Soup of the week! Tomato and Lemongrass

This week’s Soup of The Week is slightly inspired by the local food here in Singapore with a pinch of inspiration from a food memory back when I was in my early teens. My older brother is a fantastic cook, it all started when he worked part time in the kitchens at a beautiful hotel restaurant smack bang in the idyllic Wye Valley at Symonds Yat. I never used to like tomato soup as a youngster but the chef at The Royal Hotel had a recipe for Tomato and Lemongrass Soup that was highly regarded by the rest of my family. My memory is of walking into the kitchen to find my brother and dad using as many containers as they could find to store the soup. The chef had given my brother the restaurant kitchen recipe for the rather than a downsized home cooking version so we ended up with enough soup to serve around 20 covers! Since my love for tomato soup has been born and as I am experimenting with a lot of south east asian ingredients I’ve never used before, I have come up with my own version of this soup. It’s a very light soup that works well served as a starter before a heavy meal, possessing superb flavours with a little kick of chilli cutting through.

For four servings you will need:

• 25g Butter
• 1 Onion, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• a pinch of chilli flakes
• 2 Tins Chopped Tomatoes
• 3 stalks of lemongrass, remove outer skins and stalks before finely slicing
• 1 litre of hot chicken or vegetable stock
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Melt the butter over a gentle heat and slowly cook the onion until translucent. Add the garlic and chilli cooking for a further 2 minutes. Next, add the tinned tomatoes, lemon grass and stock and simmer for about 15 minutes to allow all the flavours to infuse. Transfer to a blender until smooth and serve. 

Low and Slow Semi Dried Tomatoes

This recipe goes with my obsession for ‘picky’ food. I love anything that can be grazed on, they also double up as a cooking ingredient – these tomatoes have become a store cupboard essential in my kitchen.  After seeing a recipe in a magazine recently, I thought I would give my own a go, it looked so easy and I found it really was.  As long as you have a couple of hours spare as you need to cook them low and slow. It’s also a great way of using up the remaining few in a pack of softening tomatoes.

You will need…

6 Tomatoes, sliced in half

2 tsp Olive Oil

2 pinches of dried herbs, I used Mccormick Garlic and Herb Seasoning, mixed with one pinch of salt

1 Sterilised glass jar

Additional olive oil, for topping up the jar afterwards, use the best you can afford as this will add to the end flavour of your tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 130 degrees celcius. Place the tomatoes cut side up on a baking sheet and brush each one with a little olive oil.

Sparingly season each piece of tomato with the herbs and place in the oven for two and a half hours.

Remove and cool before placing in a jar and topping up with olive oil.

You can use them in salads, sauces, pizza, pasta or straight from the jar. Any tomatoes can be used for this recipe but you’ll need to alter the cooking time according to size. I have used cherry tomatoes before and they are equally as yummy and took just over an hour at the same temperature.

Fresh and Fast Feta Salad

September? Where did you come from?! Summer is coming to an end and I think most of us like to try and drag it out for as long as possible. When we moved to Singapore 3 months ago, one of the things we knew we would miss are the seasons. They are so prominent in both the UK where we are from and Switzerland where we lived prior to here. Around about now we would be making the most of the last few days of Summer with those dark evenings slowly creeping in. This year I find myself longing to stand in the countryside under a light shower of rain with a cool breeze in my face.

In a way, having the constant heat has been a blessing for me. With arms and legs regularly on show, it’s a big kick up the backside to get me in the gym and eating healthy salads. Here is a yummy side salad, nothing needs cooking just chop everything up and throw it together. Great served with Steak, Chicken or with a jacket spud as I did for lunch today! Normally when I serve a salad, the other half smothers it in salad cream, this is one of the few salads he will eat without any dressing at all. It is so simple yet so tasty, and low on those calories too!

This recipe serves one so you can easily multiply.

You’ll be needing…

15g red onion, diced

35g low fat feta, you can use full fat if you are feeling naughty!

8 cherry tomatoes, quartered

8 medium sized fresh mint leaves, finely chopped

Just throw it all together, et voila!

My lunch today was really tasty! Just what I wanted after my morning Zumba class.