Food for Thought with Suzanne Dunaway

Warming winter soup

If there is one thing we love in winter, it is soup. Soups of all kinds, orange lentil soup, potato and leek soup, grandmère’s tomato soup, borscht, bean soup, you name it.  And almost all of these ingredients go into my winter stock pot, especially when I have opened my fridge and seen what’s lurking there in small containers – leftover pasta, leftover rice, stock make from little quail we can buy at our open market from the most wonderful spit-roaster in the world, Fabrice, and various juices saved from steaming vegetables. All of these go into the winter soup along with a bit of lemon juice from our plethora of lemons, a splash of white wine and anything else I find that says “put me in, too”.

Your fridge could have treasures for making a fine winter soup and if not, just get out the onions, carrots, celery, potatoes and start chopping. Or put everything into your food processor and pulse a few times.

Our winter soup evolves over time and a soup like this really does stick to the ribs, as my mère used to say. A zesty soup will keep for a good long week, with additions and heating each time, or you can freeze it for another glorious soup supper with a perfect baguette and cheese from the far corners of France.

We have such riches here in the P-O, open markets abound with everything you’ll need for a perfect bowl of winter warmth.

Recipe

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 sweet onions, chopped medium-fine
• 6 cloves garlic, chopped fine
• 6 carrots sliced thin
• 3 stalked of celery sliced thin
• 1 leek, white part only, sliced thin
• 2 large potatoes, peeled and diced
• 2 medium zucchine, sliced thin
• 3 tomatoes, puréed or a generous can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 cup white wine
• Sprig of fresh thyme
• Juice of a large lemon and a bit of zest
• 2 liters of homemade chicken broth (or 3 chicken bouillon cubes in the same amount of water) to cover and a bit more
• Salt and pepper
• Pinch of espelette or cayenne ground pepper
• 2 cups cooked short pasta

Method

Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot, add the rest of the vegetables, not the pasta, and let them cook a few minutes, then add the wine and everything else. Simple, right?

Let the soup simmer, covered until you cannot resist tasting it for seasoning, about 40 minutes. Add the cooked pasta and simmer another 10 minutes, then let the soup cool, covered, until use. You may keep adding broth and vegetables to this pot for a week, refrigerating it between acts. It gets better and better.

All content and recipes are copyright of Suzanne Dunaway.