Slow: Food Worth Taking Time Over

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When you are ready to serve, divide the soup between four bowls. Layer 3 slices of tofu per person on top of the soup, along with a sprinkling of spring onions, sesame seeds and a drizzle of toasted sesame oil.

Jewish Chicken Soup (#ulink_a28ce61d-d2bc-55d2-bf15-0dc1fa0cbb2a)

I love Jewish culture. Although I was not brought up within a religion, I think it’s probably ingrained in me because of my grandparents. My grandmother was from Scotland and flitted between Communism and Buddhism before marrying a Pole who had escaped Nazi Poland during the war. My grandfather (who worked as a pharmacist, exporting pharmaceuticals back into a bleak post-war Poland) wasn’t religious, not after all the atrocities he’d seen during the war, but he was brought up as a Jew before converting to Catholicism to escape Nazi rule. As a result, a lot of Jewish and Polish foods slipped into the meals we ate – and still eat – as a family.

Most of you will have tried a classic Jewish noodle soup, otherwise known as Jewish penicillin, thanks to its fabled power to cure every ailment. The soup is often served with matzo balls: dumplings made from fine crumbs of matzo crackers, which are a bit like water biscuits. They are sturdy little balls and make the soup much more filling. I am a greedy guts, so I like to serve my soup with kreplach dumplings too.

Most Jewish friday night suppers start with a hot bowl of this soup. I make mine with both a whole chicken and a really good chicken stock. Some might argue that you don’t need the chicken stock as the chicken will make its own soup, but for me there is never enough stock by the time it’s reduced. Always use fresh stock.

SERVES 6, DEPENDING ON HOW HUNGRY YOU ARE

Preparation time 15 minutes

Cooking time 2 hours

1 large chicken of the best quality and ethical standing you can afford

2 medium onions, halved

2 large carrots, left whole

1 leek, trimmed but left whole handful of celery leaves

3 bay leaves

few sprigs of thyme

2–3 sprigs of rosemary

500g fresh chicken stock (from the chiller cabinet)

1 tsp black peppercorns

½ tsp salt

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To serve (per person)

of the soup

30g Jewish noodles or vermicelli

2 matzo balls (see here (#u54f71696-fd14-558a-aef0-af2a045eded5))

3 kreplach (see here (#u54f71696-fd14-558a-aef0-af2a045eded5))

dill sprigs

Place the chicken in the largest pot you have. You need about 3cm of space around the edges of the chicken and about 3cm of depth above it so it can be totally immersed in liquid. Lay the vegetables and herbs around the chicken, then pour over the stock. Top up with water if necessary so the chicken is totally covered. Add the peppercorns and salt. Cover and allow to poach gently on a low simmer for 1 hour 30 minutes.

When cooked, very carefully remove the chicken and set it aside. Remove the carrots and onion halves, set them aside to cool with the chicken for 15 minutes, then chop them up. I like the chicken meat torn into small bite-size pieces, the onions finely chopped and the carrots more roughly chopped. You can use the rest of the veg, though classically the soup is only served with carrots. There will be a fair bit of chicken meat and I sometimes keep a breast for making sandwiches. Put the meat on one side while you make the broth.

Strain the vegetables, herbs and peppercorns from the stock. Clean, rinse and dry the pot and pour the stock back into it. Bring to the boil. Reduce it for about 15 minutes, or until the broth has a really intense chicken flavour. You should end up with about 3 litres of really flavoursome broth. Keep reducing it until the flavour is right. Season with salt and pepper, return the chicken meat, carrots and onions to the pan and bring back to the boil.

Meanwhile poach the noodles and/or the matzo balls and kreplach. Add these to your soup bowls, garnish with some hand picked dill and ladle the hot chicken broth, carrots and onions over the top.

Matzo balls (#ulink_dd8e6cdc-df3c-582d-84a0-5dd5156b7cc6)

When testing this I discovered that the recommended resting period was essential to allow the matzo meal to absorb all the liquid.

