Soup of the week: Tomato, Fennel & Feta

Lunch: it’s a strange one. Firstly, I do not approve of packed lunches, for the following reasons:

1. Sweaty bread. The sandwiches I had as a child were wrapped in cling film because this was cheaper than tin foil (which does sort of make sense - wrapping sandwiches in metal is a very extravagant affair) but the cling film did result in what can only be described as sweaty sandwiches.

2. Eating in a car. This effect has also been felt with Opal Fruits (as they then were). I remember driving to Wales as a very young child because my Grandfather had had a heart attack whilst on holiday. Perhaps it was the general upset of the event that compounded my travel sickness but to this day, I find an orange Opal Fruit makes me feel queasy. The same can be said for wrapped up sandwiches.

3. The “cool” factor. This is probably where a psychiatrist would pinpoint my underlying dislike for packed lunches. I wonder if anyone has ever actually been to a shrink for a packed lunch related problem. No, probably not.

It always seemed as if the cooler kids had school dinners and us geeky ones got the packed lunches. 

By way of example, at one point in my junior school career, I had an obsession with chocolate mouse and on one particularly grim day, I realised that I had forgotten the teaspoon for my chocolate mouse. So, off I went to the communal cutlery tray and grabbed a grimy spoon. Feeling pretty pleased with myself for using such initiative, I sat back down on my seat defiantly, only to hear a pop and a squelch. I slowly stood up, the realisation of what had just happened slowly dawning on me. Yes, you can guess, I am sure. My arse was covered in chocolate mouse because some clown had thought it would be funny to pop the unopened pot down onto my seat. It doesn’t take a genius to imagine how this looked, smeared all over my bum.

Scuttling to the toilet, red faced and teary eyed, I muttered under my breath that this would never have happened to a school dinner kid and that was it; the fate of the packed lunch was sealed.

Since then, I have mainly lived on “bought lunch”. This habit has been especially embraced since my move to London. I work in the City and there are tons upon tons of places to eat. Even if I don’t eat out at Spitalfields (Poncho No.8 is a current favourite), I invariably float into Pret or Itsu. The problem is that this costs money and as nice as a crayfish and avocado salad is (it’s very nice), it does become tiresome after a while.

Alas, the powers that be do not make bringing your own lunch easy. Given that I have tired of the grown up version of the school dinner and have finally shaken of my inferiority complex relating to packed lunches, I am now convinced that my office has a secret pact with all of the local eateries. You see, we are not allowed a microwave. Apparently, it will probably cause a fire.

The less said about this the better. Everything that can be said about this ridiculous rule has been said thirty times in our office already. Not one to be pessimistic though, I called my mother.#

“It’s fucking ridiculous not having a microwave at work. How the hell am I EVER going to be able to bring my own lunch? I better find a new job!”

“Why don’t you buy a flask?”

And so it was born: my love affair with soup.

I have also purchased the New Covent Garden Food Co.’s “A Soup for Every Day – 365 of our favourite recipes”. `The ingredients used in each soup are considered in light of the season, which is always good, I think. The soups range from the normal (Leek and Potato) to the ones I doubt I will ever try (Haggis, Neeps and Tatties).

Since there is only one of me, I am clearly not going to make a different soup every day but I will aim to try a different one each week. I might even try to create a feature: “Soup of the Week”. Although, that has potential to go wrong when I am too lazy/sick of soup. Ah, sod it. SOUP OF THE WEEK, WEEK ONE.

Tomato, Fennel & Feta – September 13th – serves 4

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 fennel bulb, finely sliced (couldn’t find a bulb in my supermarket, so had to use seeds. Apparently this is a faux-pas but it tastes fine!)

1 small potato, diced

1 table spoon tomato puree (I used an entire small tin from Asda)

1 small onion, diced

1 close garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon caster sugar (had to use granulated – made no difference!)

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

300g tomatoes, chopped (bough whole tomatoes and chopped myself, not a tin of)

1 tablespoon sun-dried tomato paste (didn’t bother – used extra tomato puree instead)

450ml water

50g feta cheese (I chucked the entire 200g block in. I love cheese and feta isn’t too naughty is it? 

Definitely recommended – it makes the soup extra tasty).

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan, add part of the fennel (“only 40g at this stage” says the book. I chucked in a fair amount of seeds, enough so it was pungent in the kitchen!), followed by all of the potato, tomato puree, onion and garlic. Cook gently for 8-10 minutes until the vegetable are soft and without too much colour. My vegetables didn’t go soft and I couldn’t tell if they were colourful or not because they were covered in tomato puree.

2. Add the sugar and white wine vinegar, then reduce by half. My mixture was already pretty solid and was sticking a bit. It didn’t really need reducing all that much.

3. Once reduced, add the chopped tomatoes and sun-dried tomato paste (this sounds heavenly but I couldn’t find it. It seems to work fine without), then cook for a further 5 minutes.

4. Add the water, cover, then cook gently for a further 30 minutes. Yawn, did a bit of washing up.

5. Blend until smooth, then add the feta (which doesn’t really melt much, meaning you get beautiful cheesy bites) and the remaining fennel (a few more seeds). Season to taste, then cook gently for a further 10 minutes and serve.

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