.  We should be enjoying barbecues with accompanying salads – not chicken casseroles, warming meat pies and carbohydrate-heavy cheese and potato dishes!

For some weeks now, I’ve been hankering after a dish that I normally only make in the depths of winter – it’s a variation on a Cottage Pie, involving a savoury minced beef base with a potato top, where the potato is cubed and tossed in a combination of mayonnaise and tomato ketchup, then baked.  I know, it sounds disgusting, but it is one of my guilty pleasures.  However, not in summer, for goodness’ sake!

But there you have it – in a nutshell.  It’s comfort food.  Food that makes you feel warm and protected from the heaving rain that’s going on just the other side of that wall.

I suppose it should be no surprise that soup kitchens serve soup.  Yes, it’s cheap to produce and feeds a lot of people – but it is the epitome of comfort food.  It isn’t hard to guess how welcome a bowl of steaming, savoury soup would be, if you’re homeless and out on the street in the weather we’ve been having.

I learned, just recently, about the Sikh Community Kitchen, or Langar.  At these community kitchens, food is served daily to all comers no matter what background or status, for free.  Interestingly, they will only serve vegetarian dishes, so that there should be no difficulty over dietary restrictions and all diners can eat as equals.

I suppose that food is the one thing that connects us all – whoever we are and whatever strata of life we come from.   No matter who you are, we all have to eat.

We are creatures of habit.  We like to endow things around us, including the types of food and rituals surrounding food, with an aura of normalcy so as to feel secure in our world.  A comment from Hubby got me thinking along these lines just recently.  We were contemplating what to do about dinner when returning from a trip to visit my Dad in a hospital out of town.  (He’s back home now and is fine, by the way).  We decided to stop in at our local Chinese Takeaway on the way home and pick up some of their spectacularly good Chow Mein.  Hubby commented that he was concerned that he was starting to associate going to this particular takeaway with stress – largely because whenever we have a stressful day that results in no time to cook, this is our takeaway of choice.  For me, it was quite the opposite, as the truly sublime Chow Mein that we get from there means a) I don’t have to cook and b) the problem is sorted – and in the best way possible.  I found it interesting how we both approached the situation from completely different corners.

I was also touched to hear that my dear old Dad, who following his surgery, had requested some Rhubarb & Apple Crumble for his dessert – in honour of this food blog.  So even here, food reaches out and provides comfort not only in its literal form, but in its emotional connections too.

Is it any wonder, then, that dieting can be such a disturbing – and potentially difficult – thing for us to do?  Our whole lives are invisibly and intangibly intertwined around food and eating, whether we like it or not!

Still, it’s probably best that I don’t get into the whole can of worms that is dieting.  Not today, anyway – I’ve just eaten a humungous Chow Mein.

This post was previously published on my Bournemouth Echo blog "Jenny's Week".

"Health in a bowl" : I bow to thee, Anthony Worrall-Thompson

I think the "Health in a Bowl" is about the only meal to have stayed where it was planned, this week!

If I was to tell you that I was more than a little nervous about delivering this dish to Hubby and Son & Heir, it would be understating the case by a factor of thousands.

For starters, Hubby isn't a great fan of broth-type soups.  Neither is he a fan of dishes which contain a large amount of vegetable matter - unless it's a vegetable curry.  Son & heir, well he's a verging-on-teenager, so putting anything before him other than a pizza, fried breakfast or meatballs, is verging on culinary suicide.

However, I am a fan of vegetable matter and I am a fan of broth-type soups.  I am also a fan of trying to improve our diet.  So, in the face of these monumental odds, I sallied on forth with Anthony Worrall-Thompson's "Health in a Bowl".

If you look at the ingredients list, you'll understand my nerves.  It begins well, with some thick cut ham and chicken stock.  However, the challenge begins there - pearl barley, Puy lentils, onion, carrot, parsnip. swede, thyme, bay leaf, parsley, new potatoes, savoy cabbage, leek and red kidney beans.  Yep.  In the one bowl.

You can't begin to imagine (or maybe you can! lol) how odd it felt to be just loading up the saucepan with ingredients at 15-minute intervals.  Nothing was fried beforehand, nothing had to be oven-baked beforehand.  Just boil up some stock and start adding stuff.  Weird.

I tasted the stock after I'd added the ham (or gammon, in this case) and was pleasantly surprised.

In went the pearl barley and the lentils.  Apart from the lentils turning the stock an interesting colour (*cough* - try "dirty dishwater"), everything was fine.

I'll admit to having a serious wobble about the success of this venture after I added the onion, carrots, parsnip, swede, thyme, bay leaf, parsley and a whole heap of black pepper though.  The smell of the raw onions heating up on the stock was a bit stomach-churning.  However, I'd chosen to use a red onion as I felt their innate sweetness would be helpful as opposed to the relative coarseness of a standard brown onion and the smell soon turned from "oooer, gak!" to "interesting!".  I tasted the stock again just before the 15 minutes were up and boy, but it was good.

