richard If your local shop permits I advise a decent cider for this recipe – so put that White Lightning back on the park bench and try something tasty like this Henney’s Frome Valley Dry Cider.
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Skill level: Easy
Ingredients
For the soup:
- 1 onion – chopped
- 1 large potato – diced
- 3 carrots – chopped
- vegetable stock – 1 pint/600ml
- good dry cider – ½ pint/300ml
- single cream – 140ml
- stilton – 175g – crumbled
- olive oil
- salt & pepper
For the toasts:
- 1 small baguette
- soft goat’s cheese – 100g
- good dry cider – 2 tbsp
Heat the oil and sweat the onions for 5 minutes. Add the potato and carrots and cook for a further 5 minutes stirring occasionally to prevent the potato sticking.
Next add the stock and cider, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile make the toasts by mixing together the goat’s cheese and cider and spreading onto thin slices of baguette. Place into a pre-heated oven (200ºC/gas mark 6) for 10 minutes.
Once the soup is cooked, allow to cool a little before liquidising. Add the cream and bring up to heat. Crumble in the stilton (retaining a little for sprinkling on top) and stir until melted. Do not allow it to boil.
Serve with a sprinkling of stilton on top.
Verdict: We liked this one. The stilton gave a subtle smokey flavour to this creamy soup, and it worked well with the slightly acidic goat’s cheese toasts.
Drink: The rest of the cider and a bottle of red.
Entertainment: DVD: ‘World of Pub’, series 1, episode 1 and ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie’ series 4, episode 1.
