Unpacked lunch

Imagine you’ve gone to work with a packed lunch. It’s sandwiches. You’re sent home late morning, for some reason. Do you take your packed lunch out of the box and eat it off a plate, or eat it from the box? Tricky. And even more so if it’s leftovers. That’s been bothering me for years, philosophically at least. If I am ever in the position of taking what might in any way be construed as a packed lunch anywhere, it does as the black box on a crashed airliner is supposed to do – silently ticking, letting me know its location. All sodding morning. It’s gone by 9.45 at best. And of course, as we all know with a packed lunch, it’s the one time it’s acceptable to eat it in reverse, to defy John Shuttleworth and consume the sweet items first.

And what of soup? Like tea, it doesn’t take well to a flask – yet coffee does (as long as it’s made with hot milk). What a cruel, inconsistent world to bring children into.

Anyway. I’ve been making soup. It’s Jerusalem artichoke soup with Jerusalem artichoke crisps and it’s very special. Unfortunately, the pictures are not: I couldn’t be arsed to get the camera from upstairs when I was cooking and I was in a hurry because ET was on and my daughter hadn’t seen it before. The first and last pics are what happens when you use a camera in daylight and pay attention; the other pics are what a phone takes in lowish light when you should be watch a film. This serves as a clumsy metaphor for soupmaking, though not as clumpsy as pointing it out to an already snoozy readership.

The soup is ridiculously simple, in almost inverse proportion to it’s amazingness. I made it the other day as a quick lunch and it was very fine – it tastes like the best mushroom soup but with added subterranean. This was just a guess at recreating and it was even better.

Don’t be bothered by the lack of measurements below: I could tell you how many Jerusalem artichokes but they can be this big…or a third the size, and smaller ones mean more peel to flesh, so even weights don’t help much. And how intense is the stock you’re using?

This is soup; soup is mostly about feel…and tasting and tweaking again and again as you go. Make it as below and you will believe you are the God of Soupmaking. And thenceforth you will be the God of Soupmaking. The trick, when letting go of a recipe a little, is not to be slapdash: retain attention – be present in what you’re doing. It’s not hard work – I was popping in and out of ET, telling the dog he was a terrible arse for rolling in foxpoo AGAIN, texting a friend abuse about Chelsea losing in the cup. But when I was actually with the soup, that was all I was doing.

I used to be crap at making soup – I thought it must be a knack or the presence of some marvellous, surprising ingredient, but it’s much simpler than that. Making fine soup isn’t made with luck – good ingredients and attention are what’s required. Attention is the exercise that develops feel.

Talking of ingredients, here they are. Get roughly that amount.

There are a few instructions, below, but essentially the key is patience and waiting for change. All the instructions you actually need are: wait until the shallots are slack and sweet before adding the artichokes; wait until the artichokes opacity beings to change before adding the stock. And be gentle. You’ll taste all of the care you put in.

For those who fancy the longer version…peel and end the shallots, slice into pound coins and sweat them over a low-medium heat in a good dash of olive oil and a big knob of butter. Stir once in a while – you want everything to soften, with no hint of burning. It may take time.

You’re going to peel the artichokes twice: once to get most of the skin off (see below), and once more (on a few) to give you something to fry as crisps.

Slice the artichokes into coins and add them to the shallots – add more oil and butter if needed – you’re looking for everything to be slightly glossy, rather than swimming. In with four good sized cloves of garlic, finely chopped, some salt and pepper, and the leaves from a small handful of thyme, stems disguarded. Look for the artichokes to soften a little – they will shift from glassy to milky.

Add the stock: mine was a yoghurt pot of chicken stock I had defrosting in a pan over a low heat while the shallots and artichokes were cooking. If you’re using Marigold or similar, don’t make it too strong – powdered stocks can be a little heavy on the salt and can easily be a little too brash for this. If it helps, there are 454ml in one of those pots…but I added a good splash of boiling water so that the artichokes were just-covered. A gentle simmering is all they need. When the artichokes will just take the point of a sharp knife, taste for seasoning and adjust if you like. Zap in a blender until completely smooth. Return to the pan and add milk – I’m sorry, I was in a dash at this point as I’d missed the start of ET so I didn’t measure it – maybe a third of a pint, maybe less maybe more. Start with a quarter of a pint, taste and see how you go. You want silk, not sackcloth: it should be creamy but not milky, if that makes sense. It will when you do it.

The crisps: an inch of vegetable oil in a hot pan, lower in perhaps 6 slivers of artichoke at a time and be ready to pluck them out sharpish with a slotted spoon. They’ll turn chestnut quicker than a Napalm Death single – you want them the light beige of a geography teacher’s shoe. Tip them onto kitchen paper to drain.

Dust with plenty of pepper and hot paprika (though smoked paprika is very good, if quite different) and a Zorro or two of olive oil. I’m telling you, it’s a soup to make you think of growing Jerusalem artichokes. That’s their flowers at the top and bottom of all this by the way, a couple of quid apiece if you can find them in a florist, so double bonus if you grow them

And don’t say ‘Jerusalem artichokes make you fart’. Not one parp after this soup. Not one. Feeling robbed.