Soup Nigel Slater: Eating Together

Whether cooking at home or eating out,

the choice of dishes and ingredients in modern Britain is mind-blowing.

Lebanese, Turkish, Polish, Greek.

It's all here.

And as a cook, I want to know more about the cuisines

and cultures from all over the world that have landed on our shores.

I'm taking a trip through Britain's kitchens, to find

out about the rich mix of people that call this country home.

What's familiar to these home cooks, may seem completely foreign to me.

-Isn't it beautiful?

-Well, it is beautiful,

-but a bit of a mystery as well.

-Yeah, yeah, OK.

But their dishes are often close relatives to those I know and love.

You know what this tastes of to me? My Christmas.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

For me, this is about much more than food.

Behind every mouthful is a personal story

or an insight into a culture that has travelled far to get here.

The taste continues from one generation to the next.

Finally, as a thank you for the generosity of the brilliant

home cooks I meet, I'm going to use what I learned

to cook something for them.

A celebration of what makes us different,

but also, what brings us together.

Soup makes us feel that all is right with the world.

Across Britain, everyone has their favourite soup,

whether it's clear or thick,

hot or cold,

it's always welcome.

But before I meet three home cooks to discover recipes they love,

I want to make one of my favourite comfort foods - pea and ham soup.

I love it on a winter's day, but it actually takes forever to cook.

So I've come up with a modern version that takes

a fraction of the time.

This is so quick. I'm going to start with some stock.

I'm using chicken but you could use vegetable.

Bring that to the boil.

The reason that pea and ham soup takes so long

is because the peas are dried and they take ages to cook.

I'm going to use frozen.

I'm not just talking about trimming the time for making this soup,

I'm talking about giving it a whole new life,

a very contemporary flavour, fresh and bright and modern.

Traditional pea and ham soup would use bay leaves and parsley stalks.

But with this, because it's lighter, I want something fresher

so I'm thinking tarragon with its lovely aniseed note.

And just a little bit of salt.

Now you can put this in the blender,

food processor, or you can use one of those stick blenders.

Now, this soup's got a lovely, bright colour.

It smells wonderful, it's really fresh.

I've left it with some texture. It's quite a thick soup.

You know, there are some soups that make you feel good,

they make you feel well just by looking at them.

This is one of those.

I did say it was pea and ham.

Pea and ham it will be.

I've got some very thinly sliced pancetta.

It's as thin as you can get it, you can almost see through it.

Flame on.

It's so thin, it is literally done in seconds.

As soon as you get the sizzle.

Pea and ham soup for now.

I find pea and ham soup so comforting

partly because peas are so familiar, they're a taste of home.

But for lots of people,

home can be Britain AND somewhere far, far away.

I've come to Bristol

to meet someone whose soup speaks of sun-soaked Caribbean islands.

-Hello.

-Nigel! How are you? How are you?

Miles is part of a thriving Jamaican community in Bristol

and I wanted to find out what that means for him, and his cooking.

-Wow!

-Yeah. Isn't it beautiful?

-Well, it is beautiful but a bit of a mystery as well.

-OK.

Well, this is a mixture of vegetables from the Caribbean.

You've got your chocho, your dasheen...

-Which one, which are the chocho? Show me.

-These are the chochos here.

These are really good for blood pressure, apparently, I'm told.

And it looks like an apple, doesn't it?

It does a bit.

Yeah, yeah, but then this is a vegetable.

I suppose it's a cross between, like, a cabbage and an apple.

-OK, no, no...

-You peel it again, slice it,

boil it and that adds consistency to the soup.

I don't know, I'd probably get four of those.

You know what these are? HE LAUGHS

-You got me there. You got me there.

-I got you there.

-A couple of those?

Yeah, I say, yeah, maybe four, four or five of those.

You've also got...obviously, your yams.

You've got different... You've got yellow yam and white yam.

Can I be honest with you? I don't know what to do with them.

You can fry it, you can boil it, you can bake it.

Usain Bolt swears on these.

He says it gives him his energy, his power

and you know Jamaicans are famous for their sexual prowess.

Yams! Especially yellow yams.

I shouldn't be telling you that, should I?

Don't tell my mum I told you that.

-I'm afraid you just have.

-I just have, haven't I?

When Miles' parents came to England in the '60s,

they would have struggled to find ingredients familiar to them.

