Summer is at an end and as the long nights draw in earlier and earlier our body clocks and our appetites seem to shift instinctively, gearing us up for the long months of darkness and semi hibernation. With the onset of colder weather I yearn for those warming winter foods that just radiate heat from your insides out and there's nothing that does that better than a good deep bowl of steaming home made soup!
Soup is a food popular in every culture it seems and apparently us women are more likely to order soup in a restaurant for lunch rather than anything else!
It is probably one of the most versatile dishes as it can be eaten for breakfast...quite popular in Japan & China, not so much here in Europe!, or you can enjoy it for lunch, dinner in the evening or a light supper late at night.
Soup is also one of the most nutritious meals and the legend of 'chicken soup' and how good it is for you pervades many cultures!
Here in the most northerly parts of Ireland in the province of Ulster where the winter can last up to nine months of the year, or maybe it just feels like it does!, soup, especially vegetable soup, is a mainstay of the populations diet. It may be called vegetable soup but more often than not the broth base will have been made from a piece of shin of beef, but for convenience we will hereafter just call it 'vegetable' soup because that is what it is known as!
Vegetable soup is so widely popular here that it will always be seen on every restaurant, cafe or coffee shop menu.......if they serve soup at all it will most likely be vegetable, be it a cream of vegetable or a good broth with lots of chunky vegetables, barley, peas and lentils, and you will still find vegetable soup on the Sunday Lunch menu in nearly every hotel.
Some places do try their luck adding maybe a tomato and basil soup or a cream of mushroom soup to their menu but vegetable will always be the most popular!
Every household in this part of the country will have their own family version of vegetable soup, a recipe that will have been handed down through 2 or 3 generations at least, our own family recipe is now into its 4th!
The home made vegetable soup takes pride of place on the table as the first course at certain times of the year, usually at Easter Sunday lunch and most definitely for Christmas day!
It is a tradition that vegetable soup is made on Christmas eve, usually in the afternoon.
As the presents are being wrapped or the turkey and stuffing are being prepared for the next day, the soup will be bubbling away on the back of the stove top, its aromas invading the whole house, even drowning out the scent of the pine tree.
After the midnight church services there will be a mad dash home through the frosty air knowing a bowl of hot soup is there for the taking. Next day the soup will be reheated as the first course of Christmas luncheon and if there is any left over, and usually there is, it will be eaten on boxing day too! with maybe some turkey added, depending on your recipe of course!
As for other days of the year, vegetable soup forms an important part of the weekly diet during the autumn and winter months.
Many households have soup on a Saturday afternoon as it comes in handy when the lads return from their football practices or when 'mammy' gets back from the town having done the shopping.
There is also usually a dinner of vegetable soup during the week too. The shin of beef will have been pressure cooked for a hour or so and then the soup made with its rich stock. The meat will be allowed to cool and then either shredded or cut into cubes and put back into the soup.
Many will 'bulk out' the meal by serving potatoes or 'spuds' as they are fondly known, on the side which have been boiled in their skins. When peeled, the potato will be crushed down into the soup, each person peeling their own potatoes as they need them.
I often wondered why the potatoes were not simply cooked 'in' the soup like for a 'leek & potato' soup, but I've to realize after much enjoyable experimentation that there are complex flavours at work and personally I now prefer my potatoes cooked separately and then added to my soup!
A typical Ulster 'vegetable' soup is not made from simply fresh vegetables. A selection of dried pulses will always be added, the most common being a mixture of split peas in green and yellow, red lentils and barley.
I tend to only use red lentils and the odd time I will add split peas too, but I detest barley, always have, always will, so I will never add it to soup if I am going to be eating it! Some people love barley and I'm sure that's nice for them! but I prefer using simply lentils as when the lentils cook down it gives good 'body' to a soup, the barley always seems to just sit there in the broth.
