A spring soup using Asparagus

A truly wonderful recipe by Nigel Slater called, 'A spring soup with herbs and lemon grass'.

Serves 4

a good litre of home-made chicken stock
a large stalk of lemon grass, or 2 of the little supermarket ones
150g / 5 oz podded broad beans
250g / 8 oz thin asparagus spears
a double handful of young chard or spinach leaves
essential herbs: mint, coriander
good herbs if you happen to have them: lovage, lemon balm, lemon thyme, etc

Pour the chicken stock into a pot and bring it to the boil. Put a pan of water on for boiling the broad beans. Meanwhile, peel away the tougher outer leaves of the lemon grass and slice each stalk across very, very thinly to give hundreds of paper thin rings. Tip them into the chicken stock, and if the stock has boiled, turn it down to a brisk simmer. The lemon grass needs to cook for a good 10 minutes to soften.

Drop the beans into the boiling water. They will need about 8 minutes or so, depending on their size (baby ones need little more than 5 minutes). Cut each stalk of asparagus into short lengths - nothing longer than the bowl of your spoon - and discard any tough ends. Drop the asparagus into your stock along with whatever you fancy and let it simmer to tenderness, a matter of 6 or 7 minutes.

While the asparagus is cooking, drain the beans under running water and pop them from their skins, then drop them into the stock. Wash the spinach or chard leaves (sand can get caught in the leaf folds) and tear them into reasonable sized pieces. Push them down into the stock and let them cook until soft and silky - maybe only a minute or two for spinach, a little longer for chard.

Chop the herbs roughly. You do, really, need both mint and coriander, but the rest are very much up to you. I like to add lemon thyme, even with the lemon grass already in there, for the ultimate freshness of taste. Ladle the soup in to warm bowls, then stir in the herbs. Serve very hot, so that the fragrant oils from the herbs rise up in the steam.

And visions of mechanical springs on the boil sprang immediately to mind......

This looks good!

Thanks for the compliments. Aye, it's a good summer soup packed full of fresh flavours which we've made a few times now. All you need is some good crusty bread.

I really quite like Nigel Slater. Out of so many cooks, this guy consistently produces real food, real home cooking just perfect for my hungry bunch!