So what do we need?

We need some snappers but I've seen the doctor fish there

and I'm in two minds because my mum recommended doctor fish.

But as more Jamaicans arrived so did their produce,

and Miles' mum was able to cook her favourite Jamaican classics

for her young boys.

There were two soups that Mum used to cook,

which was chicken soup and fish tea.

And it's like a comfort thing, really,

to come here and to be able to choose the doctor fish,

the snapper fish, and to make the fish tea.

It takes you back to that place when you were a child.

A place of safety.

I know I should grow up and stop it.

No, no, it's good!

Miles' fish tea is full of big chunks of Caribbean flavour,

but like my pea soup, it's still relatively quick to make.

We start by filleting the fish and making

a stock from the leftovers, boiled with thyme in salted water.

The fillets are rubbed with plenty of peppery seasoning

and lemon juice.

How long do we leave that for?

Well, by the time we've cut up the vegetables and put them

in and let them boil, I'd say, 15-20 minutes.

That should be ready to go in and then the flavour will seep in.

Miles' parents met in England after his father was posted here

with the British Army and his mum came to study nursing.

They settled in the small market town of Trowbridge,

some way from the main centre of Caribbean culture at that time.

When Jamaicans came here,

obviously the British government invited them over.

You know the story. There were lots of jobs that needed done

after the war to rebuild the country and they sold it to them

on the premise that you can better yourself, you can aspire.

My parents' generation, a lot of them came over,

they were the middle class of Jamaica.

But it wasn't like what it was promised and they ended up

having to settle for menial jobs, manual jobs.

And our parents were, you know, sort of short sold really.

In Trowbridge, I would have been the only black guy in the class,

the only black guy at college, the only black guy at work,

and it was a real fight.

You know, my brother and I, we were boys, little tearaways.

But I think our concept was - attack is the best form of defence.

Now I wouldn't dream of having grown up anywhere else

because it's given me the components for life, and surviving life.

Miles' story is a common one for second generation Brits.

While embracing the country of their birth,

they cherish the things that speak of their roots,

and the soup we're making is a perfect example of that.

We've got the fish tea bubbling away in there.

Yeah, which hopefully should be ready to come off the bone.

-And then going in there.

-Will be all these vegetables.

-The yams...

-Carrots, we've got the green bananas,

we're going to put the spring onions as well and we've got the chocho.

-Then we've got Scotch bonnet pepper.

-Yes.

-Green one.

These seeds here are really hot.

If we totally opened it up and dropped the seeds in

then we'd have to call the fire brigade!

Yeah, you've got a bit of a twinkle when you say that.

We don't know if the white man can take it!

THEY LAUGH

Our coarsely chopped veg goes into the stock

to be lightly boiled with a big bunch of thyme.

And as we put in the seasoned fillets and Scotch bonnet,

I'm struck by a fragrance that to me says Jamaica

but for Miles is so much more.

-Miles, I'm liking what's going on in here.

-Oh, really, yeah?

Yeah, just that hint of something good, bubbling away.

That aroma, that's home for me.

That's Mum, that's an evening,

a hard day at school or hard day at college or it's memories,

it's Trowbridge. It's taking me straight back to Wiltshire

and that Jamaican house we grew up in, which is beautiful.

Oh, beautiful colour!

Can I just say, that smells absolutely fantastic.

That's what you want!

Fish tea.

A light soup that's as much a reminder of dark, damp nights

in Trowbridge as it is of an ancestral home in Jamaica.

That's nice, that's all right actually.

Don't sound so surprised.

No, I was waiting for you. I was thinking, "Is that too salty?"

Has it got a kick there?

-You know what it's got.

-Yeah, go on?

It's got this incredible glowing warmth.

My mum would be proud of me.

What I love about Miles' fish tea, is its rustic simplicity.

Like my pea soup, it feels substantial and rewarding.

But hearty soups don't always have to be warming.

The Spanish have a soup for hot weather that leaves your

taste buds tingling while cooling you down.

It's chilled, has all the freshness of a salad and it's called gazpacho.

Put tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, shallots and garlic

into a blender with handfuls of stale bread soaked in cold water.

Whizz to a rough and rustic consistency,

then add a glug of olive oil, plenty of seasoning,

and a healthy splash of sherry vinegar to give it a vibrant bite.

