I got the for idea for this (brand new!) soup from one of the seasonal Covent Garden soups that I had recently. It was called English Garden soup, and was made with cucumber, lettuce, celery and mint. It sounded like a great idea, and I'd never heard of usuing cucumber or lettuce in a soup before, but the meal itself was rather disappointing; really quite thin and bland. I figured I could do better.
As it happened the next time I was in the greengrocers I found some massive cucumbers going cheap, and the celery bunches were bigger than usual too. The mint was looking a little ropy, so I decided to plump for parsley instead to take it in a slightly different direction. I also omitted the lettuce because... I don't have a good reason. I'm just not a big fan of lettuce.
As a heads up, what followed was very much based on trial and error. I could give you the recipe of what I did, or I could give you the recipe of what I intend to do next time to make it a little better, but I figure it’s best to give you everything so you can compare and make your own conclusions. Just like the practice of reproducing the Folio and Quarto versions of King Lear alongside each other. That’s right. I went there.
I started off as I start most soups, by frying onions and garlic. I roughly chopped a whole (enormous) cucumber, and a whole head of celery, added salt and pepper and put the lid on to steam for a couple of minutes. I then added enough hot chicken stock to cover the veg – use vegetable stock if you want to keep it vegetarian – and left it to simmer for about 25 minutes. Once everything was soft I added about half a bunch of chopped parsley and blended everything in the food processor. I returned it to the pan and added the rest of the parsley, a handful of frozen peas, and some pre-soaked pearl barley.
This was my basic soup. The celery was a bit overpowering, so in the future I will try to use equal weights of cucumber and celery. The peas and the pearl barley work very well to make it more substantial, and the parsley brings a lovely grassy element, but as it stood it was still a little bland over all. It needed acid, salt, and depth. So I added chopped capers, lemon juice and a few dashes of vermouth. The vermouth was the kicker and really brought the whole thing together, but white wine might do the same job quite nicely.
The final result tasted great. It was green and grassy while still being hearty enough to make a proper meal, but it definitely still needs tweaking. The garlic and the parsley got a bit lost over all, so next time I’ll add them both at the very end to keep them fresh. The texture was pleasantly chunky but a little grainy, so the addition of a potato for extra starch and some more time in the food processor should sort that out. And I need to sort out the balance of the cucumber and celery so it doesn’t turn into a variation of celery soup. I’m also thinking of serving it with a dollop of crème fraiche and chives, but haven’t made up my mind yet.
This is still being workshopped so suggestions are gratefully received. My only stipulation is that it was such a pretty green I don’t want any other strong colours to come along and mess it up, so I’m not going to be adding anything like bacon to it. (Note to self: Bacon in soup? Excellent idea).
I can’t tell you how many this will serve because it produced a whole vat and I lost count of the portions. There was so much soup. So much. I mean, like, you don’t even know.
