A winter warming soup with robust flavours.

Ingredients - serves 4

450g potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
250g kale, washed, trimmed of woody stem and cut into fine shred
1 shallot, finely chopped
25g butter
900ml Marigold Swiss vegetable bouillon
salt, pepper
4 slices bacon, cut into lardons
for garlic croutons:
slices of baguette
clove of garlic
olive oil

Method

Heat the butter in a saucepan and sweat the shallot for 2-3 minutes until softened. Add the potato dice, salt and pepper, and pour over the vegetable bouillon and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes until the potatoes are pretty much cooked (it is desirable for some of the potato to have broken down completely by the time the soup is cooked so as to thicken it). Now add the chiffonade of kale and return to the boil before turning to a simmer for a further 2-3 minutes or until the kale is just tender. Don’t overcook or you will incur that dreadful smell of ‘old dear’s cabbage’.

Briefly dry fry the lardons in a frying pan to crisp. Make garlic croutons by rubbing the crust edges of the baguette slices with a cut clove of garlic then shallow fry the slices in olive oil to crisp and golden, dry on kitchen towel. Serve the soup in warmed bowls with the surface scattered with bacon and croutons.