Potato and cauliflower ‘fondue’ soup

My New Years’ resolutions:

1. Make soup
2. Eat soup

I don’t eat enough soup. It always seems a pfaff. But it isn’t. I felt like I was coming down with a lurgey last night. I needed soup. I got home from the Basquiat exhibition and, start to finish, vegetable chopping to hot spoon of soup in my mouth, this took 25 minutes. Very quick.

Why eat more soup?

Quenches appetite
Most poor countries start a meal with soup, it has the same effect as pasta, it fills you up before the expensive part of the meal- the meat or the fish.

Contributes to your 5 a day vegetables
It’s #Veganuary so try vegan soups or at least vegetarian.

Helps combat food waste
Soups can be made with floppy or past-their-best vegetables. You can either use these for stock or in the actual soup itself.

Soup is cheap
You can make soup out of anything. Water + any ingredient = soup. Ever heard the legend of stone soup?

Soup is comforting
Think of soup as a hot smoothie. No don’t ‘cos that sounds disgusting. But if all the clean eaters replaced smoothies with soup, they’d be a lot healthier.

This soup was made with Comté cheese and a little white wine, to add a fondue vibe. I went to visit the farmers in the Jura last summer and my New Year’s Eve supper club was centred around a Comté fondue.
It’s quite chunky, but you could blend it you prefer a smooth soup.
Soups benefit from a little sourness. To achieve this, add a little wine, or yoghurt, or vinegar. Here I put in pickled jalapeno pepper slices (a great store cupboard standby).

Potato and cauliflower ‘fondue’ soup recipe

Serves 2 to 4

3tbsps olive oil
4 large potatoes, peeled, diced into 3cm cubes
1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets
1 vegetable stock cube
4 cloves of garlic, minced
750ml hot water
1 glass white wine
150g of comté cheese
Salt and Pepper
Pickled jalapeno slices to garnish

Prep the vegetables, then heat the olive oil in a deep saucepan. Add the potatoes and fry gently for a few minutes.
Add the cauliflower florets and fry for a few minutes.
Add the stock cube and hot water, stir.
Simmer for 10 minutes then add the white wine and cheese.
Season to taste, serve with pickled jalapeno slices.