The Most Comforting Soup

As some of you might know, I have recently found myself with a massive backlog of recipes to write down and publish. Nothing to worry about, but sometimes life happens and you need longer to get things done.

The interesting fact is that I cooked this yellow soup yesterday and I got so excited by its flavour that I decided to post it straight away. I completely ignored my backlog and my ‘posting’ plans. Sometimes if you come across a tasty discovery you can’t ignore it!

The base of this soup is a classic Italian soup made of savoy cabbage, vegetable stock and potatoes. I am a big fan of savoy cabbage and always look forward to cooking something with it. I decided to use the classic soup as a base and add on some ingredients to give more flavour and substance. I added in shiitake mushrooms with their broth, borlotti beans and a tiny bit of turmeric to add colour and flavour.

I absolutely loved the result and I am pretty sure I am going to be preparing this again very soon.

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The most comforting soup

Ingredients

1 small savoy cabbage
2 medium potatoes
2 stalks of celery
Olive oil
1 onion
2 carrots
1 tin of cannellini beans
30g dried shitake mushrooms + a small bowl of boiling water to soak them in
1/4 tsp of turmeric
750ml to 1lt vegetable stock
Salt & Pepper

Chives for garnishing

Serves 4

Step by step

• Bring some water to boil and soak in your shiitake mushrooms. Use a small cereal bowl. Let them rest for at least 20min and keep the water you soaked them in

• Thinly chop the celery and onion. Slice the carrots. I kept my carrots quite big to add in colour to the soup

• In a deep pot add in the olive oil and sauté the celery, onion and carrots

• In the meantime peel and cube the potatoes and wash and slice thinly your savoy cabbage

• Add in the potatoes and cabbage in the pot. Add in the mushrooms along with their water and mix

• Season with salt and pepper and add in the turmeric

• Add in your vegetable stock. How much you need will depend on how big the veggies you chose are. Let’s say that ideally the veggies should be completely covered when you pour the stock. Also remember you still have to add the beans so be generous with the liquid or everything will stick

• Bring the soup to boil, lower the heat and cover with the lid

• Cook it for 40mins before you add in the drained and washed borlotti beans

• Cook it for another 10 to 20min without the lid on and slightly turn the heat up. The idea here is to get rid of any extra water. If your soup feels still too liquid, this is when you can adjust it. Turn the heat off when you are happy with the consistency. Bear in mind that some of the potatoes will ‘melt’ but that’s ok as they are meant to help give you a creamy consistency.

• Garnish with chives

• Enjoy!

Tips & Cheats

The only thing I’d say here is that you can control how thick you want your soup to be. The more you boil it the more the ingredients will dissolve giving you a thicker soup.

Boil the soup with the lid on for most of the time and use the last 15min to adjust the soup. If you like the ingredients nice and crunchy just boil it for less time.

If there is too much water, just turn the heat up and take the lid off and it will evaporate.

Onions will melt so if you don’t have to be super precise when chopping them

Enjoy!