The Modern Cook’s Year. Anna Jones

with toasted chilli oil

      This soup is like yin and yang: a very gentle, warming potato chowder, cooked in milk, with lentils for sustenance, that I top with a searing chilli and toasted almond oil. The oil sits on top of the white soup like lava, a serious punch of toasty fire. It’s one of the most comforting soups and warms you right down to your toes.

      I use ancho chilli flakes. Ancho is a lot milder and has a more rounded, complex, dried fruit flavour than the supermarket dried chilli flakes, which can just add heat, so if you are using those I would suggest a teaspoon, unless you like things very hot. The chilli oil makes more oil than you need but keeps for months. It can be made in the time it takes to simmer the soup, but shop-bought chilli oil will stand in.

      SERVES 4

      25g unsalted butter or 2 tablespoons coconut oil

      2 leeks, washed, trimmed and cut into 1cm-thick rounds

      2 tablespoons flour (I use spelt)

      1 tablespoon vegetable stock powder or 1 stock cube

      800g floury potatoes, peeled and cut into rough chunks

      300ml whole milk or soy milk

      1 x 400g tin of green lentils, drained (or 250g home-cooked, see here)

      FOR THE CHILLI OIL

      2 red chillies

      1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon dried chilli flakes (see note above)

      2 cloves of garlic

      1 heaped tablespoon almonds

      200ml mild-flavoured oil (light olive or rapeseed)

      Fill and boil a kettle. In a medium-large pot, melt the butter over a medium heat. Add the leeks with a pinch of salt, lower the heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are soft and sweet; this should take about 10 minutes.

      Stir in the flour and allow to cook for another minute or so to get rid of the raw flour flavour. Gradually add 600ml of hot water from the kettle, a bit at a time, then add the stock powder or cube. Add the potatoes and bring the mixture to a simmer. Cook until the potatoes are cooked through, which should take about 25 minutes, making sure you stir the soup from time to time to stop it sticking.

      Meanwhile, make the chilli oil. Put the fresh and dried chilli and garlic into a food processor and pulse until fine, then add the almonds, a good pinch of salt and a generous amount of black pepper. Pulse again, put the lot into a small saucepan with the oil and cook slowly for 10 minutes or so, until everything is toasted and golden, then remove from the heat and set aside. The oil can be used warm (not hot) on your soup. The leftovers should be left to cool completely, then stored in a jar in the fridge for up to 3 months.

      Back to the soup. Add the milk to the pot, stir in the lentils, and heat until the milk is just simmering. Serve the soup ladled into deep bowls, topped with a slick of the chilli oil.

Kimchi and miso noodle soup

      I make kimchi purely so that I can make this soup. It is clean-tasting and enlivening, nicely sharp with spice and the mellow vinegary punch of the kimchi. I don’t care much for kimchi on its own (John eats it by the jar), but I do think that it is an incredible ingredient to use as a flavourful base for stews, in dressings, and in wraps and sandwiches. The amount of kimchi that you use is quite dependent on how strong it is. My home-made one (here) is quite mellow but shop-bought ones can be much more potent, so taste it first and use your tastebuds as a guide, adding more if you need.

      I cook with miso a lot and it happens to be really good for you too. I learned recently that if you heat it too much it loses a lot of its goodness, so now, when I can, I mix it with a little of the liquid I am adding it to, then stir it in at the end like a seasoning and don’t cook it for ages.

      I have used gochujang paste here, which is a fermented chilli paste from Korea with complex flavours. It’s getting easier to find and it does add an extra edge to the soup. If you can’t get the paste, dried chilli works just fine. Do be careful to check the paste’s ingredients list, as some varieties contain ingredients I’d rather not eat!

      SERVES 4

      200g Asian mushrooms (enoki, shimeji, shiitake, oyster)

      1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce, plus a little extra to season and serve

      juice of ½ a lemon

      2 tablespoons runny honey or agave nectar

      250g soba noodles (I use 100 per cent buckwheat ones)

      3 tablespoons sesame oil

      6 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped

      a small thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and grated

      1 teaspoon gochujang paste or dried chilli flakes

      4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

      100–150g cabbage kimchi, (see here) drained

      250g purple sprouting broccoli, woody ends removed and cut into thumb-length pieces

      3 tablespoons miso paste (I use a brown rice one)

      250g extra-firm tofu

      TO SERVE

      sesame seeds

      squeeze of lemon or lime

      some coriander or shiso leaves (optional)

      First, put your mushrooms into a bowl with the tamari, lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of the honey, and put to one side to marinate for at least 15 minutes.

      Cook the soba noodles according to the packet instructions. Drain and run under cold water then toss in tablespoon of the sesame oil.

      Heat the remaining oil in a large soup pan over a medium to high heat. Once the mushrooms have had their marinating time, drain them but keep the marinade. Add the mushrooms to the pan in a single layer with a pinch of salt (you can do this in batches if you need to). Cook until the mushrooms are golden where they meet the pan, then toss and keep cooking until the mushrooms are deeply browned all over – this should take 5 minutes or so. Remove from the pan and set aside.

      Fill and boil the kettle. Put the empty pan back on a medium heat, add the spring onions and sauté for a few minutes before adding the ginger and gochujang paste. After another minute or so, add the garlic and the drained kimchi. Sizzle until the garlic is starting to brown around the edges. Add 1¼ litres of water from the kettle along with the remaining tablespoon of honey and bring to the boil. Now, add the broccoli and simmer for 1 minute, or just until the broccoli becomes bright green.

      Remove the soup from heat. Place the miso in a small bowl and whisk it with a splash of the broth to thin it out. Stir the thinned miso into the soup. Taste your soup; you really need to get the balance right here. If the broth tastes a bit flat, you might need more salt or miso, or a splash of soy sauce.

      Just before serving, cut the tofu into little 2cm pieces and drizzle it with the reserved marinade from the mushrooms.

      To serve, divide the noodles between four bowls and ladle over the soup. Top with the tofu, mushrooms and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Finish with more soy if you like, a squeeze of lemon or lime and the shiso or coriander leaves if using.

      Green peppercorn and lemongrass coconut broth

      This is what we eat when we feel like the cold has got the better of us. It’s packed with immune-system-boosting turmeric, ginger and garlic to fight off colds, and some fiery green chilli to blow away cobwebs. I use green peppercorns too, as I love the grassy punch they give; seek out the fresh ones on tiny branches if you can, but if not the brined ones in jars will do