Ham shank and cabbage winter soup

Christmas has come and gone and now is the time of year I try to make up for the excesses of Christmas feasts and Hogmanay partying.

2009 was a year of excess; roast duck in bed, potatoes sizzling in goose fat, everything au gratin and countless bottles of lush Cairn o Mohr wine. 2010 was healthier, as I was trying to lose a few pounds and even hitting the gym once or twice. 2011 will be a good year, I can just feel it.

I made this soup a few days ago and let me just say, it was just what I needed. Few things can beat a smoky, warming soup on a cold winters night, and you can't beat throwing in the odd ham shank either!

Ham shank and cabbage winter soup

3 tsp rapeseed oil
450 g smoked ham shank
1 head cabbage, shredded
2 carrots, roughly chopped
3 onions, chopped
5 large tomatoes, quartered
2 L water
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste

Heat oil in pan. Brown the ham shank and remove.

Sautee onions until softened, then the cabbage and carrots. Return the ham shank to the pot and add water to cover.

Simmer for at least 1 hour, but preferably for as long as possible.

Add the tomatoes to the soup and simmer gently a further 15-20 minutes.

Super healthy spinach and kale soup

In keeping with the soup theme, I made this tonight with a couple bags of greenery I found lurking in the fridge that has maybe seen better days. Perfect for soup thoough, and I love a green soup. May make this again for St Patrick's Day next year. Plus both me and the boy have been feeling a bit run down, so the huge amounts of garlic should hopefully help.

Spinach and kale soup

400g organic spinach (Phantassie)
200g organic kale (Phantassie)
3 medium onions, chopped (W Christie butchers)
8 cloves garlic, chopped (W Christie butchers)
2 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 tsp wild garlic pesto (Sacla)
2 Knorr vegetable stock pots
½ tsp black mustard seeds
A pinch of nutmeg
750 ml boiling water

Heat oil in a large pot. Sautee onions for a few minutes until translucent, then add the garlic – do not cook the garlic for very long, as it has a tendency to burn. Add the black mustard seeds to the onions and garlic to toast them slightly.

Now add the spinach (you could break it up or chop it if you like, but I was terribly lazy and just threw it all in at once. Ah well, it gets blended anyway so it shouldn’t matter). Add the kale as well – you will probably need to break it up a bit as it is hardier than the spinach.

Add the water and the stock; you could use fresh vegetable stock if you like but I had a few stock pots to hand so just used them. Cook the soup down until the spinach and kale are wilted. Season with some sea salt; add a small pinch of nutmeg, maybe some freshly ground black pepper.

Using a handheld blender, puree up the soup – the blender we have is amazing and we don’t even need to take the pot off the hob. I don’t like my soups totally smooth so I’ll usually stop just short of totally blended – I like a bit of texture!

To serve you could spoon in some crème fraiche, but this is super tasty and very healthy as it is. I think this may go some way to counteract the week of takeaways we’ve just had, bad me!

Oxtail soup

Tis the time of year for soup. I’m not usually a huge soup person, especially during the summer months; I’m more a solid food kind of girl, with the emphasis on chewing. Makes me feel like I’ve worked for it – pureed food just seems too easy.


I get lazy in winter, and I think it’s a fabulous time of year to get cosy under a thick tartan blanket on an armchair of epic proportions, with the lights down low and a good film on the telly. There’s really nothing better to get me in that snuggly frame of mind than a nice bowl of steaming hot soup and some crusty bread. My favourite at the moment is Falko’s spelt and honey (dinkelbrot mit honig), which is amaaazing. It may be the best bread I have ever tasted, and I buy it every weekend at the farmers market. And as far as the soup element is concerned, nothing beats homemade.


My lovely boy made a version of oxtail soup over the weekend; it is gorgeous, but quite different from any other oxtail soup, I promise!


Hearty oxtail soup


1.5 kg oxtail
1 bottle Madeira wine, medium dry
Flour
500 ml beef stock
3-5 onions, chopped
Carrots, chopped
Romanesco, in florets
Brussels sprouts, halved
20 cherry tomatoes


Dust the oxtail with flour, then brown in some oil (we use Summer Harvest rapeseed oil) in a heavy, lidded casserole dish. Remove the meat and set aside. Add the onions and sauté – you might need to add some more oil at this point. When the onions have softened, return the oxtail to the pot; now is the time to add the whole bottle of Madeira. Cook it all down for about 15-20 minutes before adding the beef stock. Season. Simmer over a very low heat for a very long time; my boyfriend cooked this soup over a period of 5 hours, but you could probably get away with a couple hours.


Meanwhile, in a separate pot of salted water, blanch the vegetables. You can add as many or as few vegetables to this as you like, but we used a couple large carrots, half a huge head of romanesco, and about 10-12 sprouts. Drain.


Once the soup has sat simmering for what seems like forever, and you can no longer remember a time when you did not have soup simmering on the hob, remove the oxtail from the broth.


Set the meat aside and add the drained vegetables to the soup. Toss in the cherry tomatoes as well; there is no need to chop as the soup will cook down further;
simmer the soup with the vegetables and tomatoes for about 20 minutes, mashing the vegetables with a wooden spoon if you prefer soups with a chunkier texture, or puree with a handheld blender if you prefer something a little smoother. I personally like mine with a bit of texture, so only lightly blended it.


Now, you have one of two choices. You could shred the meat and add it to the soup, or you could leave it out altogether. We did half and half; as there is quite a lot of soup yield, we added shredded oxtail to half the batch and left it out of the other batch. It’s wonderful and yummy either way, and I can’t think of a more perfect meal on a freezing cold Edinburgh winter night.