Kitchenella: The secrets of women: heroic, simple, nurturing cookery - for everyone. Rose Prince
baguette or ciabatta (or other open-textured bread) fried until golden in olive oil.
The soups of French mothers
The French mother cooks, les mères, understood better than anyone the beauty of seasonal soups. These nineteenth- and twentieth-century cooks, who cooked in their famous restaurants as they would in their homes, were both experimental with their ideas and yet always down to earth, understanding the limits of their small kitchens and low budget. They made soup every day, with whatever produce had come into its glut season and had lowered in price. Soups were made quickly, preserving the green freshness of the vegetables. No one was given only a bowl of soup, the whole tureen would be brought to the table and ladled into diners’ bowls, often over something to make the dish more substantial: a piece of toasted bread and cheese, a poached egg, some steamed shellfish or braised bone marrow. When the bowl was clean, more would be offered. Imagine that in a restaurant today.
These soups are made only with a single dominant vegetable, preferably without anything else other than water and butter, with maybe a few drops of cream at the end. They are very typical of the lunchtime soups offered by les mères in their restaurants. They have a light, quite thin texture, so put plenty of toast or fresh bread on the table. Or put another ingredient in the bowl, such as a poached egg, some grilled shards of bacon or some fresh goat’s cheese, spread on toasted bread. This method is ideal for the delicate sugary flavours of freshly picked seasonal vegetables. These soups must be eaten as soon as they have been liquidised, before they discolour or become starchy. The following soup is made with young broccoli, but there are various different vegetables this method is friendly to.
SERVES 4
6 walnut-sized lumps of butter
1 onion, chopped
450g/1lb fresh broccoli (in peak condition, no yellow flowers), chopped
1 litre/1¾ pints water, at boiling point
salt and white pepper
To serve: cream or crème fraiche (optional); a few cress leaves or ‘micro leaf’ herbs, pea shoots or even just tender parsley leaves; you can also serve over a poached egg or toast spread with fresh goat’s curd
Melt the butter and add the onion. Cook over a low heat for 2 minutes then add the water. Wait until you are on the point of sitting down to eat then add the broccoli. Cook for a further 4 minutes until the broccoli is just tender, then transfer to a food processor and liquidise until smooth. Taste and add salt if necessary, then add pepper.
Serve immediately, with a few blobs of crème fraiche, if you like, and some little leaves scattered over the top.
THE SAME ESSENCE SOUP – WITH ALTERNATIVE VEGETABLES
Replace the broccoli with:
• Watercress – use the upper leafy part of 3 bunches.
• Celery leaves – look for celery that has not been trimmed, and use about 4 handfuls of leaves, cooking them for about 5 minutes.
• Spinach – use 150ml/¼ pint less water with 450g/1lb spinach; if it is large-leaf spinach, this must be without the stalks.
• Fresh shelled peas, 450g/1lb. You can also make this with frozen petits pois but only simmer for 1 minute after adding the boiling water.
• Mange tout, 450g/1lb.
• Wild garlic, available in March/April – use 2 large handfuls, chopped, stringy stems removed.
• Sorrel – the lemon flavour of this leaf is beautiful, but be prepared for the leaves to quickly turn brown when cooked.
• Asparagus sprue or ‘kitchen asparagus’ – these are the thin stems; buy in mid-season when the glut brings prices down.
• Young nettles – available in March/April; you can pick them yourself using rubber gloves.
Lettuce and courgette ‘butter’ soup
The British-based French chef Raymond Blanc talks often about the influence of his mother. I have always liked his book Cooking for Friends, which I have owned for 18 years and which is filled with practical recipes. It exemplifies the well-organised cooking of France and reflects Blanc’s upbringing, including this classic recipe for a vegetable ‘crème’. ‘This simple soup,’ says Blanc, ‘reminds me of the plain wholesome cooking of my childhood.’ I love it not only for its lovely colour and delicate flavour – the lettuce adds a sharpness that sits beautifully with the soup’s buttery richness – but because I can buy the ingredients anywhere, at any time of year. Make this soup with water; the secret is in adding a larger amount of butter than usual.
SERVES 4
1 litre/1¾ pints water or stock
4 onions, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed with the back of a knife and peeled
1 floury potato, peeled and cut into dice, then rinsed under water
3 walnut-sized lumps of butter
3 courgettes, sliced
1 large green lettuce (romaine or cos is ideal) or two butterhead lettuce (the soft-leaved English type), roughly chopped
salt and white pepper
90ml/6 tablespoons whipping cream
Put the water or stock in a pan and heat to simmering point. Pour into a jug and put the onions, garlic, potato and butter into the same pan and cook over a medium heat for about 10 minutes. Stir from time to time, and, if the potato sticks to the bottom of the pan, add about half a mug of water.
Add the courgettes and lettuce leaves and cook for another 2 minutes, then add the hot water or stock. Cook for 5 minutes, transfer to a liquidiser or food processor and process until very smooth. A perfectionist French cook would sieve the soup to remove any leaf fibres, but this will not make any real difference to the enjoyment. If you want to do this – put the soup through a hand-operated food mill, or mouli legumes.
Return the soup to the pan and reheat to just below boiling point. Taste and add salt if necessary, then add pepper. Add the cream, stir, and serve immediately.
ADAPTING THE SOUP TO OTHER INGREDIENTS
• Carrot – use 8 medium-sized young carrots, ideally from a leafy bunch to be sure they are fresh, sliced thinly on a mandolin. Add at the onion and potato stage, substituting them for the courgettes and lettuce); add lemon juice or (in January) Seville orange juice to counteract the sweetness.
• Jerusalem artichoke – add 10 peeled and thinly sliced Jerusalem artichokes at the onion and potato stage, substituting them for the courgettes and lettuce.
• Potato and onion with peppery leaves – add 5 extra potatoes, cut into small dice, at the onion stage. Substitute them for the courgettes and lettuce. Serve with a ‘pesto’ made from peppery leaves like chopped rocket, mustard leaves (easy to find at farmers’ markets) or exceptionally fresh radish leaves – mixed with chopped walnuts and olive or walnut oil.
• Green garlic – in spring and summer you will see fresh or ‘green garlic’ in markets and some supermarkets. They are soft and can be used whole. Substitute the garlic clove and lettuce with 2 heads of green garlic, sliced and added with the onion and potato, to make an aromatic and heady soup – only for garlic devotees.
Mind and stomach
My sister Laura is an artist and a talented self-taught cook. It must be her fascination with texture and colour but she has a built-in sense of what is the right and wrong thing to do to any ingredient. She rarely makes anything that needs more than one pan and a gas hob, but everything she makes is fragrant and pretty. She is the mother of my nephew Tom, now at primary school age, who has cerebral palsy and great difficulty