Traipsing round Manchester looking for new shoes. I’m thinking of going for the full on cuban heels, rock and roll, cowboy thing, but I don’t have the bottle once I get in the shop. Is this a sign of aging?
On the way home I nip into Chinatown for a nosey around. One of my favourite things about living in the city centre is the proximity to Chinatown. I love the great, cheap supermarkets and the chintzy restaurant signs. My favourite place is Ho’s Bakery on Faulkner Street – If you haven’t been here I thoroughly recommend checking it out.
Today I’m drawn in by habit. I just fancy a roast pork crisp – that is a kind of sweet pork-filled pastry rolled in sesame seeds. Probably my favourite of the savoury selection. I’m just about to hand over my money when a new tray of fresh honey buns comes out of the oven. They must have seen me coming. Fortunately I only have two quid in change in my pocket which prevents me from buying the whole tray. I exit the shop grinning from ear to ear and relishing the warmth and softness of the honey bun straight out of the bag as I walk up Portland Street back to the flat.
Couldn’t find any decent chorizo in town today which is a disappointment as I was going to make a soup with the sausage and some parsnips that are starting to look flabby and forlorn in the veg box.
Instead I decide to substitute the chorizo for a big spoonful of smoked paprika that I bought from the delightful Hay Wholefoods Deli in Hay on Wye, a couple of cloves of Garlic and some chilli. The soup is a fairly seasonal mix of spuds, carrots, parsnips (a great match for the paprika), butter beans out of a tin, mini bowtie farfalline pasta, onion a bits of every other leftovers. A good quality chicken stock from the freezer, and the rind of the spent parmesan lift add real depth of flavour beyond the initial spicy hit. The deep fox-like red-orange colour reminds me of the soil in South East Kenya, where I first learned to make my own soup.
For me, using good chicken stock really makes for a great soup. So here’s a ‘proper recipe’…
Chicken Stock.
For ages I used to get put off by recipes asking for chicken stock. Making my own always seemed a hassle, and the packet stuff doesn’t taste like stock, in the same way that prawn cocktail crisps taste nothing like prawns.
Since getting over my stock fear I’ve discovered how satisfying it is too have some stock in. More importantly it has taught me to pay a bit extra for good chicken. When you boil up a chicken’s carcass you get to see exactly what comes out, and a lot less fatty sludge comes out of the happy free range organic chuck than the steroid-pumped Schwarzenegger-chickens that come at three quid a pop.
Anyhow, here’s what you need:
Roast chicken carcass, all the bones and knobbly bits. Drumsticks or wings, or whatever you have will do if you don’t have a whole carcass.
Half a big onion
Tomato
Bits of celery
Other leftover veg – e.g. bits of spring onion, pepper, carrot etc.
Bay leaf, or any other herbs you fancy putting in. A bouquet garni if you can be bothered fiddling about with the string. A large, thoroughly bashed up piece of lemon grass gives a lovely fresh finish that I like for South-East Asian style soups.
Pepper
Put all this into a big heavy bottomed pan. The tomato and the onion half should be intact, and the other veg as they come. Fill the pan with enough water to pretty much cover the carcass, and put on a medium to low heat until it starts to gently simmer. Turn down the heat and let the stock bubble very, very softly and slowly for one to two hours. Leave the lid off the pan and the kitchen will smell great.
After letting the stock bubble away for as long as you have patience, take it off the heat and let it cool a little. Strain in to a container and throw away the solids. Let the liquid cool further and skim off any fat you don’t like the look of.
It’ll keep a couple of days in the fridge or longer in the freezer so you don’t have to use it up right away.
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