715. Mulligatawny

Mulligatawny is one of my favourite soups. It’s spicy and chunky and filling and delicious. I think it’s one of those hybrid Indian/British dishes that came about when the empire was still around (like kedgeree). This particular one is with chicken, though you can have it made with other meats too.

715 down, 1081 to go

694. Soupe au Pistou

I was on a bit of a soup kick lately. Well, ok, let’s be honest here, I’m on a bit of a soup kick always. I’m the weirdo that orders soup in middle of summer. Soupe au pistou is one of the many awesome Mediterranean soups packed with lots of chunky veggies and beans, and this is topped off with a big scoop of pesto. Pesto is great. I could eat pesto all the time.

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693. Spring Vegetable Soup

There are a lot of variations on spring vegetable soups, but the one that is specifically mentioned in my books is a Lebanese green vegetable soup that is flavoured with lemon juice and dried mint. It was very quick to make, super healthy and tasted delicious so it basically ticked all of the boxes for a great lunch. I fried onion and celery until it was soft, then added peas, green beans, broad beans and courgette along with some chicken stock and boiled it for around 5 minutes until the vegetables were cooked. Finally I just added a squeeze of lemon juice and a generous pinch of dried mint and it was ready to eat.

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669. Fassolada

Fassolada is a Greek white bean soup. Like the Avgolemono, it’s another dish I wanted to try in Athens but couldn’t because they don’t tend to serve a lot of soups in July. This one was super easy to make at home. I just mixed white beans, celery, onions, carrots, canned tomatoes and chicken stock in a pan and then simmered it for a couple of hours - until the vegetables were all very soft and the beans had started to break down and thicken the soup. It tasted great and made for a lovely healthy lunch.

669 down, 1127 to go

652. Moong Dal

Moong dal are a type of lentil - I believe they are actually mung beans that are shelled so it is just the yellow piece from the inside. I love lentils; I really think that they are delicious, but usually I just stick to the little red ones that cook in 15 minutes. I decided to give these a try though and made a simple soup by just frying some onions with spices, adding the lentils and simmering in chicken stock. The result was tasty, but because you had to soak and boil the lentils first it really took a long time just to make a bowl of soup. I’ll mostly be sticking with the red lentils from now on.

652 down, 1144 to go

637. Soupa Avgolemono

Soupa avgolemono was one of the dishes I had down on my ‘must-try’ list when I went to Athens, but I never found anywhere that sold it. Perhaps because it was the summer they did not think anyone would really be after soup (I’ll eat soup any time; I’m weird like that). Anyway, as I couldn’t try it in Greece I decided to just make it myself at home. It’s a really easy soup to make. You just have to cook a little bit of rice in a pot of good-flavoured chicken stock, then when the rice is done you mix in lemon juice and egg yolk. The egg yolk thickens it and gives it this lovely creamy, silky texture, and the lemon juice brightens the whole flavour and gives this delicious hint of sour. As a huge fan of both soup and lemon this dish was pretty much tailor made for me, so I shall definitely be adding it to my soup repertoire!

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631. Welsh Cawl

For my dad’s birthday we went to a Welsh/Italian/Spanish restaurant. They literally have three separate menus for each of the cuisines, which is weird, but actually great as you can have a total mix for your meal. For my starter I picked this cawl, which is a Welsh soup, then I had a Spanish chicken and ham dish for my main course, and an Italian tiramisu for dessert. I got told off by the waiter when I ordered this as I pronounced it like call, but you are actually supposed to say it cowl, like the type of neckline, or like Simon. It’s a lamb broth with big chunky vegetables, and it was served with a piece of caerphilly cheese on the side. I chopped my cheese up and mixed it into the soup which was awesome and I think is an idea I’m going to have to take on to all kinds of future soups I have in my life.

631 down, 1165 to go

602. Royal Game Soup

You know when you look at the ingredients of something and then immediately wish that you hadn’t? Yeah, well this was one of those occasions. This soup is made with venison and pheasant (yum) and hearts and livers (ew). I tried to ignore it and enjoy the soup anyway though. It really was not that bad, I didn’t really taste the liver at all. In fact what I did taste was just a big bowl of gamey gravy. I got a can of Baxter’s soup for it, as this is a traditional Scottish soup, and Baxters are the traditional Scottish soup company. I think I’ll stick to my favourite lentil and veggie soups in the future though.

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590. Broccoli and Stilton Soup including 591. Stilton

As far as I’m concerned, broccoli and stilton is by far the best use for stilton. By itself I find stilton too strong and overpowering. However, in this soup, it loses that pungent blue cheese taste and just blends into a lovely salty tang which permeates the bowl. Also, unlike a lot of people I actually really like broccoli.

591 down, 1205 to go

586. Herbes de Provence

For our starter on Christmas day I usually make a soup. This year I made a tomato soup with herbs, rice and sherry. The sherry plus a little cream made it rich enough so that it was a special starter the day, but overall it was light enough that you still had plenty of room left for the big plate of turkey to come. I chose herbes de provence as they have that lovely Mediterranean flavour that pairs perfectly with tomato.

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