Recipes
ISTARSKA MANEŠTRA: MINESTRONE WITH A CROATIAN TWIST
Serves: cca 100
Ingredients:
• 5 kg beans (soaked overnight)
• 4 k g carrots
• 1,5 kg corn (canned or frozen even better, if you can get fresh, well that's amazing! :))
• 2,5 kg celery stalks
• 20 bay leaves
• 4 kg potatoes (diced)
• 1 dcl olive oil (or as needed)
• 25 big onions (cut into wedges)
• 25 tomatoes + tomato extract (1 tub)
• 100 g sweet paprika powder
• hot paprika powder to taste
• salt, pepper to taste
Toppings:
• chopped parsley
• bacon
• sourdough bread
• 2 kg sour cream/crème freche /greek / full fat turkish yogurt
Instructions:
Place the soaked & drained beans with the vegetables and potatoes (except onion & tomato) and bay leaf into a large saucepan. Cover with water and put over medium-high heat and allow to simmer gently for at least two hours, stirring occasionally.
When the soup is near its 2-hour simmering time, add the spices and heat the 1 cup olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, and sauté the onion until golden brown. Add the diced tomato and sauté for a further 10-20 minutes until the tomatoes are almost dissolved and then add the tomato mixture to the soup.
Check the soup for seasoning. Garnish with parsley leaves and yogurt/creme or bacon and serve with loads of crusty bread.
Tips:
• Always soak the beans overnight int he same pot you're gonna cook it in. It is easier to drain it afterwards.
• If using bacon, it is easier to buy it already chopped and then dry fry it in a pan 'cos it already has lots of fat/water in it. Be sure to do it in batches otherwise it's gonna be more cooked then fried.
• Carefull with seasoning. It is better to put less in, then regret it after 'cos it is a huge amount of soup you are making, you don't want to destroy it all.
• Be patient! Cook it long…This soup requires time and care and patience. The longer you cook it, the better it gets. :)
• I would advise to put the tomato and onion mixture in on the day you are going to serve the soup 'cos the acid in it can make the soup go bad.
• This is a crowd pleaser so I really recommend this recipe.
It was inspired by this recipe:
Minestrone
Luca and me doin' our thing - be prepared to do loooots of chopping :)
COCONUT CURRY LENTILE SOUP
Serves: cca 100
Ingredients:
• olive oil enough to cover the bottom of the pan
• 20 large onion, chopped
• 30 cloves garlic, minced/grated
• 20 tbsp fresh ginger, minced/grated
• 450 g tomato paste
• 20 tbsp curry powder
• water to cover and more if needed (it needs to be thick)
• 15 x 400 ml can coconut milk
• 20 diced tomatoes
• 6 kg dry red lentils
• 4 bunches of chopped fresh spinach
• salt and pepper, to taste
• Garnish: chopped cilantro (fresh coriander) and/or sour cream/full fat yogurt
Instructions:
1. In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat and stir-fry the onion, garlic and ginger until the onion is translucent, give it a couple of minutes.
2. Add the curry powder and cook for another minute.
3. Add the vegetable broth, coconut milk, diced tomatoes and lentils. Cover and bring to a boil, then
simmer on low heat for 1 hour, until the lentils are very tender. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Before serving, stir in the spinach and garnish with cilantro and/or vegan sour cream.
5. Serve with good quality sourdough bread.
Inspired by:
Coconut Curry Lentile Soup
MILLET AND PUMPKIN SOUP FROM ZIMBABWE
Serves: cca 100
Ingredients:
20 onions, finely chopped
40 cloves of garlic, finely chopped or grated
15 cms piece of ginger, peeled and grated
6 fresh chillies, chopped
1 dcl olive oil
20 kg pumpkin
10 bay leaves
water as needed (needs to be thick though)
15 tsp black mustard seeds
10 tsp cumin seeds
1,5 kg millet
salt and pepper to taste
4 leeks, chopped
450 g tomato paste
juice of 1 lemon
50 g (or less) garam masala
Garnish: roasted pumpkin seeds, yogurt, cilantro
Instructions:
1. Heat oil in a large pan. Add onions and cook until soft. Add garlic, ginger and chillies. 2. Cut pumpkin into wedges, remove the seeds and fibre and peel. Cut it into bite size cubes and place it int he pan.
3. Add the bay leaves and water to cover it. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes, until the pumpkin can be mashed. Then mash it with a stick mixer but only partialy.
4. Meanwhile toss the cumin seeds, mustard seeds and millet in a heavy dry pan over heat until the millet looks mildly toasted and the mustard seeds have mostly popped. Tip this into the mashed soup.
5. Stir in the salt, pepper and garam masala and simmer for 20 minutes, until the millet is swollen and soft.
6. Wash and chop the leeks and stir them into the soup. Stir in the tomato paste and cook until everything is soft and the soup gets nice and thick.
7. Remove the bay leaves. Taste and season it if something is missing.
8. Serve it with sourdough bread.
Tips:
Great and easy way to roast pumkin seeds is to preheat the oven to 180 °C and pop them in for about 10 min or until they start to pop. Just be sure to stir them often and keep an eye on them 'cos they can easily get overbaked. Also don't put too much in at once 'cos they will not get roasted properly.
Inspired by this nice recipe:
Awesome Millet Soup
Bread
We usually order our awesome traditional French style bread from these guys:
Gebr. Niemeijer
More recipes
More tips
When you want to convert a regular recipe to a recipe for crowds you can make the calculations for most of the ingredient but not needed for oil (it is usually needed enough to cover the bottom of the pan), spices (I go by my intuition and taste buds, also a collegues' tounges come in pretty handy :), and water.
I also like to modify the existing recipes to make it more fresh and seasonal; I like to omit keatchup for example and replace it with tomato paste, also I use dry beans instead canned ones (yes, it does take longer to prepare but it also tastes better and is more natural) or just replace some of the veggies with the ones you like better or are currently in the season.