Leeks and Lemons

On the middle Sunday in October as I unwound after an exciting trip to a Turkish restaurant for a friend's birthday the night before I flicked through my recipe books and stumbled upon a tried and tested recipe that was easy to make. It used two ingredients that would not normally be found together; Leeks and Lemons.

I picked something a little more obscure as the soundtrack to the afternoon's food preparation with Arthur Brown's seminal 1968 offering The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. This album is best known for the song Fire, which he performed on Top of the Pops in a flaming head dress, but careful listening reveals an artist and band with a more diverse musical palette. Amongst other songs to check out are a passionate cover of James Brown's "I got money" which shows the range of Arthur Brown's voice, the mellow soul of "Rest Cure" and meandering, proto-ambient, piano driven "Child of my Kingdom,".

I topped and tailed two leeks having first peeled their outer layers off and removed all the dirt from them. I then cut the leeks length ways into strips that were about 10 centimetres long and 1 centimetre thick. Next I melted a generous piece of butter in the bottom of the Le Cresceut and tossed in the leeks with half a teaspoon of white pepper. The leeks were then sweated until the began to turn a pale brown.

I took a large Cox's apple and removed everything from it save the stem, core and pips. I took what I had removed and diced it into cubes. The diced apple was then added to the pan together with two bay leaves and a litre of vegetable stock. I find Cox's apples the best type of apple to use for this soup as they have a rich and sweet taste. I then let the dish simmer for twenty-five minutes.

After twenty-five minutes I removed the bay leaves, as it is not advisable to eat them, and added the juice of one lemon together with four sprigs of parsley. I blended the ingredients on the lowest setting I had on the blender and then poured the soup back into the Le Cresceut dish.

As I warmed the soup through I added a generous helping of grated Parmesan cheese and once this melted into the soup it was ready to eat. On paper a soup containing Leek, Lemon and Apple should not taste at all pleasant. However the reality is thankfully very different; the sourness of the lemon is well offset by the sweet richness of the Cox's apple and the strong taste of the Parmesan while the Leeks give the soup enough body to help it be substantial without making it an overly heavy meal.

Covered in Parmesan with a garnish of parsley- as tasty as it looks. 

Ready to eat- an unlikely mix of ingredients that are tastier than you'd think