Austrian liver dumpling soup. I’ll admit, it doesn’t sound particularly appetising but then neither did a sausage containing cheese, and that turned out to be a delicious component of my ‘hot sausage meal’ at Kipferl Austrian deli in Farringdon. This tiny space accommodates just six tables and several shelves of Austrian wines, bread and countless unfamiliar jars and bottles. You can also buy liver dumplings.

When we arrived for lunch at 12.30pm two of the tables were already reserved and we were lucky that one ‘very regular’ customer was just leaving.

Kipferl serves Viennese breakfast, cakes, cold platters, filled rolls, soups, salads and of course, those ‘hot sausage meals’ which sounded like just the ticket for a rainy January Monday. I hastily ordered the ‘Kipferl special’ with käsekrainer, then caught sight of the sausage with sauerkraut and pickles – a meal that sounds like it was made specially for me – and promptly started sulking.

The owner asked us what kind of sausage we would like. Er… He explained that a weiner would be your standard Austrian wurst (like a Frankfurter), the debreziner spicy and the käsekrainer – a sausage with cheese. CHEESE. It sounded odd, which of course meant that I had to  have it.

It was surprisingly good. Tiny chunks of silky mellow cheese melt as the sausage is heated, creating an uncommonly juicy banger with a milky luxuriance that could easily be sickly if it wasn’t so well balanced. I particularly enjoyed the tight, crisp casing of the käsekrainer, which was so tense that every cut made me lean back slightly for fear of receiving a burst of molten pork fat to the eye. The accompanying salads were, I was relieved to find, lightly soused. This eased my regret at not ordering the sauerkraut and pickles and counteracted the succulent sausage perfectly; meaty lentils, soft potatoes and fresh, dill feathered cucumbers. A slice of rye and a dollop of  mustard were both very welcome guests at the party; the bread enabling a little light sandwich making and the mustard offering a placid, sweet tang.

The liver dumpling soup turned out well too. All you do (according to Kipferl’s owner – oh how I wish I’d asked his name), is plop the dumplings into simmering vegetable stock before garnishing with chives. One dumpling per person or two if you are very hungry. Of course, I did two. The stock I made heavy on the alliums, what with onions and liver being such happy partners. The dumplings taste a lot like faggots but with a slightly finer texture; since a primary ingredient of faggots is pig’s liver, this is hardly surprising.

I could really get into Austrian food. Firstly, they love pork. I think we all know where I stand on that one. Secondly, they love pickles and well, do I really need to repeat the story about me eating so many pickles as a child that my lips would turn white? I’ve not managed to achieve that as an adult but believe me, it’s not for lack of trying.

I highly recommend seeking out Kipferl if you are in the area, but do consider reserving a table. The website also advises that ‘good things take time’ and so if you are in a hurry, they advise calling ahead so that they can have your order ready when you get there.

Kipferl
70 Long Lane
London
EC1A 9EJ
020 7796 2229
www.kipferl.co.uk

Leberknoedelsuppe

First make a vegetable stock using two onions, 1 leek (split in half and well rinsed), several cloves of garlic, 2 carrots, 2 sticks of celery, 2 bay leaves, 10 peppercorns, some parsley stalks and any other veg trimmings you have lying around. Add some salt. Cover with water and simmer for about 45 minutes. Strain through a sieve then adjust the seasoning. (Gently frying the vegetables first in a little oil helps to increase depth of flavour but I forgot this time).

Return the stock to the pan before adding two liver dumplings per person. Simmer gently for twenty minutes. Ladle into bowls and garnish with chopped chives.

I was worried that me and callaloo were doomed from the start. The soup always seems to contain a healthy amount of okra and I had a problem with this for two reasons: firstly, those hairy little fingers irritate the hell out of my (thankfully not so hairy) little fingers, bringing me out in a rash, and secondly, most callaloo recipes called for them to simmer in the liquid for at least half an hour. This to me says one thing and one thing only: slime. Eating overcooked okra is like eating a fat slimy bogey; a big glutinous bowl of snot soup. Yum. Can’t wait.

