There are 1 or 2 secrets you must know.
Pour in two spoons of olive oil (it MUST be ordinary olive oil, not virgin or extra virgin) into a large saucepan (the kind that has a lid) and start frying the finely chopped onion, carrot, swede and celery. Stir every once in a while making sure you cover all the vegetables. Save the onion skin for later use. After you've lightly fried for a few minutes pour in one spoon of ordinary white flour. Stir it in well until you can't see any white. The flour sticks to the fat making sure it doesn't rise when you add stock to the soup.
Now make a vegetable stock using a stock cube and mixing it in the amount of boiling water it specifies on the label. Pour it into the veg, boil it, then simmer. Add a spoon of tomato puree - available from all good grocery stores. Then a spoon of chopped tomato - available in cans at all good grocery stores. Then a spoon of salt and some freshly ground pepper twisted by you out of the peppermill. Don't be too concerned about being healthy. There's plenty of healthy ingredients, the salt complements the undercurrent vegetable taste. Chop off the head and tail of a clove of garlic and peel the skin. Crush it with the side of your knife and pour on some salt. Now holding your knife down continue to crush it and rub it around until it forms a paste. This is what is referred to in recipes as "crushed garlic". Gather it in your hand and put it in the soup. Now chop up a few leaves of basil that you managed to buy at the supermarket by asking the assistant what on earth they are. Wrap them in the onion skin and cut a piece of string from a ball of string. Wrap the string tightly around the onion making sure the basil is firmly placed in it. Now dip the onion skin in your soup and tie the other end of the string to your saucepan's handle.
Now add a potato that's been very finely chopped into small cubes. This thickens the soup a bit. Now get out 10 pieces of spaghetti you've bought in the local supermarket. Now wrap them in a teatowel tightly and hold it firmly on either side both pulling it with pressure away from you and pulling it with pressure towards you holding it at each end of the spaghetti. Maintain pressure on both sides and drag it over the side of your work surface. As you drag it slowly, bit by bit, maintaining the pulling pressure on each side bend it firmly. When you've taken the whole lot down and done it all unravel the teatowel and pour in the neat little spaghetti pieces into the soup. Now get out a frozen bag of garden peas and throw in a handful.
Now let it cook for about 10 minutes. Taste it with a spoon to make sure it tastes ready.
08 Oct 2009, 5:24 am
