Let's go to Sprouts Town

The 29th of December was a beautiful day. The sun shone brightly and there was hardly a cloud in sight. I started off the day by meeting some friends and their family for a walk that started at one of the highest points in the local area and ended with a relaxing cup of tea (and a well-earned bowl of water for my dog) in a pub in the valley below. As the day was so pleasant I decided to make the most of the weather and later headed to a nearby moor, which boasts an ancient burial ground and a village where ex-MP David Blunkett has a house.

The sun made it a day where I wanted to stay out as long as possible. I found this to be the case because prolonged exposure to the sun in mid-winter is a way to re-charge your batteries to compensate for the dull, sunless, wet winter days and dark nights which can bring you down and often make life seem harder than it actually is.

As the sun began to fade it was time to head home and I decided to make a soup that used up some of the spare ingredients from the previous Friday's Christmas Dinner. The ingredients of the soup were as follows:

8 sprouts
1 red onion
2 white potatoes
1 garlic clove
1 teaspoon of white pepper
1 teaspoon of chilli powder
half a pint of chicken stock.

The first job was to prepare all the vegetables. I started by cutting the bottom off the sprouts and removing the outer leaves before slicing each sprout up finely. I peeled and then cubed the potatoes as well as finely slicing the garlic and red onion.

I put the vegetables into my wok and fried them gently for around five minutes while at the same time adding the chilli powder and white pepper to them. The chilli  powder idea bizarrely enough was partly inspired by a 1995 episode of the sitcom Bottom in which, as some of you will know well, Rik Mayall's character makes a dish called Sprouts Mexicane that involves an unhealthily large amount of spices being used to season his sprouts.

My sprouts were not quite as spicy as this and after they had fried for five minutes with the other ingredients I added the chicken stock and simmered the food steadily for around twenty-five minutes. I then let it cool  and proceeded to blend it in my new blender which, along with Jethro Tull's enjoyable 1989 album Rock Island that was on the player at this time, was one of my Christmas Presents.

After the soup had been blended I warmed it through in the wok and served it. The taste was spicy, thanks to the chilli powder, and substantial thanks to the potatoes and the sprouts. It was certainly a good way of using profitably the left-over ingredients from Christmas Day.

A delicious and thick soup which also works if Chorizo is added to the recipe