A final whizz and you have a gorgeous bowl

of gazpacho you can garnish with some of the same finely chopped veg.

I'm discovering that a soup is about personality,

not just of the people that make it,

but of the country in which it was born.

And there's a soup in particular that is

so much part of one country, it comes with almost every meal.

Today I've got Sumiko coming, who's going to teach me

how to make one of my favourite things in the whole world.

Miso soup is a central part of Japanese cuisine.

It's something I've heard Sumiko cooks to perfection.

And having been to Japan, I've experienced its gentle beauty,

whether served on its own

or as an accompaniment.

Because this is the soup that I love, but I, up until about

four years ago, five years ago, I had never had miso soup.

You hadn't?

-No, up until about four years ago, I'd never had it.

-Oh, really?

Exactly!

And then one trip to Japan,

I realised I had it almost with every meal.

-Yes, always.

-I had it at breakfast. Every single meal.

People still eat a lot of miso soup.

Like many soups, this starts with a stock.

This one's called dashi, which is made by gently flavouring hot water

with Japanese seaweed before adding katsuobushi - flakes of dried fish.

Beautiful.

Oh! Mackerel, tuna, bonito...

Yes, but it shouldn't be strong

because dashi is a kind of basic ingredient for any

kind of Japanese food and it should harmonise with other seasoning.

In this case, miso.

Tell me about miso because I know some people find miso

a little bit of a strange ingredient.

We're not quite sure what it is.

Miso is made of soy.

It's fermented, isn't it?

Fermented. In many regions, they've got different taste of miso.

For example - in Kyoto, they like to use white miso.

In Tohoku, northern part of area, they prefer dark miso.

OK, so it's actually regional variations.

It's varied region to region.

In my family, we prefer mixing white and dark.

Sumiko's family comes from Kawasaki,

near Tokyo, where they ran a green tea shop.

She was brought up surrounded by traditional Japanese values

and cooking.

When I was small in Japan, I woke up with the smell.

This was my alarm clock, when my mum was preparing miso soup.

It's a nicer alarm than mine.

Now that Sumiko has her own young family in Britain, she continues

to cook traditional dishes like miso soup to pass on her heritage.

The stock is strained before adding the miso paste

through a sieve.

We always use a net because otherwise the...

How can I say this?

-The lumps.

-Lumps will remain.

What's so beautiful for me is the clouds.

-If you have a look, it's almost like clouds.

-Oh, yes, indeed.

You can add all sorts of things to a miso soup

but Sumiko's chosen soft tofu and steamed spinach.

The care she's taking speaks volumes about the respect the Japanese

have for their food.

Oh, look, they're perfect.

Absolutely perfect.

-Into our soup.

-Yes.

I've never seen a Japanese cook who didn't take exquisite care

over every single detail.

It's a total thought process about every single detail.

I find that a very beautiful thing,

both to watch and to be involved with.

Really? That's a great compliment, thank you.

No, it's a wonderful thing.

-Great.

-Is there anything else you want to add to that?

Let's taste...then decide.

Beautiful. But I'd like to add a tiny amount of mirin

to make it more round. The taste is quite sharp

so mirin helps to make the taste rounder.

When did you start cooking?

-I don't know.

-Have you always cooked?

-LAUGHING:

-I really don't know.

As my family runs a tea shop, my mum was sometimes busy.

I've got two elder sisters and we all cooked together.

I think since I was small perhaps. Maybe.

You've just always cooked.

I love cooking.

You cook every day?

Yes, I do.

Oh, I see what you mean by rounded.

-I see exactly what you mean.

-This is really better.

This is a Japanese mum's taste.

It's been wonderful experiencing first-hand the almost religious care

the Japanese take with this soup.

But there is another culture in Britain

whose food really does have religious significance.

The Jewish community is famous for putting

food at the centre of their religious festivals.

And in doing so, have come up with possibly the most iconic soup ever.

Jewish chicken soup is meant to have almost magical powers of healing

and I'm meeting two ladies who know all about it.

Regina and her daughter, Linda.

Hello.

Hello, Nigel. This is my daughter, Linda.

At 87 years old, Regina's been making what's known as Jewish

penicillin for most of her life.

My mother taught me to make chicken soup when I was eight years old.

Eight, yes.

I said, "Don't tell Grandma you're making soup, she'll go mad."