In our soups here you will never see other things added like beans, haricot or broad beans or any other variety for that matter, the addition of any other veg like broccoli or maybe courgette is simply a no, no, and changes completely how the soup is viewed....it's just not vegetable soup any more if you do that, well not according to our traditions! so now that you've read my 'fine' words on soup you can hop over to one of my pages and try out this recipe for a good 'vegetable' soup.....will you be having 'spuds' with yours?
If you'd like to know some history behind soups click here to read more!
It is probably one of the most versatile dishes as it can be eaten for breakfast...quite popular in Japan & China, not so much here in Europe!, or you can enjoy it for lunch, dinner in the evening or a light supper late at night.
Soup is also one of the most nutritious meals and the legend of 'chicken soup' and how good it is for you pervades many cultures!
Here in the most northerly parts of Ireland in the province of Ulster where the winter can last up to nine months of the year, or maybe it just feels like it does!, soup, especially vegetable soup, is a mainstay of the populations diet. It may be called vegetable soup but more often than not the broth base will have been made from a piece of shin of beef, but for convenience we will hereafter just call it 'vegetable' soup because that is what it is known as!
Vegetable soup is so widely popular here that it will always be seen on every restaurant, cafe or coffee shop menu.......if they serve soup at all it will most likely be vegetable, be it a cream of vegetable or a good broth with lots of chunky vegetables, barley, peas and lentils, and you will still find vegetable soup on the Sunday Lunch menu in nearly every hotel.Some places do try their luck adding maybe a tomato and basil soup or a cream of mushroom soup to their menu but vegetable will always be the most popular!
Every household in this part of the country will have their own family version of vegetable soup, a recipe that will have been handed down through 2 or 3 generations at least, our own family recipe is now into its 4th!
The home made vegetable soup takes pride of place on the table as the first course at certain times of the year, usually at Easter Sunday lunch and most definitely for Christmas day!
It is a tradition that vegetable soup is made on Christmas eve, usually in the afternoon.
As the presents are being wrapped or the turkey and stuffing are being prepared for the next day, the soup will be bubbling away on the back of the stove top, its aromas invading the whole house, even drowning out the scent of the pine tree.
After the midnight church services there will be a mad dash home through the frosty air knowing a bowl of hot soup is there for the taking. Next day the soup will be reheated as the first course of Christmas luncheon and if there is any left over, and usually there is, it will be eaten on boxing day too! with maybe some turkey added, depending on your recipe of course!
As for other days of the year, vegetable soup forms an important part of the weekly diet during the autumn and winter months.
There is also usually a dinner of vegetable soup during the week too. The shin of beef will have been pressure cooked for a hour or so and then the soup made with its rich stock. The meat will be allowed to cool and then either shredded or cut into cubes and put back into the soup.
Many will 'bulk out' the meal by serving potatoes or 'spuds' as they are fondly known, on the side which have been boiled in their skins. When peeled, the potato will be crushed down into the soup, each person peeling their own potatoes as they need them.
I often wondered why the potatoes were not simply cooked 'in' the soup like for a 'leek & potato' soup, but I've to realize after much enjoyable experimentation that there are complex flavours at work and personally I now prefer my potatoes cooked separately and then added to my soup!
A typical Ulster 'vegetable' soup is not made from simply fresh vegetables. A selection of dried pulses will always be added, the most common being a mixture of split peas in green and yellow, red lentils and barley.
I tend to only use red lentils and the odd time I will add split peas too, but I detest barley, always have, always will, so I will never add it to soup if I am going to be eating it! Some people love barley and I'm sure that's nice for them! but I prefer using simply lentils as when the lentils cook down it gives good 'body' to a soup, the barley always seems to just sit there in the broth.
In our soups here you will never see other things added like beans, haricot or broad beans or any other variety for that matter, the addition of any other veg like broccoli or maybe courgette is simply a no, no, and changes completely how the soup is viewed....it's just not vegetable soup any more if you do that, well not according to our traditions! so now that you've read my 'fine' words on soup you can hop over to one of my pages and try out this recipe for a good 'vegetable' soup.....will you be having 'spuds' with yours?
If you'd like to know some history behind soups click here to read more!
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