The more Royalist-inclined among you will already know that the Prince of Wales turns 60 tomorrow. The BBC News website has a picture gallery to mark the occasion.

So what relevance does that have to Not Delia? Well, Picture 9 in the series shows two pictures of Prince Charles in a food or agricultural environment, accompanied with a caption referring to his organic food range launched in 1992 with produce from farms on his Duchy of Cornwall estate, Duchy Originals.

So far, so humdrum. But what really grabbed our attention was the caption, which included this gem:

But it is not without critics – chef Gordon Ramsay berated its salt and sugar levels

If you’ve ever seen the DVD that accompanies Ramsay’s book Gordon Ramsay Makes It Simple (and that title is a bit of a misnomer itself – it’s an excellent book, but most of the recipes in it aren’t really for the novice cook) you’ll already be falling about laughing. If not, get hold of a copy if you can. There’s prodigious quantities of salt flying around everywhere!

What makes it even funnier for Not Delia and me is that a couple of years back, we saw a skit on the ITV comedy show Monkey Trousers in which John Thomson parodied a TV chef on a morning programme. All was running smoothly at first. But then things started going off the rails when he gave his recipe for pancakes, which consisted of flour, water, butter, eggs – and a pinch of f***in’ salt…

This is Jamie Oliver’s recipe for brown Windsor soup with pearl barley. He suggests serving it with hunks of cheesy mustard soda bread to mop up every delicious drop, but I made dumplings for my version.

I sort of followed Jamie’s version and it turned out tasty, but for the time and effort I definitely prefer goulash soup. (Recipe for that coming soon!) Here’s Jamie Oliver’s modern take on this classic dish.

Brown Windsor Soup With Pearl Barley

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

A large knob of butter
Olive oil
500g chuck steak, diced
1 tbsp Marmite or Vegemite
A splash of Worcestershire sauce
1 red onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 celery stalks, trimmed, chopped
1 bay leaf
A sprig of fresh rosemary
1 tbsp plain flour
2 litres (8 cups) beef stock
¾ cup (150g) pearl barley

Method

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat and add a splash of olive oil. Lightly brown the meat in the pan, then stir in Marmite and Worcestershire sauce. Turn the heat up and keep stirring as the meat browns further. It will start releasing lots of juices – just keep stirring and cooking until all the liquid has evaporated.

Throw in the veggies, bay leaf and rosemary. Cover and sweat gently over low heat for about 8 minutes or until the vegetables have softened. Stir in the flour and, after 1 minute, pour in the stock. Season well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer, add the pearl barley and cook for about 1 hour until the pearl barley is soft.

Take the saucepan off the heat and discard the bayleaf and rosemary sprig. Whizz the soup with a hand-held blender for a couple of seconds so it thickens but there are still some chunky bits in it, then give it a good stir.

I have a couple of Jamie Oliver cookbooks and find them very useful. Good, tasty stuff without over-complicating things. I’ll review them soon.

Cook With Jamie

Jamie Oliver
Hardback, 448 pages
2006, Michael Joseph
ISBN 0 718 14771 5
RRP: £26.00

In her excellent book, Marguerite Patten’s Century of British Cooking, Marguerite gives two recipes for Windsor soup (you can also see our comments about the dish here.) One is for a clear version and one for a thicker, heartier version which, she says, is the Windsor soup known today. She calls the first one simply Windsor soup. Here is her version of thick Windsor Soup.

Version 2 – Thick Windsor Soup

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For the stock:

1 calf’s foot
few beef bones
2.1 litres/3½ pt water
bouquet garni
salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the soup:

50g/2 oz beef dripping or butter
1 large onion, chopped
225g/8 oz stewing beef, diced
2 medium carrots
2 celery sticks, chopped
bouquet garni
150 ml/¼ pt Madeira wine

Method

Put all the ingredients for the stock into a pan and simmer for 2 to 2½ hours then strain and measure out 1.5 litres/2½ pints.

Heat the dripping or butter, add the onion and beef and stir over a low heat for 10 minutes. Pour in the stock, bring to the boil then add the carrots, celery and extra herbs. Simmer for 2 hours, then sieve or liquidise. Return to the pan with the wine and reheat. Check the seasoning and then garnish as for the clear version.

Variations: It is the beef and vegetables that thicken the soup. If you like it even thicker use a little flour or cornflour or add 1 or 2 diced potatoes with the other vegetables.

Another way of adding body is to add 50g/2 oz long grain rice when reheating the soup. Cook until the rice is tender.

(You could also try Jamie Oliver’s modern take on Brown Windsor Soup with barley.)

Marguerite Patten’s Century of British Cooking

Marguerite Patten
Hardback, 336 pages
1999, Grub Street
ISBN 1 902304 14 4
RRP: £25.00