hearty soup-ville

I checked out the only butcher left in my area a few months ago, as it's near where I take E-chan for playgroup. You know the sort of place: small multicoloured 60's tiles on the floor, those long multicoloured plastic strips blowing out in the doorway. The meat is not quite your usual range - distinctly Eastern-European. Lots of salami-like sausages, loaded with paprika, and things like speck, and other preserved pork products I can't name. Things at this butcher are sold as what they are. For example, "lamb" is only lamb in the springtime - at other times of year they have other names such as "yearling" or "mutton". I like buying meat here much better than the plastic and polystyrene packaged stuff at the supermarket - before, I didn't have the time to make separate trips to the butcher, but now I can so I do.

It's run by people who are from (the former republic of) Yugoslavia. There are always 3 people running the shop, and I suspect it is a family business - two men in their 50's at least, and an older lady - thick, dark rimmed glasses, and hair that you know is grey but dyed black and tied back in a bouffant bun. The men are nice and friendly, but the lady has "character" - once when I was there, a very old man was trying to buy some speck/prosciutto/preserved pork product, which was kept a couple of metres away behind the counter. He asked to see it (probably because his eyesight was not too good and he wanted to make sure he was buying the right thing). But the shop lady took great offence: "It's fresh, I tell you! You don't need to see it!" in thickly accented English. She proceeded to argue with him about this for a minute or two (E-chan found this very funny, and so did I!), then he eventually agreed to buy some. Funny - usually if someone is this pushy with me in shops, I get out of there as soon as I can and get what I need somewhere else. But from this lady, it was like my Grandma telling me what's best for me, with pursed lips insisting that breakfast was the most important meal of the day when I was a teenager and being a bit funny about eating breakfast*, and eventually winning me over with her amazing home-made raspberry jam on toast.

So anyway, I went to the butcher and saw bacon hocks! "Mmmm, hearty soups" went my brain and stomach simultaneously. I make 2 different soups with bacon hocks: Pea and Ham, and a regional Italian variation of Minestrone that I saw on "The cook and the chef" - I don't usually put meat in minestrone, but this sounded nice. And the little tacker loves them too!

Pea and Ham soup (from Stephanie Alexander's cook's companion)

1 bacon hock (or bacon bones to equivalent size)
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
2 small carrots
(my nb Could also add a stalk of celery)
4-500 g split peas
sprig thyme (I've never had this handy, so haven't used)
Bay leaf ( " " " " " " )
3 L water
Pepper (no salt needed - bacon salted enough)

Throw all ingredients in pot. Bring to boil then decrease to simmer, with lid on slightly ajar, for 1 1/2 hours. Remove bones, blend soup until smooth, then carve off meat into small bite sized chunks. Throw meat back in soup, reheat if necessary, then serve with crusty bread.

Minestrone variation
Use a tin of borlotti beans, or soak equivalent amount of dry beans overnight.
Throw in large pot with some chopped onion and bacon hock and cook for an hour or so, until beans are getting tender. Take out bacon hock and strain the beans. Keep stock for later. Cut meat off bone and reserve.

Meanwhile...
Chop large handfuls of chopped veges into bite sized pieces, e.g.
Onion, Garlic, carrot, zucchini, tomatoes (no more than 2), celery, cabbage, peas, green beans (if using frozen, reserve until the last 5 minutes of cooking). Leave half of a carrot unchopped and a small potato cut in half.

Fry oniony veges in butter, then add celery and carrot, then the remaining veges, and borlotti beans. Add cold water at first then make up volume with stock to taste. Simmer with lid on or off depending on how much liquid there is. When potato and large bit of carrot are cooked, remove them, with a bit of liquid and bits of some of the other veges and puree (I use stab blender). Incorporate with rest of soup. Add bacon meat, and your choice of pasta and cook until pasta is ready (I like the little star shaped pasta that B@rilla make, but small shells or spirals are good.

Serve with parmesan cheese, a bit of drizzled olive oil, and crusty bread. (or you can make the whole thing without Bacon hock - just cook borlotti or even black eyed beans in vege stock and do everything else the same).


* Now I am such an enthusiastic eater I can't for the life of me understand what all the fuss was about!!