Robin Ellis

A simple but delicious soup this, that cooks for a while– deepening the taste.

The recipe is adapted from Carolyn Mcrum’s wonderful  The Soup Book published in 1978.

She writes: “Soup-making is one of the most pleasurable of culinary processes, but it takes time, and that it why it is so little enjoyed in a hurried age. My hope is to persuade people that the soup you make yourself is infinitely superior to soup from a packet or tin, and that making soup is a comforting activity, surpassed only by the activity of eating it”.

For 4

1 cabbage—a Savoy or one of the other “beautiful faced” varieties, rather than the tightly formed White or Green cabbage

Red Drumhead cabbages

2 medium onions—chopped small

1 garlic clove—chopped small

1 rasher (slice) of bacon—chopped small

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 ½ pints/1 ¼ litres—vegetable stock—I use organic stock cubes

Salt and pepper

Grated parmesan cheese to finish

1. Blanch the cabbage whole for two minutes in lightly salted boiling water—this keeps the cabbage together in the water. Set it aside to cool, before chopping it up.
2. Soften the onions, garlic and bacon very gently in the oil for at least 10 minutes—this is the taste engine of the soup and needs time for the magic to work.
3. Add the chopped cabbage and the stock and season well.
4. Cook at a gentle simmer for at least an hour and a half.
5. Check the seasoning and serve hot with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese worked in.

The wonderful aroma—though not everyone would call it that—fills the house for hours!