Gruyère & vegetable soup

Roz Denny creates a delicously rich, wintry and cheesy soup – serve with a hunk of crusty bread

  • Ready in 45-55 minutes
  • Serves 4
  • Easy

Nutrition per serving

  • kcal 424
  • fat 30g
  • saturates 15g
  • carbs 24g
  • sugars 0g
  • fibre 4g
  • protein 17g
  • salt 1.82g

Ingredients

  • 1 medium leek
  • 1 medium carrot, peeled
  • 1 small potato weighing about 175g/6oz, peeled
  • 1 stick of celery or half a small bulb of fennel
  • 1 medium onion
  • 50g butter
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 4 sprigs of thyme stripped of their leaves or 2 pinches of dried thyme
  • 2 tbsp plain flour
  • 700ml vegetable stock or chicken stock (using a cube)
  • 300ml milk
  • 1 small head broccoli, trimmed into small florets, stalk discarded
  • small handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, roughly chopped
  • 140g Gruyère, coarsely grated

Method

  1. Wash and trim the leek, cut off and discard half the green top, then thinly slice. Peel and chop the carrot and potato into a small dice. Thinly slice the celery or fennel into bite-size sticks and dice the onion. The vegetables should all be of roughly the same size.

  2. Heat the butter and oil in a medium pan and gently sweat all the vegetables, except the broccoli, with the thyme leaves for about 10 minutes, stirring every now and then until softened, but not coloured.

  3. Add the flour to the pan and stir for a minute until it all becomes pasty, then slowly stir in the stock. Bring to the boil, stirring until thick then add the milk, season well and reduce to a simmer.

  4. Continue to simmer for 10 minutes, then add the broccoli florets and continue cooking for another 5 minutes or until the broccoli is just cooked. When ready to serve, stir in most of the parsley, then ladle the hot soup into four bowls. Scatter each serving with the cheese and remaining parsley, for your diners to stir in. The gruyère will melt into strings, which is all part of its charm.

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