Prue’s Perfect Guide to the Shoot Lunch

Everyone loves Nigella's twin sets and Gordon Ramsey's flagrant use of the other "F" word, but there is something profoundly endearing about the no nonsense band of British cookery writers that endured WWII. They are a convivial lot whose approach to food is truly no nonsense.



One of my favorites is Prue Coats. Technically, Prue Coats is Scottish, but she is "British" enough for me. During the war she worked for the Free French. In the early 1950's she married a rather famous wood pigeon shooter, Archie Coats. Being married to a shooter, informed her cooking and many of her recipes are for small game. I recently made a quick carrot soup from Prue’s Perfect Guide to the Shoot Lunch.



I was lacking fresh coriander or cilantro, but I did have some dried. I garnished with a bit of sage. Forget the bouillon cube! I used some lackluster packaged carrots, so you can see that I didn't get quite the bright color that a nice bunch of garden carrots would have produced. Still in all this snow, it was quite tasty.

A Magimix is a bad-ass European food processor. You can get them in the U.S. but they run over $400.

Carrot and Coriander Soup

2 lbs carrots
2 oz. butter
1 dessertspoon sugar
1 pint water
1 pint milk
1 vegetable stock cube
6 coriander seeds, crushed
1 dessertspoon fresh chopped coriander if obtainable, or parsley
Salt and pepper

Peel the carrots and put then through the fine slicer of a Magimix. Tip them into a saucepan with the butter, sugar, crushed coriander seeds, salt and pepper. Cover tightly and cook until tender, shaking occasionally. Liquidize until very smooth then add milk and water. Only use the stock cube if you think it needs body. Finally, stir in the chopped coriander or parsley.