Ingredients
Stock
2 L hot water
1-2 whole fresh rosemary sprigs
Roughly chopped:
1 golden beetroot
4 shallots
1 onion
5 sticks of celery (i.e., approx. half a whole celery)
2 carrots
1 tart, green apple, such as Granny Smith
small handful parsley
Soup
1 T turmeric
1 T or 2 cubes vegetable stock
4 golden beetroot, diced into 1 cm cubes
salt and pepper to taste
2 lemons
olive oil
parsley
Kubbeh
1 t vegetable stock
200 g bulghur wheat
375 ml boiling water
2 t olive oil
6 shallots, finely diced
3 celery sticks, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
50 g rolled oats
2 pieces of toasted brown bread (sourdough is perfect)
100 g walnuts, chopped roughly
handful finely chopped parsley or 1 T dried herbs
1 T finely chopped fresh or dried rosemary
1-2 sundried tomatoes (preferably not in oil), finely chopped
1 T tomato paste
1 T of turmeric
3 T flour
1 egg (or 2 T ground flaxseed if vegan)
salt and generous grinds of pepper
Serves: 4 adults, around 6-8 small kubbeh per person, which are surprisingly filling.
Cooking time: approx. 1 hour total, 30 minutes prep time.
Method
Dissolve 1 t vegetable stock (powder) in 375 ml boiling water. Add bulghur. Stir. Set aside for bulghur to cool until it is edible but still has bite and all water is absorbed. I used a medium thickness bulghur.
Wash vegetables, making sure to clean any dirt off the beetroot. Chop the ends of all the beetroot and use these in the stock. No need to peel anything.
Make stock. Roughly chop all stock vegetables (and apple) and place into a saucepan with around 2 L of boiling water. Add the rosemary sprig. If you have other vegetables in your fridge like spring onions, celery leaves or fennel tops, throw them in, as long as they won’t change the colour of the soup. Put the lid on. Leave stock to cook on a low simmer on the stovetop for at least half an hour, preferably longer.
Cook shallots, celery and garlic for the kubbeh on a low heat in a pan until soft and caramelised, around 5-10 minutes, setting aside to cool once cooked. Attend carefully to make sure the mix does not burn.
Make soup. Dissolve stock powder in hot water in a heavy pot or Le Creuset. Chop the remaining four golden beetroot into cubes and add to pot. Drain the stock through a colander into the beetroot pot and discard the soft stock vegetables (press lightly to release as much of the liquid from the stock as possible before discarding). You may find that much of the broth has evaporated, in which case don’t be afraid to add a litre or more of additional hot water. The broth is the most delicious thing in this recipe, you want to have enough for everyone. Add turmeric, salt and pepper to the beetroot soup. Cook on low heat for 15 minutes, until beetroot are soft and the soup is flavourful.
Make kubbeh. Blend the toast and oats (and linseed if using in lieu of eggs) together to make breadcrumbs. A coffee grinder works well, but you can also use a food processor or blender, or chop finely with a knife at a push. Mix the breadcrumbs and ground oats with the bulghur, the shallot mix you already browned-off, and the remaining kubbeh ingredients. It should be a fairly dry mixture that will stick together, like dry meatballs (never words I imagined myself writing in this newsletter). Wet your hands and roll into small balls, around 3 cm diameter.
Cook kubbeh. Gently lower balls into the soup. Cook for approx. 5 minutes without stirring, turning each ball over once halfway through. Check a ball before serving to make sure cooked all the way through. The smaller the balls, the quicker they cook. They should hold their shape well.
Serve in large bowls. Ensure each person gets around 6 kubbeh, a generous amount of broth and enough beetroot cubes. Topping ideas: a pinch of turmeric, Maldon salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon, a swirl of olive oil, chopped parsley. Serve with cut lemons on the side so people can taste for themselves how much the soup changes with a bit of acid; it is wild. Also consider serving sprinkled with small cubes of raw apple. The possibilities are endless.
Drink recommendation: We drank a New Zealand 2017 Pegasus Bay Chardonnay with the soup. With a biscuity, grapefruit nose and a yellow-butter colour, it went perfectly.
If you have a juicer, golden beetroot also make excellent juice. For one person, try: 1 golden beetroot, 2 green apples, 1 knob of ginger root, 2 sticks celery and 1 small piece of fresh turmeric root.