After a bit of mental wrestling I came to the conclusion that omitting them entirely was not acceptable and so I fried the sappy slices until they were sappy no more, sealed instead by a crispy outer crust. They were added back at the last minute. Other than these (literally) irritating beasties, the soup contains pork, prawns, scotch bonnet chilli, thyme, two types of onion and of course, the callaloo. I think it’s safe to say there’s a lot going on.

The flavour of the callaloo, which I bought tinned, is described somewhere on the great interwebz as, ‘a cross between spinach and cabbage’. That is exactly what it tastes like. Perhaps there’s a bit of asparagus in there as well. You get the idea. This predominantly ‘green’ flavour, makes for a very vegetal soup. At first. Then comes pork and then, even-better-joy-of-joys, pork fat; melty pieces cling to each pink nugget with a seductive wobble. There is the odd surprise of shrimp but it’s not unpleasant.

At first I find the soup musty but as the spoonfuls pass this transforms into an intriguing peppery complexity. The coconut milk is not really discernible as its usual overwhelming self but instead sort of lingers around keeping things in order. The okra keep themselves to themselves.

There’s no getting away from it – this is some seriously hearty fare and I’m amazed that it is usually served as a side dish, to act as a sort of gravy for other foods. Most of my Rye Lane dishes have been similar in weight and intensity. They are the kind of dishes that stick to your ribs; fortify, bolster and sustain.

That said, this soup also has an aromatic quality from the little love triangle going on between chilli, coconut and thyme; a surprising delicacy underneath it all really. But then that was the problem right there: so much in the mix, so many flavours and contrasts that all got a little bit muddy and confused. I really should have started with a simple version (no meat or fish) like the family recipe sent to me by a friend and blogger yesterday.

Although I enjoyed the taste of the callaloo vegetable itself, I’m not sure I’ll be cooking with it that often. A green leafy vegetable from a tin is not really any contender for fresh spinach, kale or chard for example. Well, my version isn’t anyway. I basically made a fundamental schoolgirl error by choosing to make the nitrous oxide, big-bore, super-charged version when I should have started off with the understated yet reliable runner. You live and learn.

Callaloo

325g callaloo (drained weight)
1 small white onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
3 spring onions, white and green parts, chopped
125g thick bacon cubes
225g small prawns
150ml coconut milk
200g okra, sliced
1 small scotch bonnet chilli, de-seeded and chopped
Stock – about 1 litre (I used vegetable)

Begin by frying the okra in a little oil until soft but crispy on the outside. Set aside on kitchen paper to soak up any oil. In a large pan, soften the onions and chilli gently for a few minutes before adding the callaloo, bacon, thyme and stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer for about 30 minutes before adding the prawns, okra and coconut milk for a further 2 or 3 minutes. Check the seasoning and serve.

As I considered the plump little pheasant in my hands, my mind immediately jumped to a memory of casserole topped with a curly wurly crust of fresh dough – the bread risen and baked to a fluffy top, ready for ripping and dunking into the gamey broth below. Then I remembered my habit of lending out dishes, roasting tins and baking trays, and the fact that my casserole dish has been similarly waylaid. I’m thinking of encouraging an amnesty: a box outside the front door where people can just slip the items in anonymously.

Casserole dreams shattered, I poo-pooed the idea of roasting and challenged myself to draw maximum flavour from this famously stupid bird. Generally found rooted to the middle of the country road, oblivious to screeching of tyres, beeping of horns and cursing of motorists – the thing practically tastes of stubbornness. Considering the fact they seem to sit around so much, pheasants are surprisingly lean and therefore easily dried out, plus those stringy, fusty-tasting drumsticks are, more often than not, plain unpleasant.

I think much of the bird is better used as a flavour base and so I jointed him, slinging the legs into a pot with some aromatics (a.k.a the contents of the fridge plus some herbs and  juniper berries), along with the roughly chopped carcass. The breasts were pan-fried until barely cooked, ready to add back to the broth in the final moments of cooking. A few fine shreds of savoy cabbage gave extra nourishing winter heart and parsley, grassy pungency.

The resulting soup powered right through to our chilled, dampened bones with the kind of restorative effect that can only come from simmering some animal bits in a big old pot over a teeny little flame for a moderate amount of time.  A generous hunk of crusty loaf was plunged and plunged again into meaty depths, sucking up robust,  peppery juices; dunk slurp, dunk slurp and wipe the bowl clean. A piping hot end to a fine little bird and a cold winter’s day.

