I love soup. Winter, spring, autumn and even summer! Hot soup, cold soup, thin soup, thick soup, chunky soup. Soup takes on whatever flavour and texture you want.
My father loved soup. I remember my mother serving him a small bowl of soup to start dinner when they dined alone. This soup is a perfect starter, light meal or snack. The velvety flavour deeply satisfies and provides emotional and nutritional nurturing.
I adopted this recipe from the Potato and Leek Soup in Joanne Lee Molinaro’s book “The Korean Vegan Cookbook, Reflections and Recipes from Omma’s Kitchen'.’ To achieve the subtle depth of flavour, use homemade vegetable soup stock. See my blog post on 19 January 2022 (titled ‘When It’s Cool and Wet, Add Pizazz to Soup Stock and Turn on The Oven For Crispy Dried Anchovies’) for essential tips taken from Joanne’s Vegetable Broth.
I usually avoid added fats in soups unless I am making a creamy, rich soup. In this recipe, 1 tablespoon of sesame oil adds a delicious and desirable complexity to the broth. I added the vegetables I had on hand, red peppers and eggplant but you can play around with other vegetables; Joanne uses leeks in lieu of onions and zucchini rather than peppers and eggplant. I forgot to julienne the potatoes but the soup looks more gorgeous if you do!
Potato and Vegetable Soup
Ingredients
4 medium organic potatoes, julienned
1 large red onion, sliced and chopped
1/2 red pepper, julienned
1/2 yellow pepper, julienned
1/2 green pepper, julienned
1 small eggplant, julienned or sliced
1 tbs toasted sesame oil
5 cups home-made vegetable soup stock (see post on 19 January 2022, titled ‘When It’s Cool and Wet, Add Pizazz to Soup Stock and Turn on The Oven For Crispy Dried Anchovies’)
4-6 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp Himalayan pink salt
1 tsp ground mixed pepper
Method
Peel, slice and chop the red onion. Bring a dutch oven to a medium heat on the stove top and add the sesame oil. Add the onion and cook covered for several minutes while you wash and chop the potatoes. Add the potatoes to the onions and give them a stir coating all the vegetable with the oil. Cover and let the vegetables cook while you chop the eggplant and peppers. Add in all the vegetables, mix together and add the stock, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil covered. Lower the heat to a rolling simmer and allow to cook for about 15 minutes until the potatoes are cooked through.
Serve hot.
Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.