From there, the addition of the other vegetables just added to the flavour of the stock, which became sweeter and gained depth as it cooked along.

I served the stew (as that is really what it is) with a loaf of pumpkin seed & carrot bread, which was absolutely gorgeous and complemented the mix of the stew beautifully.

As for reactions, well, Hubby said it was "alright, but he wouldn't race to have it again" and "after the first few spoonfuls I was looking at it thinking OMG, I've got all that to go yet".  He found the flavours dull and boring.  Surprisingly, he was relatively okay about the broth part.

Son & heir said he definitely wouldn't have it again, but I noted that he ate his entire bowlful without once asking whether he could stop.  This is a very definite measure of whether he can tolerate whatever he's got in front of him.  For sure, the yummy bread helped, but as he ate all that first and was left with his bowl of stew, I am left thinking that he didn't dislike it as much as he wanted me to know.

As for me, I adored it.  If it wasn't so blinking filling, I'd have been back at the stovetop heating up the remainder!  I loved that you could taste every single ingredient as an individual entity, as well as they're fitting so well with each other.  I loved that the only fat that we ate was what was still attached to the ham (and I trimmed it to within an inch of its life), the spread that went onto the bread and whatever was used in the bread when it was baked.  I loved that something so healthy was eaten by everyone - it kind of makes up for the fish & chips!

I can imagine that, made with a smoked ham hock, this recipe would be unbeatable - provided you really enjoy your vegetables!

"HEALTH IN A BOWL" (or Ham & Vegetable Stew)  Serves 4
based on a recipe from Anthony Worrall-Thompson.

Ingredients :

450g thick cut ham or gammon, chopped
1.2 litres chicken stock
2 tbsp pearl barley
2 tbsp Puy lentils
1 medium onion, diced
2 carrots (or a handful of baby carrots), peeled and diced
1 parsnip, peeled and diced
a quarter of a swede, peeled and diced
1 sprig or half a tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
1 sprig parsley, chopped
1 tsp ground black pepper
200g new potatoes, quartered
a quarter of a small Savoy cabbage, shredded
200g tin red kidney beans, rinsed & drained.

Method :

1.  Make sure the ham or gammon is trimmed of all fat, then place in a big saucepan and cover with the stock.  Bring to the boil and skim off any scum that has risen to the surface.

2.  Add the pearl barley and lentils and bring back up to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

3.  Add the onion, carrots, parsnip, swede, thyme, bay leaf, parsley and pepper.  Stir to combine, then bring back to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer gently for a further 15 minutes.

4.  Add the potatoes and leek and bring back to the boil.  Simmer until the potatoes are just tender, which should happen inside of 15 minutes.

5.  Add the shredded cabbage and the red kidney beans and bring back to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for a further 3 minutes or until the cabbage is tender.

6.  Decant into warmed bowls and serve with a tasty bread, for dipping.

 

Lunch from true leftovers : Asparagus, Fennel, Leek, Celery and Potato Soup

I made lunch for myself today.

Nobody else was here - hubby was back at work, son & heir back at school, so all was peace & quiet.


I had a bag in the vegetable drawer of my fridge, which had been collecting "things I could use in soup".  This bag - and the potential soup - had been burning into my imagination ever since Sunday, when I started putting stuff into it.

So, at the commencement of the big soup cook up, my soup bag had all the woody asparagus ends from the Easter dinner, the top ends, i.e. the fluffy bit, stalks and a bit of the sections from the fennel, a limp leek and some celery sticks that hadn't made it into the stock pot.

I chopped the celery sticks up and washed and sliced the leek.  Then I added two of the mangy Maris Piper potatoes that I'd used the better ones of for the Boulangere Potatoes at Easter.  I chopped them into tiny pieces that wouldn't take long to cook.

Then, I melted a knob of butter in a saucepan and added a tablespoon of olive oil to it.  Once melted, I threw the celery, leek and potato on top and got everything sweating down.

I then went back and chopped the fennel and cut each asparagus piece into two.

I had taken a pint or so of home made chicken stock from the freezer and heated that in another pan.  By all means, if going for a vegetarian version, use vegetable stock.  The fennel and asparagus went into the main pot and the chicken stock followed on.

I then seasoned, put the lid on and simmered it whilst I cleaned the kitchen up.

Once the asparagus and potato were softened and cooked through, I set the soup to one side to cool for a moment, then put it through a blender.

Returning it to the pan, I stirred in three or four tablespoons of double cream, checked the seasoning and added a large pinch of chopped parsley, reheated and served.

Did it make a great lunch?  Oh, you bet your life it did.  There's even (don't tell anyone) enough left for lunch on Friday.

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