S001-2

1. Starters and soups

Smoked mackerel pate
2 smoked mackerel fillets, 1 pot of yoghurt, lemon juice, pepper, thick bread. De-skin the fillets, mush up with yoghurt and add lemon juice and pepper to taste. Serve with pitta bread or melba toasts (see below).

Bean and Yoghurt dip
Tin of butter beans, garlic, yoghurt, lemon. Cook beans in water until soft. Drain and cool. Mash the beans, add chopped garlic and yoghurt (about 1 big dollop), a big squirt of lemon juice and some chilli powder if you like a bit of pep. Serve with pitta bread, smash some plates and spit on the Turkish flag for full Greek effect.

Aubergine Caviar
2 aubergines, garlic, yoghurt. Peel, chop and boil aubergines for 20 mins. Drain, cool and mash. Add chopped garlic and enough yoghurt to make paste.

Melba Toast
Cut the crusts off the bread and toast and (this is the clever bit) slice them along the width of the bread so they open up into two slices of very thin bread. Toast the untoasted sides (carefully) and serve.

Soup

The rule here is that there aren't many things that don't make decent soup. Make some stock (stock cube/hot water, although gravy granules do the same thing) and away you go. Here are some ideas:

French Onion soup
Stock; two large onions, finely chopped. Fry onions for ages (20 mins) on a very low heat so they sweat and caramelise - then add stock and cook for a bit longer.

Leek and Potato soup
Stock; big leek; big potato; big onion. Chop all veg into shrew-sized chunks. Put in pan and fry 5 mins (with some mixed herbs if you have them). Add stock so the veg are just covered. Boil and simmer for 20 mins so the potatoes are breaking up. Help them do so with wooden spoon and serve when soup is thick'n'lumpy.

Nettle Soup
Stock, onion, garlic, lots of stinging nettles. Chop onion and garlic, fry. Add the nettles which will not sting once cooked, until soft. Add stock and simmer for 20 mins.

Tuscan Bean soup
Stock; handful of bacon bits; sliced onion; tin of tomatoes; some mixed herbs; canellini beans. Fry bacon and onion, 5 mins. Add toms and herbs and simmer for 5 more. Add pint and a half of stock and the beans. Simmer for 10 mins.

Minestrone
As above except replace the bacon with a finely chopped carrot, a finely chopped stick of celery and two cabbage leaves, shredded. When adding the stock add a handful of small dried pasta (or large pasta broken up) and cook until pasta is done.

Chinese Hot and Sour soup
Stock; handful each of sliced mushrooms, chopped spring onions (or well-chopped ordinary onions), tomato quarters, prawns; one egg; teaspoon of chilli (or chilli powder or paste); soy sauce; vinegar. Fry all solid ingredients except egg and tomatoes for 5 mins. Add stock, generous amounts of soy sauce and a large glug of vinegar. Simmer for 10 minutes. Whisk egg and pour into soup, whisking as you go. Add tomatoes. Cook for 5 more mins.

Chinese meal soup
As above except replace egg with a rectangle of dried noodles.

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