[Sca-cooks] Semi-OT: Irish Leek & Oatmeal Soup? and other soup notes

[Mike C. Baker / Kihe Blackeagle]

Adamantius scripsit:

> Irish leek and  oatmeal soup with milk, cream, and some of the chicken 
> stock

OK, I think I can fake this one -- but does the good Master have any 
particular wisdom in the preparation thereof he might care to impart? 
Leek-to-oatmeal ratio?  I'll guess one cup oatmeal to one average-size 
thinly sliced leek (trim roots, trim all but the palest green portion of 
leaves), based on past experience with a leek & beef soup I offered as an 
exhibitor at Steppes Artisan eight or ten years back.

Related soup note:  I had trimmings left from boneless pork ribs "that 
needed a good home", which turned into a barley soup.
AMRA'S WHAT-YOU-HAVE BARLEY SOUP
Approx. 6-8 oz. pork scraps (including up to 50% fat), or other meat as 
available
1/2 large or one whole medium onion, sliced / chopped thinly
three cloves garlic (OPT: minced fine), or one large clove "elephant" garlic 
sliced thinly
Reserved leaves and additional chopped celery, maybe 1/4 cup
2/3 cup pearled barley (Quaker "Medium" -- which for whatever strange reason 
I am having difficulty re-stocking...)
Water -- maybe four times as much as called for on the barley box
Perhaps 1/8 tsp fresh-ground pepper (I grab the grinder and give it a few 
twirls over the pot...)
Generous dash or two of ground ginger
Conservative dash or two of powdered / ground thyme
(Opt.) White wine to taste
Other spicing to your own taste

Lightly oil bottom of large saucepan / small soup pot. Sautee pork until 
just short of browned, add onions & garlic, continue sauté.  When onions 
semi-transparent, add celery, sauté briefly.  Add barley, water to within 
1/2 inch of pot rim, spices; bring to boil while stirring occasionally. 
Reduce heat, cover, simmer until barley is done, stirring occasionally.  Add 
wine if desired, additional water as needed / desired.  Continue to simmer 
and stir occasionally at least another hour -- the barley ideally will begin 
to look like small, fat kernels of oatmeal, kinda "fuzzy" on each end (some 
people might consider this state "over-cooked", but I find it preferable to 
what I usually get in modern canned soups).
(If you or your audience's garlic tolerance is low, remove cloves of garlic 
before serving -- my personal preference is to mash them up into their 
"paste" and mix into body of soup AFTER sautéing / boiling whole, esp. with 
good, fresh, not-yet-dried garlic.)

Produced about 50 ounces of good soup from what I put in this round.  Next 
batch will use meat removed from a roasted turkey leg; may experiment with 
oatmeal if I don't turn up more barley soon.

Adieu, Amra / ttfn - Mike / Pax ... Kihe

Mike C. Baker
SCA: al-Sayyid Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri al-Amra, F.O.B, OSCA
"Other": Reverend Kihe Blackeagle PULC (the DreamSinger Bard)
Opinions? I'm FULL of 'em
alt. e-mail: KiheBard at hotmail.com  OR MCBaker216 at cs.com
   Buy my writings!:   http://www.lulu.com/WizardsDen
   http://www.livejournal.com/users/kihebard/

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2005 1:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] fried egg on spam


>
> On Dec 18, 2005, at 1:23 PM, Denise Wolff wrote:
>
>>
>>> From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" 
>>> <adamantius.magister at verizon.net
>>> So yes, you can get baked beans on  thickly-sliced toast at seven 
>>> o'clock in the morning (eeee-ewwww!)
>>
>>
>>
>> When I was a teen, no one could get me to eat breakfast until I 
>> discovered Boston Baked Beans on Brown Bread with Bacon while on an 
>> extended trip to New England. Stopped a lot of fights with Mom......
>>
>> Andrea
>> (low carb now, but still likes it once in a blue moon)
>
> My mother's been quite ill lately, so She Who Must Be Obeyed mandated 
> that the mother-in-law must have soup. Last evening and this morning, 
> we've cranked out batches of chicken stock made from whole boiling  soup 
> chickens, turkey stock from frozen roast turkey carcasses, the  roasting 
> vegetables and giblets, split pea with hamhock, lentil with  tomato puree 
> and veg made with the turkey stock, , and  this morning, a gallon of 
> mushroom-barley with the rest of the  chicken stock.
>
> I'm not chopping any more vegetables for a week or so, I think.
>
> However, I just looked at this massive array of soups in pint canning 
> jars and realized I couldn't do more than taste most of them...
>
> Adamantius
>
>
>
>
> "S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
> brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  eat 
> cake!"
>     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 
> "Confessions", 1782
>
> "Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
>     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  Holt, 
> 07/29/04
>
>
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