Yes, too dangerous!

My mother, I have to say, she's a magnificent cook, there's nothing...

-I can't wait.

-There is nothing my mother can't make

and she's one of those cooks that, she doesn't need a recipe.

She just kind of knows what to do.

My mother didn't know what recipes were.

I used to say to my mother, "How do you make this, Mum? Write it down."

So she'd write it down and I'd say,

"It's no good, it never come out like you make it, Mum.

"What shall I do?"

"You have to come and watch, that's the only way."

I'm obviously not going to get the recipe out of Regina easily

so there's only one thing for it.

I've come to her home in Leeds to watch how it's done.

Chicken soup.

-Well, you need a chicken, don't you?

-I do, I do.

You know where the skin is hard, get that off,

it'll come off with the hot water.

-Clean the skin so you get all the grease off.

-Yep, done that.

And each one will go in the pan if you've done it.

You want to the equivalent of five or six carrots.

Come on, you need more.

Two onions.

Cut off the heads and the little tails, as you so well know.

No, that one needs taking off, no brown bits.

OK, no brown bits.

Next, you will get take two sweet potatoes.

Peel them and slice them like you would carrots,

they dissolve in the soup.

-I didn't know you ever put sweet potatoes...

-Sweet potatoes.

-..in chicken soup.

-Yep!

I bet I sound like an old witch bossing you about.

No, you don't.

When you go out of here you'll say, "That woman is a pain in the..."

-HE LAUGHS

-I so won't!

I'm not going to say it!

PHONE RINGS

Hello?

Well, this is my daughter. She wants to know how it's going.

Would like to tell her? Nigel?

Hello, Nigel here.

We're having a wonderful time. I can't tell you how much I've learnt

and I've only been here a few minutes.

Oh, you're kidding me!

She certainly is, she certainly is.

All right, I'll pass you back to her.

Wash that, trim that, Nigel.

And cut them in small pieces.

Cut the ends off, because they...

Nigel is making soup now. To my recipe. All right, love.

-Bye, Linda.

-NIGEL CHUCKLES

So, we've got carrots, onions, sweet potatoes, leek, celery, swede and a

mix of beef and chicken stock cubes. And we'll top that up with water.

Put the lid on, tilted. Your chicken's in the bottom, isn't it?

-Chicken's in the bottom.

-Right.

-Onions, leeks, sweet potato.

-When it starts boiling, I skim it.

To get rid of the froth?

Yes, the froth. Then salt and pepper.

Then make a medium light like that

so that it's doing a bubble the whole time, and forget about it.

Keep giving it a stir every hour.

Although the vegetables were chopped coarsely like those

in Miles' fish tea, they won't stay that way,

because the secret of this soup is the incredible cooking time.

You get the flavour out the vegetables.

I throw the vegetables away, and the chicken afterwards,

because what good is it?

It's been boiling for four hours.

All the goodness has gone in the soup.

Once the soup's cooked, it's strained and chilled

and the fat skimmed off the top, leaving it almost crystal clear.

It comes off so easily.

Have you noticed the quality of the soup?

Look, it's like a jelly.

It is soft set jelly, OK.

Think of all the goodness that's in it.

At 87, no wonder Regina's proud of her soup,

it's clearly done her good. And finally, I'm getting a taste.

It's bound to strengthen you.

Now that is chicken soup!

Thank you.

-That is absolutely...

-Thank you.

You know when people say, "If you're ill, you need chicken soup."

That is chicken soup what they mean.

This is chicken soup to heal the soul.

It doesn't heal broken hearts.

It'd go a long way towards it.

Are you enjoying it? Truthfully?

I'm truthfully loving it. It's like liquid gold.

Words like that from you mean a lot to me. Thank you.

Regina's chicken soup always has pride of place at family gatherings.

Friday nights mark the start of the Sabbath, with the traditional

Shabbat meal, that includes other Jewish favourites like gefilte fish,

dumplings poached in a vegetable broth on a very low heat.

It's bubbling now, isn't it?

-Yes, it's very, very slightly.

-That's great, that light is good.

There's an awful lot of work involved in making these meals

but when food's a key part of the religious experience,

it has to be just right.

SHE SAYS HEBREW PRAYER

I knew there would be a great big fuss over

the clarity of the chicken soup. And I knew that the gefilte fish

would have to be cooked very, very gently so that they didn't break-up.

