Game Cookery

Sometimes a storecupboard cheat is just the ticket for an easy supper — especially when the end result is as tasty and filling as Prue Leith’s soup

Prue Leith CBE has been a restaurateur, chef, caterer, television presenter/ broadcaster, businesswoman, journalist, cookery writer and novelist. She was a judge on BBC Two’s Great British Menu for 11 years, before joining The Great British Bake Off in March 2017.

This is one of THOSE recipes — one that would normally be shared in hushed, darkened corridors between furtivelooking people. Clearly, the narrative here is one of cloak and dagger; well, in my head anyway. This “two tins from the cupboard and a bit of hope” kind of cookery always strikes me as an opportunity to whip out the skulduggery dictionary and drag forth a few Dickensian terms to do justice to the black-hearted ne’er-do-wells who have shared such arcane secrets as this.

When I was a younger chef, I would have rebelled against this type of cookery as cheating. Simply not cricket. A low blow. One below the belt even, but I’m older now and hopefully a tad less reactionary.

There can be little doubt that simmering your own dried chickpeas for a few hours, while you whizz up a rich and flavoursome soup from those wild mushrooms you gathered while everyone else had lunch on that partridge day you shot last week, would make this recipe even more earthy and delightful.

In the real world, though, perhaps every now and again reaching for a tin or two is perfectly acceptable, and tinned pulses are a staple of my store cupboard these days.

Grocer of doom

I did have to make a special trip down the canned soup aisle at the local “monstrous grocer of doom” to forage out a tin of mushroom soup, though, and I was astounded by the variety of soups on offer in tins. I really do need to get out more.

This recipe proves the adage that it is greater than the sum of its parts, and it is a credit to Prue that she has nailed this one so well. It takes next to no time to throw together, will work equally well with pheasant or partridge and, with a few flourishes — such as some garlic-rubbed

“Perhaps every now and again reaching for a tin or two is perfectly acceptable”

charred bread — some gorgeous singleestate olive oil and a few powdered ceps, will even have the table thinking you have started from scratch.

What is not to like? Sure, there’s an edge of chicanery involved, but the result is delicious, savoury and nourishing in a way that will satisfy even the most grumpy of stalwart traditionalists.

For more information about Prue and her work, visit prue-leith.com