[mushroom]

garlic soup

Ooooo, recipe please

I will be making some of this tonight. I still have my cold. Stuff like this I have no written recipe for... what I make is an onion soup base and roast 6 or 8 heads of garlic - that's whole bulbs not cloves - mash the garlic with a fork, add to the soup, salt, pepper, some dry sherry (glug), simmer for a long time. It takes a long time for the flavours to 'marry', and as the soup reduces, the flavour intensifies.

I'll come back with specific quantities and method when I'm making it later today. Need to get to the lottie in the next few hrs, watering weeding, then back home to cook.

There are a couple of well-known variations of garlic soup, one is made with cream the other is made with tomato - they are more complex than my home-grown version. The tomato version is called Sopa de ajo.

[WG.]

I'll come back with specific quantities and method when I'm making it later today.

Great thanks, I'd like to try some with my own oak smoked garlic.

[mushroom]

hi,

OK, made approx 2-3 litres of soup out of 5 lb onions and 7 large heads of garlic. The method is simple if tedious. Don't burn the garlic. Adjust garlic to taste, you could use 10 heads if the fancy takes you. I dunno if this is the 'proper way' to make garlic soup. All I know is that it is how I make it.
A lot of the time in making it is spent making the onion soup base. Other people make it using a beef bullion as a base, but I've never wanted to do that.

Get together 2 pans - a frying pan, and a, I dunno, a soup pan? My soup pan holds about 2 gallons. Chop the onions into medium sized chunks, about 1/2 to 3/4 inch square.

In batches, brown the onions in either butter or groundnut oil. I used groundnut because butter is more difficult. Might be easier with actual ghee. Don't burn the onions, but the browner you can get them without burning the better. This is where the colour of your soup will come from. As each batch is done, transfer with a slotted spoon to the soup pan. When you're all done with the onion frying, deglaze any bits stuck to the bottom with water or sherry and add to the soup pan.

In the soup pan, make up to approx 2.5 litres with water. Roughly crack about 3 tablespoons of black peppercorns, add to the pot. Add about a tablespoon of celery salt. Bring to the boil, simmer for an hour or so. At this stage, I mashed the onion bits with a masher. You will evaporate off a fair bit of liquid, the reduced volume will make mashing easier. Then I added more salt - adjust this to your taste. You want it reasonably salty, a bit like a broth. it should be golden brown/brown at this point. I added a teaspoon of turmeric. This is your base soup.

Now with regards to the garlic you can either roast the peeled cloves in the oven or do what I did which was give the garlic the same treatment as the onions, except I squashed the cloves with a knife before frying. It is very important not to burn the garlic, or it will taste ugh. You want to fry it so that it is at the stage where it is liberating its aroma, then add to the soup pot.

Simmer it and keep tasting it. You may need to boil hard to reduce or add water depending on your tastes. I added even more sherry You'll want to mash the garlic bits every so often.

Once it tastes great, you want to filter it through a fine gauze. it can be frozen and used later. I've cooked pork in it before.

I don't know how it will turn out with oak smoked garlic. let me know  

[WG.]

Thanks mushroom, wonderfully detailed recipe.  I think I'll try it with 25% smoked garlic + 75% fresh.

[mushroom]

remember to take photos

[gobs]

hi just brought a cheap steamer, has anyone got any recipes to try out?can you cook meat in them or is it just veg and fishy things?


We don,t eat beef or lamb and I haven't tried sg like whole duck, etc. But all other types of meat (unprocessed) come out nice in the steamer. Just like for veg: moist, succulent, flavoursome even without seasoning.

[mushroom]

steam a chicken then transfer it (might be better to leave it in the steamer if it's metal) intto a really hot oven to crisp the skin. Saves a fair bit of cooking time. Use the liquid remaining from the steamer to make a gravy. Similar principle applies to other meats.

[mushroom]

We don,t eat beef or lamb and I haven't tried sg like whole duck, etc

hm duck i reckon wont lend itself to steaming - it is self-basting it has so much fat in it and you want the fat at high temp to crisp ... steaming lends itself best to stuff that might dry out like turkey, but most ppl steam a turkey by slamming it in the oven covered in foil  :o

[gobs]

Of course, mushroom, very true, I just picked on the wrong bird, I meant, whole or big bits of meat I haven't done.
BTW, I think they do such thing in asian cooking as steam whole bird and then fry or roast.

[muntjac]

Christmas gammons are great done in the steamer first n then cut the rind off and most the fat then grid cut  with maple syrup .in the oven for a hour or so  

[mushroom]

I dunno about meats and steaming (as a complete cooking process).

Just my opinion, really - a lot of the taste of meat is derived from searing and caramelisation of sugars/proteins (yes there is sugar present in meat in the form of glycogen). Steaming is great to cook quickly then finish off in the oven, but transferring a hot chicken from the steamer to the oven can be tricky especially if the chicken is starting to fall apart.

If I want to tenderize meat, I'd go down the marinading route (something acidic like lemon juice or garlic). If I want to cook a joint of meat really really fast, something like a joint of pork, I'd give it 10 minutes in a pressure cooker, then crisp the crackling off with salt in a very hot oven. The problem with doing chicken this way is that it is easy to make it disintegrate, and again this method presents the problem of how to get the thing out of the flippin pressure cooker, believe me i speak from experience  :oops:  :oops:  :oops:

[gobs]

Oh, mushroom I don't know what in this world are you putting them pink faces up for, aftar all those brilliant recepies of yours.
I've never tried them, so there. You u tried them and you say they are a pain, so there. end  of story, really... Until I try them and let you know,how c**p Idid.