A friend of mine, who has recently had to take on all the family cooking for the first time, looked at me in a puzzled way the other day and said “When you’re making soup where does the liquid come from?” Well, if you have never cooked before it’s a very good question! I laughed and explained about making stock,: take the meat off the cooked chicken, I said, put the carcass in a pot, fill the pot with water, add a bay leaf, some herbs, a carrot, an onion and put the whole thing in the bottom of your kitchen range and go to bed! “Goodness” he said and looked delighted.

Just then our conversation was interrupted, someone else spoke to me and our conversation on soup finished. But I overheard him pursuing the subject with a photographer friend of ours. “Where do you get the liquid from?” he asked again “A stock cube, of course!” I laughed to myself. It was like taking my happy snaps to Boots to have them processed when I know my friend works for hours printing to perfection in the dark room. So horses for courses, make your stock or use a cube!

The basis of soup is the same. Sweat vegetables slowly in a covered pan over a gentle heat in a little butter and oil until they are soft. If you want a thick soup add a potato or some rice and stir in a little flour. Omit these if you want a clear soup with bits! When the vegetables are just tender stir in the stock, simmer season and serve.

Nettle and Spinach Soup: take a large bag of young nettles, some spinach leaves and a little sorrel. Remember sorrel has a strong lemon flavour. Chop an onion, a medium potato and a carrot and a crushed clove of garlic and sweat as described above. Add the nettles, spinach and sorrel well washed, wilt in the oil and butter. Now stir in the chicken stock you made from the carcass or that stock cube. Bring to the boil, simmer for 5-8 minutes. Season and puree in the liquidiser or push through a mouli. Return to the pan ,reheat gently and stir in a little cream or crème fraiche. Check the seasoning again and serve sprinkled with chopped herbs.

Now for some comfort eating while we wait for spring! Old English Boiled Beef and Carrots, Italian Minestrone, Welsh Cawl, Suffolk Stew, and then there’s Garbure. Somehow this last wonderful pot of South West France brings so many regional dishes together. And as an English woman who am I to say how it is cooked! Well bravely, here’s my Anglicised version!

To begin: soak 500gms of dry white beans overnight. Make a good rich stock with a chicken or duck carcass in the usual way. Drain and rinse the soaked beans and bring to the boil in a heavy pan. Boil briskly for ten minutes, rinse and drain again. Blanch a 500gm piece of belly of pork.

Next put the pork belly, a ham hock, an onion stuck with cloves and the blanched beans into the strained stock. Simmer for about an hour. Add a couple of diced potatoes, 2 leeks, a turnip, a few carrots, green or red pepper, cut in strips, salt, pepper, crushed garlic, a little paprika, dried herbs. Simmer until the vegetables are nearly cooked. Add a shredded white cabbage, 500gms of garlic sausage and most importantly, confit of duck. Opinion varies as to whether or not the duck fat is added too. It’s a matter of taste, a little will enrich the whole, I think. Warm the Garbure through.

Just before serving take the meat from the pot and keep warm. Serve the broth on thick slices of bread as a first course and follow with the meat.

Fresh, spicy and delicious this is a great way to use up a few windfalls and a bit of cabbage. But, a big but, it’s essential to have some good chicken stock to back up the flavour.

Shred half a large white cabbage and chop three onions and four green apples. Turn them over in melted butter, then put a lid on the pan and sweat for about ten minutes until soft but not, absolutely not, brown. Add a clove of garlic crushed with salt, a small piece of finely chopped fresh ginger and a litre of chicken stock (…made from that carcass you were going to throw away……) Simmer a few more minutes until the cabbage is tender. Then blend, reheat, taste, season and serve. Very quick, very nice!