I have just gotten back from a trip to London. I was only over for a couple of days but it was enough to leave me craving fruit and veg. On the whole I love London for the sheer variety of food/cuisines you can choose from. However, like most people who are madly dashing around trying to pack in as much as possible in a very short time frame, I fell into the trap of buying food that was convenient (and cheap) to eat on the move and subsequently found myself grabbing a sandwich for lunch. So when I arrived home last night to find, four large boxes of tomatoes, one large box of courgettes and 2 cantaloupe melons sitting on the kitchen table (a gift from our neighbours because they have too many to know what to do with) I felt somewhat relieved. Knowing that we are likely to be eating courgettes and tomatoes in some shape, form or another over the course of the next 2-3 weeks I thought I’d ease myself in gently… So after having a quick look in the freezer I settled on the idea of a green vegetable soup, which was quick and easy to make and tasted fresh.
However, I feel that I am not doing my trip to London justice in terms of food… On Thursday I attended a celebratory meal which was held at a brilliant little restaurant near to London Bridge called Champor Champor. The restaurant serves Malay food with a slight Thai twist and was found one of my friends via a Google search (what would we do without the internet?!). Having never tried Malay food before I was interested to see what it was like. The food I tried was packed with flavour, leaving you with a slight zing on your palate. The dishes were not dissimilar to some I sampled when backpacking through south-east Asia – however I will definitely be heading back to that restaurant in the not too distant future and am definitely going to try and re-create some of the dishes over the next couple of months!
A Very Green Soup
- 1 courgette (chopped in to small pieces)
- 300g broad beans
- 300g peas
- Handful fresh spinach (washed)
- 1 medium onion (diced)
- 2 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 3 sprigs of mint
- 2 stock cubes dissolved in 750ml boiling water
- (either chicken or vegetable)
- Seasoning
- Crème fraiche (for serving)
- On a low heat, warm the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions and garlic, cover with a lid and leave to sweat until the onion is soft.
- Add the courgette to the pan and season well. Stir occasionally until the courgettes begins to soften.
- Add the peas, broad beans, mint and stock, bring the mix up to the boil and cook for 5 minutes.
- Remove the mint from the pan. Then add the spinach and cook for a further 3 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before blending the soup using either a handheld blender or a liquidiser.
- Serve the soup warm with crème fraiche.
I heard that your brother’s chicken in breadcrumbs knocks the spots off that Malay place. Fact.
Ha, the chicken in breadcrumbs were good… but not a touch on the Swiss macaroons that were brought by N&V!!!