Pheasant Soup

1 pheasant
1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 fat spring onion, roughly chopped
1 small carrot, chopped into three
A few juniper berries
1 bouquet garni (thyme, bay and parsley stalks for example)
500ml chicken stock
500ml water
A good slug of brandy (I used Courvoisier)
40g butter
30g flour
1/2 small savoy cabbage, cored and leaves finely shredded
About 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

Put your pheasant breast side up on a chopping board and remove the legs by pulling them away from the breast and using a sharp knife to cut them at the joint. Remove each breast by cutting along either side of the central bone and then following the line of the carcass until the meat is free. Chop the carcass into a few pieces as best you can manage.

Rub the breasts with oil, season, and cook skin side down in a skillet on high heat for about 4 minutes, then turn and cook for another 2-3 minutes another until just cooked through. Set aside.

Put the legs and carcass pieces in a large pot and add the onion, spring onion, carrot, juniper berries, bouquet garni, brandy, stock and water, bring to the boil and then simmer gently for about 45 minutes, skimming every now and then if necessary. Remove the legs from the stock and set aside, then strain the soup through a fine sieve. Return to the pan.

Melt the butter in a separate pan then mix in the flour on a low heat. Stir this into the soup and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the shredded cabbage and simmer for another 10 minutes. Remove the meat from the legs, then shred the breast meat and add both back to the soup during the final few moments (you don’t want to cook it any more). Check the seasoning, add the parsley, and serve.

As I stood at the butcher’s counter waiting for my goat meat to be diced, I could sense the man next to me staring intensely. A tap on my shoulder came next and I turned to face a big smile and twinkling eyes. “You are buying goat meat?” he enquired, “but usually it is only the West Indian people who buy goat meat!” The next thing I knew we were hugging and he’d told me all about his wedding (happening in January, in Trinidad), where there will be a whole roasted goat and a delicious soup made from the cooking juices. The butcher joined in with tales of his brown stewed goat, followed by a customer with their version and in a matter of moments we were well and truly united by common ground. I’m really feeling the love from the people here right now.

Goat secured, it was over the road for dried okazi vegetable (a Nigerian forest plant, also known as afang or ukazi), and salt fish. I will admit to deflating slightly under the weight of apprehension. I mean, goat and salt fish together? That just didn’t seem right. Add to the mix some dried crayfish and scary quantities of bright red palm oil and I was worried for my dining companions. Could it really work? Only one way to find out.

I started by cooking the goat, onions and a whole scotch bonnet (not chopped) in stock and immediately ran into the first of many areas of confusion. Most recipes advised cooking the meat for about 30 minutes, then for a mere 20 minutes once the other stuff goes in. Now anyone who has ever cooked goat knows that after 30 minutes cooking time, that meat is going to be about as tender as a piece of my shoe. I gave it an hour and turned my attention to the salt fish.

This time I used the boiling method, instead of soaking overnight in water as I did for the buljol. It worked an absolute treat; I’m never looking back. I boiled it three times (in fresh changes of water) for about five minutes per boil. The excess salt was removed in a fraction of the time, but even better than that, the fillets were much more tender and flaked apart like they loved it. That went into the mix, along with some dried crayfish (to thicken, apparently), chopped spinach (a substitute for ‘water leaf’) and of course, the okazi.

Next in the pot was the oil. After reading pretty much every recipe I could find, I reached the conclusion that the amount of oil added is a matter entirely of personal preference. Quantities ranged from 2 tablespoons to a cup. A whole cup! I decided to start with 2 tablespoons and work up from there, eventually adding about 50ml, which is quite a lot in my book, but it really did add a pleasing richness.

The end result then, as judged by me, Chris and our mate Joe, was a genuinely tasty, if rather unusual thick stew. Unusual in the sense that it was musty; it smelled rather like Peckham Rye actually. The flavour of the okazi is simply plant-like, but combined with the spinach to produce a satisfying earthiness. Surprisingly, the soup didn’t taste fishy at all; crayfish and salt fish just melted down to a thick, savoury base for the tender goat pieces to nestle in; each bony nugget was picked out and nibbled clean. It was also spicy. Really quite spicy indeed. We sucked air through our teeth and reached for the tissues.

