Felicity Cloake's ribollita – a warming Tuscan stew – is an excellent way to use the odds and ends in your kitchen. Photograph: Robert Billington/The Guardian

Soups, stews and king congee: eight cosy recipes for a rainy weekend

From a maximalist pumpkin soup to a low-and-slow dal, these are the dishes to cook when you seek comfort and flavour

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1. Felicity Cloake’s ribollita (Tuscan vegetable and bean stew)

Vegetable and bean soup reads so quotidian; ribollita is a far more elegant-sounding name. This thick Tuscan stew is an excellent way to use the odds and ends in your kitchen – that onion rolling around in your fridge crisper, that tin of beans from when you promised you’d eat more legumes, that nub of parmesan rind. Tear up some stale bread, stir it through the soup in the final minutes of cooking then, if you like, pop it under a hot grill to gently toast the bread. Other variations include Thomasina Meirs’ recipe, which simmers the dried beans with a whole head of garlic, and Anna Jones’ no-waste ribollita with herb oil.

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2. Alice Zaslavsky’s shchi or ‘white borsch’

Alice Zaslavsky’s shchi on a table — Alice Zaslavsky’s shchi (pronounced ‘she’) is essentially a cabbage soup whose etymology stems from the old Slavic *siitii*, the plural form of satiety or satisfaction. Photograph: Rochelle Eagle/The Guardian

Another fridge-raid wonder. The cookbook author’s version of the cabbage soup contains a conga line of white-vegetable friends: fennel, brown onion, waxy potatoes, swede and, yes, shredded white cabbage. It’s even topped with sour cream (also white). As is the case with most soups, this one can be eaten straight away – but it tastes even better the next day.

3. Yotam Ottolenghi’s roast pumpkin soup with maple walnuts and herb oil

The soup in a bowl — Yotam Ottolenghi’s roast pumpkin soup. Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant: Kristine Jakobsson

The first pumpkin soup I ever made contained three ingredients: pumpkin, onion and water, made for my history class’s “medieval” feast. It was not a hit. By contrast, Yotam Ottolenghi’s pumpkin soup is so heaving with heavy hitters such as red chilli, ginger, smoked paprika and herb oil, and so radiant with flavour and vitality, and so texturally pleasing with its contrast between smooth blended soup and the topping of crunchy maple walnuts, it makes me question whether my original concoction could even be considered a foodstuff at all. My advice: make a double batch of those maple walnuts.

4. Felicity Cloake’s caldo verde

Felicity Cloake’s version of caldo verde, a Portuguese soup-stew. Photograph: Dan Matthews/The Guardian. Food styling: Loïc Parisot

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Vegetarians, I’m sorry to say, you could omit the chouriço from this Portuguese soup, and enjoy to its potatoey, oniony, leafy vegetabley goodness. But the smoky, spicy sausage brings such dimension to the dish and “it won’t be quite the same”, says recipe writer Felicity Cloake. Don’t: fry the chouriço over a high heat; a moderate flame will do. Do: serve with white-wine vinegar. Plop a bottle on the table and let friends and family help themselves.

5. Yotam Ottolenghi’s feijoada

Feijoada in a bowl — Feijoada is a pork and bean stew and Brazil’s national dish. Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian

Feijoada is part of that hallowed culinary genre I like to call “brown foods” – brown-coloured dishes that are deeply savoury, usually soft in texture and always delicious. To make this Brazilian national dish, you’ll need time, and you will also need black turtle beans (in Australia they are sometimes sold as simply “black beans”). Soak them in plenty of water the night before; the next day, the pork belly will need 90 minutes or so of simmering. Serve with rice and don’t skip the salsa.

6. Meera Sodha’s black dal makhani

Meera Sodha’s dal with naan — Meera Sodha’s dal can be made a day in advance. Photograph: Romas Foord/The Observer

This, according to Meera Sodha, is a recipe for “one of the world’s finest dishes”. While some dal recipes are can be whipped up Monday to Friday, this one is best reserved for rainy weekends. Soak the urad dal the day before, then boil for 45 minutes, simmer with a rich base of onions, garlic, ginger and tomato paste, plus 400ml of milk, for a further 90 minutes – or longer. Your reward? A warm, buttery, earthy and smoky dal; and another reminder of the holiness of “brown foods”.

7. Eun Hee An’s tarak-juk (king congee) with crab

Eun Hee An’s take on tarak-juk. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

The Melbourne chef’s congee is decadent by typical standards. As well as the luxurious addition of crabmeat, the short-grain rice is simmered with two cups of milk – a rarity in traditional Korean cuisine. Try to source white kimchi, made without chilli, as it has a milder flavour that suits the subtle flavours of this dish. You could have it for a weekend breakfast, though my favourite time for congee of any stripes is about 10pm, at the lesser-recognised mealtime known as “second dinner”.

8. Rosheen Kaul’s 蛋饺 dan jiao (lunar new year egg dumplings in broth)

Dan jiao being served on a table — Making dan jiao is a delicate process, but worth every mouthful. Photograph: Dave Tacon/The Guardian

This is an auspicious lunar new year dish but, really, can’t we all do with a little bit of symbolic luck and prosperity in the rest of the calendar year? The skill here is in making the egg-dumpling wrappers from scratch, then filling them with the pork and garlic-chive mixture – they are essentially mini omelettes. Wombok is my favourite Chinese-soup vegetable of choice but choose whatever leafy Asian greens are cheap and good-looking at the shops.

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