Ilse's Kitchen - culinary adventures of a girl who loves to eat

I was in the mood for some good old fashioned vegetable soup with meatballs - the kind my grandma might have made. It’s one of those soups you’ll find throughout Europe from north to south, all with slightly different details but very close to this. This version is an Italian variant using half beef half pork meatballs, oregano and acini di pepe and popularly known as as ‘Wedding Soup’.  Ingredients (serves 3): meatballs 250g minced meat, 50% beef 50% pork 2 tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped salt and freshly ground black pepper  1/4 cup breadcrumbs 1/4 cup grated parmesan 1/2 egg soup 1 stalk celery, finely chopped 50g spinach, roughly chopped 1 cup baby carrots, cut into 1/2 cm thick slices 1 medium-sized onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 1.25L chicken broth 1/3 cup acini di pepe  2 tablespoons olive oil  Instructions: 1. Put the minced meat in a large bowl and add the oregano, parsley, breadcrumbs, parmesan, egg and salt an...

I was in the mood for carrot soup, so I bought some carrots. While trying to decide on a recipe a regular European version crossed my mind, I considered Cajun carrot soup, and then finally settled on Thai. The combination with peanuts appealed to me so I settled on this recipe, tasted, adjusted it a little and voila. Ingredients (serves 4): 500g carrots, chopped 1 sweet potato, chopped 1 red onion, chopped 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 inch ginger, grated 1 teaspoon galangal paste 2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste 1 tablespoon peanut butter 400ml coconut milk 400ml water Juice of 1 1/2 lime 1 stalk lemon grass 1 tablespoon olive or coconut oil salt to taste To garnish: fresh cilantro handful chopped peanuts chopped chili pepper or chili flakes Instructions: 1. In a big pan, fry the red onion in the oil for a few minutes until softened, then add the garlic, ginger, and galangal paste.  2. Fry for a few minutes more, then add the carrot and the sweet potato and...

Like all good traditional home cooked meals, you can make a Shepherd's pie in just about a million different ways, and everyone plus their grandma has a slightly different version. I am not going to tell you that some are better than others (although some undoubtedly are), but I will tell you this: without lamb, it ain't Shepherd's pie. All in all, it's a pretty simple dish - there really isn't very much to it. The things to watch for are mostly texture and proportion. The first time I made this it came out on the dry side and I overdid it with the potatoes. The second time I left too much juice in the meat which made it a bit too runny, which, although it tasted substantially better than the dry version, didn't serve very well. This recipe is somewhere in the middle. Not too dry, not too gooey, but oozing with lamby goodness. Another nice thing about shepherd's pie is that like lasagna, it's even better the next day - and it holds up very well when ...

In the midst of this crisis I’ve been making extra effort to support our local stores. These days, I   do most of my produce shopping at smaller shops instead of the supermarket. Far more often than I used to, I go to Turkish shops - which have surprisingly good produce and delicious, much more affordable lamb than I can find at the supermarket. And so I came home with lamb chops - again. The next challenge was to find a recipe. I’d made this one once before, but all my pictures failed. So to share it with you, I had to try again. Not that that was something to be sorry about... :)  Ingredients: 6 lamb chops (about 600g in total), french trimmed 200g mixed colour baby carrots (out of season here, so I stuck with orange) 3 oranges 8 cloves garlic, unpeeled 15g thyme (about half a bunch salt and freshly ground black pepper olive oil Instructions: 1. Score the fat of the lamb chops, and season them with salt and pepper. Then line them up like a rack...

After I moved to Bilbao in September 2008, this was one of the first Spain-inspired recipes I ever made. Bilbao is green and hilly and lies in the Basque north of Spain, a part of the country that is wilder, wetter and colder than the rest. Eating out was cheap, so I ate out a lot. And at just about every local restaurant I came across, they served a variation on this dish. It’s perfect for cold rainy days - and for today, the coldest day in the past two weeks. It fills your belly and warms you right up. Ingredients (serves 2): 1.5 L vegetable stock 100g potatoes (of a waxy variety, that retain their shape when boiled), peeled 120g carrots, chopped 1 large onion, chopped 100g chorizo, sliced 2 cups dried pardina lentils (or 1 can of pre-cooked lentils). 3 cloves garlic, peeled and cut into slices optional: 100g pre-cooked chick peas 1 tbsp flour dash of Worcestershire sauce dash of Maggi seasoning dash of Tabasco sauce 2 bay leaves spices: 1/4 tsp each of cumi...

Fall means pumpkin and squash, and for the past weeks, they’ve been everywhere - and a standard on my veggie shelf. I love them, whether roasted as a side, mixed in with creamy risotto, but also a big fan of squash and pumpkin soup.  There are countless ways to make it, and I probably do it slightly differently every time I make it. This version was especially lovely so I had to share. It’s full, creamy and the spices are just right. An added bonus - roasting the veggies in the oven saves you heaps of time.  Ingredients: 1 butternut squash 500g carrots 2 onions 2 cloves 1L vegetable stock 1 tablespoon ras el hanout spice 4 tablespoons Greek yoghurt Rind of 1 orange Salt and black pepper Toasted pumpkin seeds (optional) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Instructions: 1. De-seed the squash, chop into squares (no need to peel). Roughly chop the carrot.   2.  Line a baking tray with parchment paper, add the squash and th...