I am awake and about to cook a wolf. It is 0149, I am unable to sleep and the wolf is going in the soup pot. I have little choice in the matter of the menu. It is now much too late to be banging cast iron pots around, opening the creaky oven door, beating vegetables into a silky batter, or making other kitchen noise. A church mouse quiet is required.

How To Cook A Wolf – Beginnings

A quick search reveals a bowl of potato water. These are the drainings culled from yesterdays boiled potatoes. They have been carefully preserved along with several tablespoons of mashed potato. These remainders form the beginnings of the broth that will embrace the wolf.

To this basic stock is added some onion reserved from yesterdays breakfast fry-up. From the fridge comes a tub which once held a batch of cooked lentils. The remnants of this prior dish, and the rich sauce that accompanied them, are added to the soup as are orange peelings left over from a sweet potato dish.

How To Cook A Wolf – Additions

We are on a roll! A further foray into the depths of the fridge reveals an empty salsa jar. The dregs of a rich tomato sauce coat its walls, spicy chunks of tomato sit like a jagged red reef at the very bottom of the glass. Some hot kettle water washes all of this flavour into the soup pot.

A dash of pepper is immediately followed by a few pinches of salt and some home grown Kaliteri oregano held in the palm and rubbed into fine crumb. The mix is then left to stew on a low heat for an hour so, letting its flavours develop and meld. At the end of that long wait what we have is a fragrant brew, a thick spiced aromatic tomato broth. Couple it with the heels of a loaf of rough grained peasant bread and the result is a warm and filling meal, a supper created by magic from almost nothing at all.

How To Cook A Wolf – Outcome

The best part of this undertaking? The flavour bouquet, the fragrance, the meatiness, was such that it was not necessary to sacrifice the wolf. The wolf has been spared the pot.

For at least one more night.