Sunday, November 11, 2007

Sunday Night Soup Night

A few weeks ago, I declared Sunday night to be "Soup Night" for us. Homemade soup. The can above is explained at the end, and it is really more about my preference for photos with posts.

Our first soup was Chicken Soup. I had talked to Sally about it one afternoon, and I called her back to get a quick recap. She said, "Don't forget to ask for a soep kip. They're older and have more flavor." So I went to the chicken butcher and got a soep kip. And I made a nice chicken soup and we ate on it for a few days. I'm really glad that I got the soup chicken 'heads up' from Sally. It was not that long before she died suddenly. Now every time I make chicken soup, it will remind me of Sally. Her funeral was yesterday in Briston, Tennessee, by the way. We had a long choir rehearsal today in Amsterdam and thought of her. (It was the annual choir weekend to prepare for Christmas.) We sang one of her favorite songs. The choir director would have us mix up, get out of our sections, and Sally and I always stood next to each other. We all miss her tons.

Moving right along.

The second week, we had Bruine Bonensoep, or Brown Bean Soup. It was good, but not one of the favorites. I'll try it again later. Fred was bothered that I cooked it so long that everything was sort of a smooth mixture - especially after I attacked it with a staff mixer. It's a pretty standard soup here. It was very much the "plain cousin" of some of the other soups we've made, although I'm sure it doesn't have to be.

The next soup we made was Erwten Soup, which is Dutch for Split Pea Soup. It's a staple here in the Netherlands. Ours was a pretty basic recipe, completely made from scratch and it was very good. It was nice and thick, but not too thick, and we put a good worst in it along with some a piece of pork that the recipe called for. (Not exactly vegetarian.)

Last week, we had Potato-Leek Soup, which is English for Aardappel-Prie Soep. I think I made it years ago in NYC, but that was in my no-salt days and I wondered why the heck it didn't taste like anything. Salt is good in a soup and absolutely necessary if your potato soup is going to taste like anything. We threw in some meatballs, which was an interesting decision and it totally worked. It lasted for a few days. I tend to make a lot of soup at one time and I don't particularly mind eating it for a few days in a row. Ready food is more important to me than different food every day.

The picture above is to illustrate the really odd soups that are available here. That one is Pinda Soep met Kip. That's Peanut Soup with Chicken. It's some kind of take off, I'm sure, on sate chicken, which is skewered chicken with a peanut sauce, which is really good. I used to get it in a Vietnamese restaurant in NYC. I had no idea that it was so Indonesian and would be so common here. The soup sounds like it might be a little too much, but I have to say that it's really good. I enjoyed it and then late bought more. I also bought some of the others to write about later.

Sunday is a good night for soup. I recommend it. I think next week, we're going to have Cauliflower Soup. I just got an email from my friend, Patty Kriz in NYC. It looks really good. Check out her website for other delicious and simple recipes.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know if it's anything like the canned Dutch soup, but I'm familiar with groundnut (peanut) stew from West Africa. I've often had it with chicken. It usually also features okra. One of my cookbooks says that it is highly variable in texture and ingredients across West Africa.

Andy Baker said...

It's probably similar, but this definitely doesn't contain okra. I wish it did. I'm crazy about okra. I love okra in every form: fried, pickled, stewed, raw. You name it, if it's okra, I'll eat it.

Mama Mojo said...

The internet is a great resource for finding recipes. Just type in your primary ingredients, and what you want to make, and you'll come up with some great ideas. Salt is a great way of getting your iodine, a necessity! I've cut down on using Sea Salt (we were in the area of France where my favorite sea salt is from Baline in the camargue) because it doesn't contain iodine, but I suppose that with all of the additives to foods these days, there isn't much danger of iodine deficiency, in any case.

Anonymous said...

I just love soup. Kudos on making erwtensoep from scratch. My favorite soep is a pumpkin, sweet potato and sweet corn-soup with some creme fraiche and coriander. Or courgettesoep with some creme fraiche and rauwe ham. Or...

cheapblueguitar said...

I LOVE soup. So easy, tasty and satisfying.

One of the best soups I had was at a wedding. It was a pumpkin bisque served in a little baked pumpkin you could eat after you finished the soup. Delicious.