The story behind the recipe
The East Village, New York, circa 2013. A group of us are queuing outside a glowing pink neon sign that reads ‘The Kubbeh Project’. Winter is holding on through sheer willpower; unwilling to cede to Spring. The wind whips through our jackets. Some Israeli friends had heard about a bakery called Zucker by day, that magically transforms into a kubbeh joint by night. The friends describe kubbeh as a sort of Iraqi-Jewish soup with dumplings. I had never heard of it but am always game for food adventures.
Peering through the condensation on the window, we see a long communal wooden table, stylish people drinking up the food, throwing their hands around as they speak, coats casually slung behind them. The waiting audience is hungry. An hour goes by. A few couples are invited in but we are a group, harder to place in the tiny space. We consider whether we should split up. A man with a giant camera takes some snaps of the neon sign. Each time the door opens, the room emits a sigh of steamy warm air into the street. Overlaid against the faint trash-and-tarmac smell of New York, a hint of yeast, the savoury, woodland smell of cooking onions at dusk, edged with something sharp, lemony. The line is barely moving.
Then it is our turn. A beautiful waitress, dark curls piled on top of her head, welcomes us inside, tumbling over herself to explain the concept as she seats us at the table. We order bowls of everything, sharing. There is a lemony-pumpkin soup and a (red) beetroot one, with plump dumplings that are astonishingly flavourful, pickles, bread. I recall some kind of homemade lemonade. It comes close to the perfect meal. Smiling at the stranger next to you who jostles your elbow as you sip the soup from your spoon, leaning forward to hear each other in the hubbub, vaguely guilty to now be among the chosen ones inside, revelling in the warm room.
The next day, the Israeli friends send through an article in Haaretz about the pop-up restaurant. To our surprise, there we all are in the cover picture. The article begins: “Spring is yet to come, but the freezing wind which was blowing through the East Village on Sunday night did not stop dozens of New Yorkers from standing in line…” They think we are New Yorkers, I text my friend, pleased beyond measure.
*
This week, I have sought to recreate the memory of that meal, using a vegetable that I have discovered only since moving to The Netherlands: the golden beetroot. This soup is my attempt to answer the question: if you could drink sunshine, what would it taste like? It is an antidote to cold weather and guaranteed to brighten moods and tables. Now, you could use any beetroot to make this dish. I tried it with red beets as well and it works perfectly, only with more of a Polish borscht vibe. Golden beetroots are my absolute favourite though, because they have the most intense yellow insides and a milder, sweet, earthy flavour.
Faced with their similar pinky-red skins, it is not always easy to distinguish a golden beetroot from its candy-floss cousin, the fuschia and white, marbled chioggia beet. But you can easily see the different below: the bottom right whole beet has a golden tinge, whereas the two other pink beets are chioggia.
I made three iterations of this soup, each more refined than the last. The first time, I blitzed the soup with the beetroot before adding the kubbeh. The taste was excellent, but it was more stew than soup. The second time, I made it with clear broth and stuffed the kubbeh with a complicated stuffing that still did not sit quite right. The third time is the recipe I have set out above. Believe it or not, it is a minimalist version; it tries to find a concentrated broth that contrasts with the dense texture of the kubbeh. Also, I am reading Deborah Levy’s ‘Real Estate’, in which she treats herself to silk bed linen the colour of turmeric, which she describes as a “revelation”, “cool and warm, like a second skin, perhaps like a lover.” Since reading this, I cannot get the idea of turmeric silk sheets out of my head, so it has also made it into the soup in some form.
This recipe is not vegan, as I used an egg to bind the kubbeh. You can cut out the egg, and use linseed (flaxseed) instead. They will stick, but the texture is a little drier and you will have to be gentle with them. Also, if you get to the end of this and you’re panicking that this list of ingredients is Ottolenghi-long, know that the soup is also absolutely delicious and very quick to make without the kubbeh. Serve it with sourdough toast or pickles and new potatoes instead.
Finally, let me say a huge thank you to everyone who has subscribed. I’ve been overwhelmed by the positive comments and encouragement. If you enjoy the newsletter, the best way you can support it is by forwarding it on to others. And if you’re reading this for the first time and haven’t yet subscribed, I’d love to have you on board.
Want to nominate a vegetables for a recipe? Email me or drop an idea into the comments section below. ‘Til next week.
Amelia