Vegetable Soup
You know all those vegetable soups you purchase in restaurants and food halls, the ones called 'country vegetable soup' or 'winter warming vegetable soup' and 'seasonal summer vegetable soup'? Well they're a chef's sneaky way of using all the leftover vegetable scraps that lie around the kitchen.
However, before you cringe in disgust please be aware that this isn't a bad thing. In fact making vegetable soups like this is a tradition that has dated back thousands of years. Soups were never intended as a high cost, single ingredient dish, in fact it was only the ruling class that historically enjoyed single-ingredient soups whereas the rest of the populace had to be creative when it came to leftovers. And even more importantly the fact that a chef uses all the different scraps that have been put aside; the mushroom stalks, the asparagus base, the onion heads, garlic skins, carrot tops, potato peel and so on only guarantees a wonderful, heady mix of intense vegetable flavours.
So relish the fact that you can make a full, flavoursome and nutritious dish from only the minimum and most humble of ingredients.

To make 'cream of vegetable soup' remove 290ml / .5 pint of the stock and replace it with 290ml / .5 pint of cream or full fat milk.

The secret to a great vegetable soup is to 'brown off' all the ingredients. The longer you can cook the ingredients and the more colour you can give to the vegetables the more flavours you will release

Serves 4

Ingredients
1 Tblsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 onion
675g / 1.5lbs mixed vegetables of your choice
1/4 cup of mixed herbs
570ml / 1pint vegetable or chicken stock
Salt and pepper

Mise-en-Place:
Chop the garlic, slice onions, roughly chop the vegetables
Make the stock

Method:
In a large saucepan over a medium/ high heat:
Heat the oil
Add the garlic and cook until lightly browned
Add the onion before the garlic colours too much and 'brown off'
Add the mixed vegetables and herbs
Reduce the heat to low / medium
Cook the ingredients for 5-10 minutes
Add the stock
Bring the soup to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes
Blend
Check the seasoning
Serve

Adjust:
Too bland: Try the simple addition of salt, this should really release a horde of hidden aromas. If this fails add more stock
Too thick: Add more stock or water
Too thin: To thicken either boil to reduce liquid volume or add vegetables and blend
Too astringent: Add some sugar and some cream or milk

Presentation:
Serve simply with a generous slice of crusty bread
If you have made a 'cream of vegetable soup' you can lightly whip some cream to the 'ribbon stage' and using a squeezy bottle arrange the cream into patterns across the soup's surface

Chef insight:
Stock is made by 'browning off' vegetables, chicken and / or meat bones, then simmering these ingredients for hours in a huge pot of water. The ingredients are then removed from the pot, the liquid is sieved to remove any particles, then the soup is rapidly boiled down to a thick syrup. Mass-produced stocks are freeze-dried before packaging. However a chef or experienced cook can normally taste the difference between a homemade stock and a mass-produced stock.
A homemade stock is always better, fuller in flavour and can guarantee to really bring a dish to life