Corn Chowder

I have a complicated relationship with soup, I adore it, but whenever I make it I always end up making enough for the entire street and eating it for a week afterwards. The quantities shown here are enough for one large bowl, feel free do multiply the quantities if you wish to make more.

Start by putting your sweetcorn, defrosted under boiling water and drained in a food processor. Add a bruised clove of garlic and a chopped spring onion and blitz until smooth. Transfer to a large saucepan and cover with 500ml of hot vegetable stock. Mix with a wooden spoon and simmer for 10 minutes.

While the soup is simmering scatter a small handful of tortilla chips on a baking tray and cover with liberal amounts of grated cheese, place in a hot oven for four or five minutes until the cheese has melted and the tortilla chips have started to brown. Ladle the soup into bowls and cover with the tortilla chips, and devour.

Ingredients

250g frozen sweetcorn
1 clove garlic
1 spring onion
500ml vegetable stock
small handful tortilla chips
40g grated cheese

Prawn Curry Soup

I recently experienced somewhat of a craving for curry, and I'm not referring to the fluorescent orange tandoori found in most middle England towns, but to something rather softer, and less harsh, more fragrant and aromatic than fiery and spicy.

Whilst curry is wonderful it can often get boring, so I created this dish to use similar flavours as a curry, but without needing rice as an accompaniment, here I serve it instead with a toasted pitta, which is clearly not traditional, given the vast distance between the middle east and south-east Asia, it has a texture almost reminiscent of a chapati, but is much easier to procure.

Start by chopping a head of broccoli into fine florets, discard the tough stalk and stir-fry them in a little vegetable oil until tender, add the cooked prawns and toss in the hot oil. Add the korma paste and stir until the prawns and the broccoli are coated. Add the double cream and stir until it is a uniform ochre tone. Add 250ml of water from a recently boiled kettle and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Simmer for 20 minutes stirring sporadically until the soup has thickened, and serve, with a freshly toasted wholewheat pitta.

ingredients

150g cooked king prawns
1 head broccoli
3 tablespoons korma paste
50ml double cream
salt & pepper

French Onion Soup

This is one of my favorite soups, and one of my favorite recipes to make. It truly does have a great wow factor, and is wonderful served either as a starter, or alternatively as a lunch. Personally I find that there are few things more luxurious or more simple than sitting down in the living room of my parents house in Paris on a rainy afternoon, rain lashing on the veranda with a bowl of warming onion soup.

My recipe is very simple, some recipes add alcohol or vinegar to the stock, some even add bacon changing the nature of the dish entirely. It is also possible to top the soup with a poached egg as is often done in belgium, however here I prefer to top the soup with the more traditional gruyere toast.

This recipe should feed around four people. To start off finely chop a whole kilo of onions and fry them in a generous quantity of butter, sprinkling them with a generous amount of salt to ensure that they don't brown too deeply. When they have softened and turned slightly translucent cover with 500ml of stock, you can either use vegetable stock, though beef stock is traditionally used (and no, I don't and have never made my own stock).

Simmer for 15 minutes until the flavours have mellowed and the stock has darkened. While the soup is simmering, thickly slice a baguette and place it under the grill on a baking tray until it has toasted lightly, flip and toast the other side. When the soup has simmered ladle it into ovenproof bowls and top with the toast. Top with grated gruyere cheese (though you could also use emmental or cheddar) and place under the grill until the cheese has melted and browned.

I must credit my mother for providing the recipe and I will confess that I don't often make it at home, as my version pales in comparison to hers, which uses fat white onions from the garden, and crusty french bread direct from the bakery, however don't let that put you off making this classic dish, one of the simplest soups to make, and wonderfully comforting and warming.

Ingredients:

1kg Onions
50g unsalted butter
500ml stock
1 baguette
200g Gruyere Cheese

Red Lentil and Lemon Soup

There are few things as comforting or as nourishing in the dead of winter as a bowl of warm soup, with bread and cheese to soak up the excess. This morning with little else to do I decided to spend my time pottering around the kitchen making soup for lunch, which is an oddly perfect way to spend a tranquil monday morning.

My mother had recommended to me a soup featured in the New York Times some months earlier, but I find making soup only for myself a terrible bother, and I always end up making too much, and eating it three meals a day for the next week.

I started by lightly sweating some onions and garlic in a large saucepan. When I’m staying with my parents I generally use a cast iron Le Creuset pan for making soup, they allow an incredible diffusion of heat, ensuring that nothing sticks, and you can put them in the oven, so they are great for casseroles. Yes they are pricey, but the one I am currently using was bought over two decades ago, and is still going strong today.

Another tip I always follow when cooking garlic, is to add it to the pan while the oil is still cold, and to heat the garlic and oil up together, this ensures that the garlic won’t burn as easily, and nothing ruins a dish more easily than burnt, acrid and bitter garlic.

After sweating these down I stirred in a little tomato paste and some spices, I always sweat tomato puree in the pan for a few minutes, and I find this helpful to rid it of some of its acidity. Then I stirred in cumin, slightly bruised in a pestle and mortar, salt and pepper and cayenne. For more exact measurements see the recipe below.

Finally I added diced carrots and stock, bringing the mixture to a rolling boil before adding red lentils and turning down the heat.

Some cooks loathe the idea of a thin blended soup, and I tend to agree with them in most cases, the vast majority of soups should be a little chunky, and this soup is no exception. So I remove half of the soup and blend it, leaving the rest untouched, and pouring the liquidized soup back into the pan and combining.

The soup is best served hot with both lemon juice and zest, with a little chopped fresh coriander. It was delicious, with the lemon providing freshness and brightness, and the spices creating a beautiful warmth underneath. I have in the past found red lentil soups to be rather gloopy and challenging, but this soup is warming, fresh and fragrant. The recipe in full can be found below.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil, for frying
• 1 large onion
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• salt & pepper to taste
• pinch of cayenne
• 2 pints chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 cup of red lentils
• 1 large carrot, diced
• juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
• 3 tablespoons of chopped coriander

Method

• Sweat the garlic and onion in a little olive oil, and add the tomato paste and spices, stirring with a wooden spoon
• Add the diced carrot and the stock to the pan, and mix in the red lentils, simmering the mixture until the lentils are cooked and the carrots are tender
• Before serving grate the zest of a 1/2 lemon and add the juice, and season to taste
• Serve garnished with chopped fresh coriander and with fresh bread