MAKES 16 PING-PONG-SIZE BALLS

Preparation time 5 minutes, plus 30 minutes resting

Cooking time 5 minutes

100g matzo meal

2 medium free-range eggs, whisked

50g schmaltz (chicken fat), ghee or clarified butter

100ml chicken soup or extra chicken stock

½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp white pepper

1 tsp salt

Put the matzo meal in a bowl with the eggs, shmaltz, chicken stock, baking powder, white pepper and salt. Mix together well until you have a wet dough and then leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Put a large saucepan of salted water on to boil and shape the dough into 16 balls. When the water boils, poach the balls for about 5 minutes until they rise to the surface. Then add them to the soup along with the noodles and chicken.

Salt beef kreplach (#ulink_e632e47e-5a80-5be2-8cde-f79e33609af7)

I’ve used leftover salt beef (see here) to make these and although it’s not traditional, I prefer them to the classic beef ones.

MAKES 48 DUMPLINGS

Preparation time 10 minutes, plus 20 minutes resting

Cooking time 4 minutes

300g 00 grade pasta flour

3 medium free-range eggs

1 tbsp beef dripping or chicken schmaltz

500g leftover salt beef (you can use raw minced beef chuck and a little beef fat)

1 onion cooked in the chicken soup, or 1 onion cooked slowly for 15 minutes in oil or beef dripping, mixed with the salt beef

You need either a table-top mixer with a dough hook or a food processor. Blitz together the flour, eggs and fat. The dough should come together and look like lots of small pebbles of pastry. Turn it out of the bowl and knead for about 2–3 minutes until it is firm and shiny. Cover and leave to rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Cut the dough into 4, take one quarter and cover the rest with a warm damp towel. Roll out the first quarter. You shouldn’t need much (or any) flour and sometimes it’s better to roll with semolina to prevent the kreplach becoming sticky when you poach them. Use a 9cm cutter to cut rounds of dough as if you were making ravioli. Place a large teaspoon of the salt beef and onion filling into the centre of each disc of dough. Brush the edges with water or egg and fold the outside rim to close like half moons. Place the made dumplings onto a tray lined with greasproof paper and scattered with a little semolina flour if possible. Continue with the rest of the dough.

Cook this like fresh pasta: bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil and cook the kreplach for 4 minutes. Drain and add to the soup.

Under the Weather All the Veg Soup (#ulink_f98c0136-cb32-57c0-bcef-3cce22f8b2d4)

In the grisly months when the weather is bringing you down both physically and emotionally, you can rest easy that at least winter provides you with some of the most important vegetables for your health. This soup is the perfect restorative – the barley is wholesome, the greens are health-giving and the broth will bring you back to life.

SERVES 6

Preparation time 20 minutes

Cooking time 30 minutes

2 tbsp olive oil

2 onions, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 leeks, halved and shredded few sprigs of thyme, leaves picked

1 bay leaf

200g pearl barley

2 litres vegetable or chicken stock

1 large courgette, quartered then thinly sliced

bunch of cavolo nero, finely shredded

2 large spring onions, finely shredded

pinch of cayenne pepper

large pinch of white pepper

juice of ½ lemon

large handful of parsley, finely chopped

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large heavy-based saucepan, heat the oil over a medium heat and add the onions. Cook for about 15 minutes until they have softened and started to go golden, before adding the garlic. Cook for a further minute or two, then add the white part of the shredded leeks (keep the green part for later), the thyme and bay leaf. Allow the leeks to soften for about 5 minutes. Next mix in the pearl barley and cook it for a minute before pouring in the stock.

Cook at a medium simmer for about 25 minutes until the pearl barley has cooked through but still retains some bite. At this stage add the courgette, cavolo nero, the green part of the leeks and the spring onions. The vegetables will only take a few minutes to cook through. Before serving season with the cayenne pepper, white pepper, black pepper, salt, lemon juice and parsley.