Marrow Soup

The Marrows take over the garden every year. This is a recipe to deal with them efficiently - SOUP. With marrow, potato and kvass, this is a proper winter warmer with some really earthy flavours.

Ingredients:

• Marrows (Or courgettes. This recipe uses 1 marrow, about 750g) chopped into chunks

• 700 Potatoes, cut skin on, cut into rough chunks

• 250g Roughly Diced Brown Onions

• Half a bulb of garlic, peeled and smashed with the broadside of a knife

• 750ml Dark Kvass

• 2 Tsp Caraway Seeds

• 1 Lemon (Zest and Juice)

• 3 Bay Leaves or 1/2 Tsp Bay Leaf Powder

• 3 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

• 200ml Cream

• 1 Tsp Cracked Black Pepper

• Salt

• Olive Oil

• If you can get it - white pepper (for seasoning)

• Sour Cream and Fresh Dill to Serve

• An egg per person (optional)

Method

This was done in a pressure cooker. The process is the same in a normal pot, just longer.

Coat the bottom of a large pot or pressure cooker with Olive oil. Add the onions, garlic, black pepper, lemon zest and caraway seeds and turn to a medium heat. Saute until the onions start to caramelize. When they start to stick to the bottom of the pot, add the lemon juice and deglaze the bottom with it, then add the potatoes and Marrows, Bay leaves or Bay powder.

Saute for another couple of minutes, then add Kvass and Worcestershire sauce. Boil off the bubbles, then top the whole thing with water. Bring to a simmer, then if you're using a pressure cooker, pressure cook on high for 15 minutes. In a normal pot, cook for about 35-40 minutes or until the potatoes and marrows are fork tender.

Blend with an immersion blender until super smooth, then reduce until nice and thick (for this I found it was about a 20% reduction, but it depends how much water you add. Pressure cooking also evaporates less, so your results may vary). Add the cream, then season with salt, white pepper to taste.

At this point (in the recipe test run) I poached an egg for 3 minutes and placed it in the soup with sour cream and sprigs of fresh dill.

But as per the picture, you may see something a little different - these sorts of garnishes add a really great texture and flavour contrast to soupy dishes- experiment with soup toppings to up your soup game. If you want to replicate this, you'll need:

• 150g Sunflower Seeds

• 150g Roughly Chopped Pistachios

• Juice of Half a Lemon

• 2-3 Marinated Gherkins, chopped into little bits (or capers!)

• 2 Small Red Onions, cut into rings

• 2 Tbsps Butter

• Salt and Cracked Black Pepper

Get a frying pan on a medium high heat. Add the butter, then throw in the seeds, pistachios, gherkins, onions start to give them a good toasting. When the sunflower seeds start to look nicely toasted (a good tan colour), add the lemon juice, and stir until it evaporates. Salt and pepper to season.

Sprinkle that over the soup, with sour cream for sure and optionally egg, or grilled meat, or anything like that. Delicious.