Clear Vegetable Soup (Gemüsesuppe)

In the colder months the Swiss supermarkets sell handy packets of fresh soup vegetables. It’s very quick and easy to make a delicious soup with these vegetables. We like eating this soup with homemade bread croutons, which is a great way to use up near-stale bread. This vegetable soup as accompanied me all though my life. My mum used to make it too, with exactly the same vegetables. Having grown up in Switzerland, this was a typical dinner, together with some cold meat and cheese – back in the days the main meal of the Swiss was lunch, while dinner was something simple like a soup, boiled potatoes, pie or just bread.

Recipe

• 1 packet of soup vegetables or alternatively: one carrot, half a leek, half a knob of celeriac, one onion, a quarter of a savoy cabbage and a handful of parsley
• 1.5 tbsps chicken, beef or vegetable stock powder or 1l of stock
• leftover bread
• 2 tbsps butter

Method

Chop the onion and fry it gently in some vegetable oil until soft. Peel the carrot and the celeriac. Chop all the vegetables and add them to the pot. Add the stock powder and 1 litre of water, and some salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and cook until the vegetables are soft (about 15 minutes).

In the meantime, cut the bread into cubes and gently fry them in the butter. Stir often so all the sides get fried and nothing gets burnt.

Chop the parsley and add it to the soup once finished.

Serve the bread croutons with the soup.