Kicking off 2025 with a super healthy and comforting green soup from Nigel Slater's Eat
What's in it?
200g Leeks (roughly two trimmed leeks), sliced diagonally into 2.5cm sections
4 Scallion Onions (little spring onions), sliced finely
200g Courgette (roughly one medium courgette), cut into chunks
200g Frozen Peas
400g Frozen Broad Beans, cooked in salted water, drained under cold running water
400g Tinned Flageolet Beans (drained and rinsed)
1 litre Vegetable Stock
Chives (ideally 10g of fresh chives chopped into short lengths, but two teaspoons of dried chives also works)
A handful of Fresh Parsley, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons of Olive Oil
A note on veg prep: Always wash your vegetables before chopping! I know it's probably obvious, but you don't know where they've been and nobody wants E-coli. Wash fresh veg under cold water thoroughly, then pat dry with a clean tea-towel before introducing them to your knives and chopping board.
Kitchen kit you'll need
One small pan to boil broad beans in
A large sauce pan
Baking paper
Wooden spoon (or whatever you like to stir with...)
Chopping board(s) - I used two for this, one large for the leeks and onions, and a medium for the courgette
Chef's knife (not essential - just a good all purpose kitchen knife your comfortable chopping veg and herbs with)
Colander
How to make it
Cook the broad beans in salted water and drain under cold running water, leave to finish draining .
Warm the sauce pan and add the oil. Once the oil is hot, add the leeks and onions and cover with baking paper - this helps them steam and soften rather than fry. We're aiming for them to be green and tender, not brown. Cook over a medium heat. After about 7 - 10 minutes they should be soft, but still green and bright.
Remove the baking paper and add the courgette, flageolet beans, peas and vegetable stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer.
Add the broad beans, chives, and stir in the parsley. Continue to simmer for about 5 minutes, or longer if you prefer, making sure to check flavours and adjust seasoning to your taste.
Serve with accompaniments of your choice.
Cooking times These are estimates based on how long it took me on a gas hob. Times will vary depending on your set up. From start to finish of cooking this meal took about 35 minutes.
The Book
Eat: The little book of fast food by Nigel Slater was first published in 2013 with a purchase price of £26. The current retail price for new copies is £30. I picked up my fourth edition copy for £1 from a local market, and there are plenty of second hand copies available on resale sites and market places. The book is a handy, easy to navigate, collection of over 600 ideas for dinners, with notes and thoughts from Nigel about some meals. It's a little fat, but I was able to hold it open on my recipe book stand without issues, and as you'd expect it has a handy bookmark ribbon.
The recipes follow a short notation format, with the ingredients noted at the top without quantities - these are highlighted in bold the first time we encounter each ingredient in the recipe, which some might find harder to follow. I didn't find this an issue, and thought the instructions were clear and simple, and the explanatory notes and thoughts on how recipes can be adapted are also something I find useful.
Content is organised based on how you might enjoy or cook the food, for example "in the hand", "in a bowl", "on the hob" etc. There's also a main ingredient mini index at the front of the book to help navigation, as well as a full index at the back.
The size of the book could make it feel daunting and difficult to use. I found this recipe by flicking through the book and randomly stopping on a page - my go to method for when I'm feeling indecisive about food and want to make a quick decision rather than spend hours reading. The size of the paperback edition makes it ideal for taking this approach.
This recipe can be found on page 207 of my copy.
The soup was quick and easy to cook, with minimal prep time required. As it's a soup and you want to allow time for flavours to develop, I'd recommend cooking this in the evening rather than as a lunch - especially during the working week.
Note from Nigel: "Chop and change vegetables to suit what you have available. The point is to keep the ingredients fresh and green." Nigel suggests adding short lengths of spaghetti, orzo, or other short or rice shaped pastas to make the soup more substantial. For the carnivorous, try adding pancetta when cooking the leeks and onions. You could also top with grated parmesan if you're into cheese.
Would I recommend this book? Absolutely. But you need to be brave, embrace a little chaos and just dive in rather than reading it cover to cover to find inspiration. If you're looking for vegan or vegetarian recipes there are some ready to go ones in here, but as it's a book for omnivores be prepared to make swaps and edits to "vegify" meals.
I'll be cooking more from here over the course of the year.
Rating:
How it turned out
This was a comforting soup, with the potential to be flavoursome. I had to fall back on dried chives as opposed to fresh as none were available when I shopped, I suspect fresh herbs would have helped lift the flavour, as would a better quality stock than a budget supermarket own brand.
The prep was quick and simple - I chopped all the veg in about five minutes, the longest part was boiling the broad beans, but you can do this first and while the leeks and onions are cooking.
I had no idea what flageolet beans were, so cue a trip to the middle-class supermarket, which was pleasantly surprising - as you'd expect, flageolet beans are Waitrose Essentials and you can pick up a tin for 85p, compared with upwards of £1.90 for organic premium brands. The total cost of my shop was £15.13 - which included £1 for a bag, an additional bag of frozen broad beans and baking paper. So a reasonable estimate for all ingredients needed would be £12 - £13. At 6 servings, the cost of the soup comes in at just above £2, although it does need to be accompanied by a roll or form part of a larger meal. Compared with supermarket soups and those available from sandwich shops, if you make this and take it to work for lunch you'll be saving in the region of £1 to £4 a meal, depending on your accompaniments.
Green soups like this remind me of spring. I would make this again, but would use a garlic infused oil when cooking the leeks and onions and a good squeeze of lemon juice to give it some extra zing, and maybe top with pine nuts. The soup would go nicely as part of a larger meal with seared tofu steak and green beans. A light, slightly chalky white wine, possibly a good quality New Zealand Sauvignon (like Small & Small's Marlborough) would pair nicely.
The recipe made up six portions (or four larger servings). On day two I served this up with some garlic sourdough croutons (chop up bread into chunks, fry until lightly golden in garlic infused oil).
Nutritional Values
(based on 6 servings, no additions or alterations to the base recipe)
Calories | 177 |
Total Fat | 4.2g |
Saturated | 0.8g |
Trans | 0g |
Polyunsaturated | 0.6g |
Monounsaturated | 2.1g |
Cholesterol | 0.7mg |
Sodium | 523mg |
Total Carbohydrates | 23.7g |
Dietary Fibre | 6g |
Sugar | 4.1g |
Protein | 9.6g |
Calcium | 4.4% |
Iron | 11.4% |
Potassium | 336.7% |
Vitamin A | 10.1% |
Vitamin C | 25.5% |
Vitamin D | 0% |
Comments