If I were to make okazi soup again, I would definitely soak the vegetable in water first, and then blend to a paste before using; it was slightly reminiscent of that stuff you use to pad out packages for the post. Or, even better, I would try and lay my hands on some of the fresh leaves, which apparently are usually in stock but are significantly more expensive (my two dried bags set me back £2). The soup also traditionally contains snails, although unsurprisingly I couldn’t find any, and I bombed one final time by forgetting the essential accompaniment of pounded boiled yam; a major oversight.

These details aside, I’m going to declare the soup a success. Actually, I’m going to declare it a minor miracle. The fact that those ingredients can combine to produce something that everyone wants a second helping of, and then somehow totally disappears once you’ve gone to bed, is to be celebrated in my opinion. I also scored a triple whammy by using three ingredients that are entirely new to me (okazi, dried crayfish and palm oil). Bring on the next contender!

Okazi Soup

2 fillets of salt fish – I would say mine were about 10 x 5 cms each
2 x 25g bags of dried okazi, soaked overnight and blended to a paste with a little water
Stock (I used vegetable) – you need enough to cover the goat and top up with
50ml palm oil or to taste
700g goat meat, diced (you can also use a mixture of stewing meat and offal)
A handful of prepared snails (I could find any)
1 ounce of dried crayfish, pounded to a powder
A bunch of spinach, chopped (probably equivalent in size to one of those bags you get in the supermarket)
1 whole scotch bonnet
1 large onion, finely chopped

Put the meat in a large, heavy based pan with the onion and chilli (leave it whole) and cover with stock. Bring to the boil then turn down low and simmer gently for an hour or until tender.

At the same time, boil the salt fish in several changes of water, boiling for around 5 minutes each time. Taste the water for saltiness and if it doesn’t make your face pucker, you’re done. Skin and de-bone and flake the salt fish, then add it to the soup. You might need a bit more stock at this point.

Add the okazi, spinach, snails (if using) and crayfish. Bring to the boil, then turn low, add the oil, and simmer for 20 minutes. Check the seasoning and serve.

Funny looking things Jerusalem artichokes. All nobbly and difficult to peel. That, together with their unfamiliarity (not to mention their reputation for causing wind), perhaps doesn’t endear them to everyone. I however, love them. I adore their earthy, unique flavour and versatility – a bit like a potato but more interesting.

I’m keeping this brief (Christmas shopping anyone?) but I just want to share this recipe – pan fried scallops all caramelised without and soft within, nestled in a deeply comforting and wintry soup. I’ve drizzled the soup with just a little oil, flavoured with chilli, lemon and herbs – although I actually prefer my usual topping of crispy bacon (chorizo is also good) or hazelnuts, either incorporated into the soup or toasted, buttered and sprinkled on top. Mushrooms would also be fantastic. Oh and yes, I do know my bowl is chipped. That’s beacuse I am a real person.

I seem to have lost the recipe along with mind in my Christmas preparations but you don’t really need one – it’s soup (the recipe, not my mind). Here’s a rough outline. Fry one stick of celery and 1 small leek in a little olive oil and a nob of butter until softened. Add a bay leaf, about a tablespoon of thyme (I think, maybe not but it can’t hurt) and a clove of crushed garlic. Give it a stir then add a good splash of white wine and allow to cook for a couple of minutes. Add about 450ml stock and 8-10 Jerusalem artichokes, roughly chunked. Bring to the boil and cook until the artichokes are tender, then blend. Adjust the seasoning. Add a splash of cream, milk, creme fraiche or something of that ilk if you fancy. Pan fry the scallops in butter and a little oil for about 90 seconds each side then nestle in the soup. Finish with a drizzle of something if you feel that way inclined.

If you are a fan of Jerusalem artichokes or you think you might like to become one, this is yummy too.
Jerusalem artichoke and hazelnut soup with crispy bacon.

(I’ve heard that adding lemon juice to your artichokes will negate some of the less desirable gastrointestinal effects – I have no idea if this is true. Apparently, we all react differently, so you might want to try eating a small amount first….).