Cream of Potato Soup - 1960's (Marguerite Patten Recipe Card)

Potatos are a large portion of the British diet.  Yet essentially they are a really boring vegetable, tasteless and a pain to prepare.  Why do we like them so much? Because they accompany most dishes without obliterating the flavour, they make are softly spoken and don't offend anyone.  Which makes me realise that when they become the main focus of a meal, you have to make sure you put plenty of zing in to it.

Luckily for us, there are lots of cool potato recipes that do just this.  In this recipe, onions and seasoning provide the backbone of the flavour.

Lobster Chowder - 1960's (Marguerite Patten Recipe Card)

There is a distinct lack of seafood recipes on this blog.  The main reason is that I don't really do seafood, and the idea of it makes me turn a little green.

But, I know that the hundreds (HAHAHA) of emails and comments that I get on this blog each week do request that I do a few more seafood related posts.  So here is one... and as we're on a theme of soups and chowders today, this one is quite apt.

Ham and Bean Supper Chowder - 1960's (Marguerite Patten Recipe Card)

The temperature has dropped here in Exeter.  And now is the perfect time to start looking at Soup and Chowder recipes for an instant hot savory fix.

Mushroom Soup - 1930's

Don't eat these mushrooms, buy them from a shop.

Its cold outside, the perfect soup weather.  Mushrooms have an earthy savory flavour that is perfect in a soup, and added with onion and scattered with some lovely crispy croutons, you're on to a satisfying vintage recipe your grandmother would have loved, assuming she liked mushrooms.
We now have pre-made croutons available to us, so a quick fix is available.  But in my opinion you cannot beat home made croutons.

2 pints of white stock
1lb mushrooms
2 eggs
1 Spanish onion
1 dessertspoonful of flour
A little milk
A little cream
salt and pepper
Croutons of fried bread.

1. Wash the mushrooms and chop them up.   Chop up the onion finely then bring the stock to the boil.
2. Add the mushroom and onion then boil for half an hour.
3. Pass all through a tammy or a fine hair sieve.  Add a dessertspoonful of flour mixed into a smooth paste with a little milk and salt and pepper to taste.
4. Boil up again, and just before serving remove teh soup from the fire and add the yolks of two eggs beaten up in a little cream.  Do not let the soup boil after adding the eggs, just enough to thicken the soup.
Serve with croutons.