Cabbage, Leek and Onion Soup
Cabbage, Leek and Onion Soup
Cabbage, Leek and Onion Soup
Introduction and serving suggestions
This very easy-to-make soup is an ideal starter to a meal. A few simple additions turn the dish into a substantial and tasty historic main course. Recognised medieval soup extras include croutons, toasted bread, small strips of crispy bacon or small pieces of cooked chicken. The soup is best served along with a chunk of fresh baked medieval-style bread out..
Ingredients:
- 1 medium sized cabbage
- 2 onions
- 3 leeks
- 8 to 10 saffron stems
- A knob of butter
- A good pinch of ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon of sugar
- 2 pints of good strong chicken stock
- Chopped parsley as a garnish
- Ground black pepper and salt to taste
Preparation:
- Remove any damaged outer leaves from the cabbage and then cut the heart of the vegetable into eight pieces.
- Discard any large chunks of hard stem to use only the leafy part of the vegetable.
- Peel, halve and slice the onions to produce half onion rings.
- Cooks note: We used traditional white onions because they have a stronger taste than red onions.
- Trim the leeks to remove the green leafy part leaving the firm white stem.
- Thinly slice the white stems to make narrow "leek rings'.
Original Fourteenth or Fifteenth Century recipe for Caboche Potage
Take caboches and quarter hem, and seeth hem in gode broth with oynouns ymynced and the white of lekes yslyt and ycorue smale. And do therto safroun and salt and force it with powdour douce.
From "Curye on Englysch", Hieatt & Butler, Oxford University Press, 1985
Cooking:
- Place the onions and the leeks in a big pot with a very small amount of butter.
- Heat very gently for about five minutes or until the vegetables soften.
- Add black pepper to taste.
- Grind the saffron stems in a pestle and mortar and add a little stock to dissolve the resulting saffron paste.
-
Cooks note: If you don't have any stock to hand you can crumble two stock cubes into two pints of boiling water. Saffron will colour your stock a beautiful and very medieval yellow.
- Stir the salt and the spices into the remaining stock and pour over the onions and leeks.
- Add the saffron stock and stir thoroughly to make sure the saffron colours the soup evenly.
- Add the cabbage and cover with a lid.
- Bring to the boil and then simmer gently until the cabbage is cooked.
- Skim any residual fat from the top of the soup using a ladle.
- Serve piping hot with a sprinkle of chopped parsley.
-
Cooks note: You can use a hand blender to make the soup smoother.
Comments
Leave a comment Trackback