New Covent Garden Soup Company's Book of Soups: New, Old and Odd Recipes

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Tonight, it’s courgette and Brie, a recipe which I originally found in my Covent Garden soup book but as usual am too lazy busy to follow exactly so have adapted to my throw-it-all-in-the-pot style. Improv cooking at it’s best!

While the peppers and tomatoes are cooking, heat a little oil in a large pan (big enough to hold the finished soup). Cook the onion and garlic very gently without colouring. If I have a spare yellow pepper looking for a home, I might throw that in as well. It has a minor impact on the colour but nothing that will ruin your day. I love the family names and words that develop over time for our everyday things. When Joe was little he struggled to say Grandpa, so my Dad became 'Bubba'. He still is. Hella developed a love for pasta at a young age but 'shabba' was easier to say than 'pasta' in between messy mouthfuls. Drizzle a little olive oil over the peppers and tomatoes and give them all a good seasoning of salt and pepper. Bake for 40 mins to 1 hour until the peppers are soft and slightly collapsed and the tomatoes are very soft.Put on the pan on the stove and bring to the boil. At this point, I put my pan in the bottom (simmering) oven of my Aga and it will sit there until I’m ready to put the soup in the blender. You can get the same effect from a conventional oven on a very low light (ideal if you’re out at work all day) or in a slow cooker. You only need to cook the vegetables until they’re soft so even if you’re in a bit of a hurry, it will only take about 20 minutes to make your soup if you don’t have time to leave the pan.

Slater finishes his soup with toasted cumin seeds, olive oil and microgreens, Tovey tops his with chopped parsley and serves croutons on the side, and Singh-Watson gives a whole list of garnish suggestions that, in addition to some of the above, includes toasted almonds, orange flower water, walnut, hazelnut and sesame oil and “one heaped teaspoon of ground mixed Moroccan spices, such as caraway and cumin with a little hot chilli”. If you’re short of time, or would just prefer to use that time otherwise (ie, eating the soup), you could easily just sprinkle chopped fresh coriander on top. My bright, green coriander puree is not just for show, however – dissolved in oil, the flavour of the herb is richer, and more intense, than my teenage self could ever dream of. I suppose I thought we enjoyed quite a range of soups, but when Hella one day asked me, "Is it 'Normal' soup tonight?" I had to wonder HOW often we were actually eating this particular soup. But, hey - for me it's a winner and it's easy to see why. It started life as the Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper Soup from New Covent Garden Soup Company's Book of Soupsbut then morphed into a much more relaxed recipe where exact quantities are unimportant and precision is not a factor. 'Normal' soup was born. How do you make this soup? The roasting of the tomatoes will really enhance their flavour, so there's no need to worry if yours are a bit mediocre.Add the cooked peppers and tomatoes as well as all the delicious juices from the trays. If you are careful at the this point, you may get away with simply removing the tin foil and having no washing up to do - a bonus.

Rinse the courgettes, remove the top and bottom, then chop roughly into rings. (If you’re not going to blend your soup then you might want to take a little more care over this bit, but as I blitz it all then I don’t worry too much about the size.) Add to the pan. I’m using my usual Portmeirion casserole but you can use any large pan. Fancy having a go yourself? Like the leek and potato soup I showed you a couple of weeks ago, there’s not a lot to it.

Summary

Small daughter absolutely loves this soup, it’s a close second to leek and potato for her. I have to say that I was a bit surprised that she took to it the way that she did when I first made it – I expected a bit more resistance to a soup other than leek and potato – but it’s a pleasant green colour, slightly creamy from the Brie and is actually just a very nice soup so there’s nothing for her not to like! Strictly speaking, Slater’s recipe is billed as a spiced carrot soup, and he adds cumin and chilli as well, while New Covent Garden suggests a sprinkling of nutmeg, which is a nice idea in a creamier soup, though I’m going to keep my version strictly coriander-focused.

Place the red peppers on one (or two) of the baking trays. Fill the remaining space on the trays with the tomatoes. They will all shrink a bit in the oven so you can squeeze them in. NOTE - I first wrote this post for Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper Soup in 2014 and have revised it (in 2022) to improve the photos and to make the content more helpful. The recipe remains unchanged ♡