Vegetable Cream Soup

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the onions, carrots and celery to the pan and sauté slowly, until the onions are golden. Towards the end, stir constantly to ensure that they don’t burn or stick to the saucepan.

Cut a double-thick cartouche of greaseproof paper the same diameter as the saucepan and keep to one side. Add the vermouth with the vegetables, salt, pepper and any other seasoning you may want to use, to the onion mixture. Wet the cartouche well under a running tap. Place it on top of the ingredients and place the lid on the saucepan. Simmer over a very low heat until the vegetables are soft. Bring the stock to the boil, add to the vegetable mixture and blitz in a food processor (do not overfill the bowl of the processor). Pass the soup through a fine sieve into a clean saucepan.

Reheat the soup and add any chopped fresh herbs when you are ready to serve. Thin the soup with a little hot stock if desired or add some thin cream. Season if necessary, garnish appropriately and serve.

Variations

For a curry flavour, sprinkle curry powder over the onions and sweat it off for a while before you add the vermouth.

Add butternut and sweet potato, curried or with a touch of chilli, garnished with fried banana slices.

Add mushrooms or parsnips.

Use carrots with a bit of orange juice in place of some of the stock and grate some orange zest over just before serving.

Try leeks with potato, spinach, sweetcorn, apple, broccoli and toasted almonds.

Pulses such as beans or lentils work well with a spoonful of pesto on top just before serving.

I have made a great soup from sun-dried tomatoes.

A small cauliflower tastes of the youth of summer. Add 2 Tbsp (30 ml) raw basmati rice at the beginning and serve with mustard and cheese toasts – real comfort food.