But it's not the recipes that have been so unusual,

there is a cultural and there's a religious reason behind it,

which is something that's probably missing from my cooking.

So it's an opportunity that I'm very, very grateful for.

So a few butter beans, a little bit of vermicelli...

..and then this soup.

This amazing, awesome, wonderful, gorgeous soup.

This is a very, very important part of Friday nights

but it's actually, for me, it's the reason I came.

I just wanted to see this from start to finish.

I didn't actually know I was going to do it from start to finish.

THEY SAY HAMOTZI BLESSING IN HEBREW

Amen.

All of the soups I've encountered have been full of personality.

They've been warm-hearted, colourful and nurturing.

They've also meant a great deal to the people that have shown me

how to make them.

But I want to do something which, whilst drawing ideas from there,

is actually heartier, more of a meal.

This dish will be centrepiece in a meal for the friends that

have shared their stories and recipes.

I want every element of this beef and butternut squash soup

to ooze thanks for their generosity.

I really admired that clear broth, the miso broth that Sumiko made.

I want to keep an element of that clarity

but by using these dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in hot water,

I'm aiming for something much more substantial.

Just look at that colour.

It's jewel bright and I'm going to use that

as the heart and soul of my soup.

The heroes of my soup is a cut of beef that is so rarely used

and yet, it's one of the best.

It's just fabulous.

It's beef cheeks.

So just a little bit of salt and pepper on the outside of the beef,

then brown it all over.

Beef cheek. It's a great piece of meat.

It needs a slow oven and some liquid to cook with it.

And that liquid could be anything.

It can be water, it can be stock, wine, cider.

Whatever you fancy. But I'm using the mushroom broth.

Now, I want to put some veg in this soup and I'm using butternut squash.

I just like the way Miles used great big generous chunks of vegetable.

They soaked up all the broth, all the flavours.

Now, as well as that, I want some onion in there,

it will give a lovely sweetness to the soup.

Once the onion is soft, almost see-through

and caramelised around the edges, it's time to add the stock.

So those mushrooms have been working hard to make a really

glowing broth, full of flavour, it's going in my soup.

I'll bring that to the boil.

Turn the heat down and then leave it,

just to putter away very quietly for a good couple of hours.

Check the soup every now and again

and if it looks as if it needs topping up,

then a little bit of hot water.

Inspired by Regina's noodles.

the ones that went into her chicken soup.

I'm putting in some orzo - my favourite pasta.

And I can put in as much as I like and there's no-one there to

tell me I'm doing it wrong.

My guests are coming because I've promised them a soup to share,

but I don't want to just ladle it out of a tureen.

I'm going to serve it in this.

The idea being that the soup will sit comfortably in its container.

But then slowly, as we eat...

..the juice will soak through into the bread

and then we can tear it all to bits!

We've got bits of loaf, saturated with this stock.

You know, you do things and you're never quite sure

whether they're going to work or not.

Not just this, I'm thinking of the fact that I've got three

utterly, utterly lovely people who I've had a great time with

and I'm bringing them together over a bowl of soup.

But this is quite a big one for me actually because they are truly,

truly, the most different people I could imagine.

Yeah, I'm sure they'll get on.

People do, especially when they share food.

So I've learned about soup from all over the world,

thanks to Sumiko's Japanese reverence...

Miles' Jamaican exuberance...

Hello, hello, hello.

..and Regina's...

How shall I put it?

Heart of gold.

That's my share. It's a bit big, isn't it?

It's all right. You're a big boy, you can take it.

I'm a big boy, I can take it! HE LAUGHS

You know this is my soup, it's my recipe but it's theirs as well.

I feel as if everybody has put something into this.

This is for them.

Soup can be a healer,

a reviver,

for comfort...

but my soup is a thank you.

-Ooh, what's this?

-I'll pop it on the table as well.

Wow, amazing.

What's that?

Well, I was so inspired by all of your soups that I got

a little bit of an idea from all of you that's kind of all in there.

So which bit did I influence?

THEY LAUGH

It looks amazing.

The bread is...

It's like doing it the other way round.

Instead of dipping your bread in the soup,

-you're dipping your soup in the bread!

-Exactly.

Very tasty.

So this is our dish? Just for us?

NO AUDIBLE DIALOGUE