Wednesday 17th January 2001

Sorry. There's been no Fresh Pie for a while - a combination of being busy and not having the right illegal software to run my authoring package. To make up for it, here's not one but two warming soups for these cold times. (Or, for our southern hemisphere readers, for the cold times to come in a few months).

Rich Potato Soup

Slice an onion. Peel a clove of garlic. Slice a few good potatoes.
Heat some olive oil in a suitable soup pan.
Brown, but do not burn, the onions.
Towards the end, bung in the garlic (uncrushed) and also let it turn a little golden. (WARNING! Burnt garlic ruins everything).
Shove in the potatoes and toss the whole lot around a little.
Add some stock, plus a little diced, smoked tofu
Boil a while, until spuds are soft.
Blend.
Add salt and pepper to taste, some milk and a little cream.
Serve, perhaps topped with a little chopped parsley.

A NOTE ON POTATOES
My pet hate is supermarket bags of "White Potatoes." What variety are they? They generally taste horrible. Always go for a variety you like. I favour King Edwards myself, which are now - bizarrely - marketed as a "speciality" potato.

A NOTE ON BLENDING POTATOES
An interesting experiment you might like to try: If you blend potatoes without lots of stock, you get the stickiest glue known to humankind. The action of the blender blades breaks down starch capsules, and they polymerise.

A NOTE ON STOCK
The best vegetarian stock I know of is Maggi's Klare Gemüse Brühe - available in Germany. It produces a nice, light, clear stock, unlike other more cloudy, root-vegetable based varieties