Vegetable Soup

Vegetable Soup  (simply the quickest and easiest to cook)

The following recipe uses vegetables which you will have in the house most of the time. Once you get used to making soups you can and will use whatever comes to hand and make a nice soup.

I was initiated into soup making by my father's mother (Oma Mia). My gang will know the story but I think it worthwhile to share it with you.

When we used to visit Oma Mia, Saturday then was the traditional “Suppen”(soup) day,  in most German families and each family had their own specialities.

It took me quite a while to figure out what the difference was between my mother’s vegetable/potato soup and my Grandmother’s. One day we were in the kitchen alone and Oma, asked me to stir the vegetables in the pot. I ask her why and she explained that was to lock the flavours into the vegetables and that it would taste better. She called it “schwitzen”, that means sweating. She would put a little oil into the pot and sometimes, when it was to be a fine, delicate soup, she would use butter, or a mixture of both.

She had a specific order as well, which to this day I dare not change, I still don’t know the reason for the particular “Reihenfolge”( order).

First always come the onions, then leeks, then celery or celeriac, then carrots and last but not least the potatoes. These are the ingredients of the most simple soup and it is simply delicious.

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. of good vegetable oil or butter or a mixture of both

1 medium sized onion

1 med/large leek

2 carrots

3 carrots

½ cup celery (if you like celery)

3 medium potatoes

¾ l chicken stock or vegetable stock

Pepper to taste

Parsley optional

Cream optional

Method:

1. Clean the vegetables and cut them into small pieces.

2. Put oil into a large saucepan and add the onions

3. Sauté the onions until the look glassy but are not browned.

4. Add the leeks, stir, let them “sweat” a bit and then add the carrots

5. Continue until all the vegetables have been added. Should take about 5 minutes.

6. Add the chicken/vegetable stock and simmer for 20 minutes.

7. If you want a cream soup,  puree the vegetables

8. Serve either with, cream, parsley, croutons (homemade!!)

Note:  The recipe for the croutons you find on the recipe for Winter's Tale soup