Vegging out with soup

Stay away from the 'fake' foodstuffs to create a dish with real flavour and goodness

IN THE 1980s, Dallas and Dynasty ruled the world, the word organic never appeared on Dublin restaurant menus and none of us did much recycling.

Consumers weren't too worried about labels, but we all knew that MSG in cheap Chinese food gave you palpitations and kept you up at night. Food Viagra, I guess. Anyway, once you started looking for it on labels, you could find it everywhere.

In the 1990s, we used to make this soup using commercial stock until one day, I looked at the back of the ingredients and was horrified to see that all it basically consisted of was dried powdered herbs, "flavourings", salt, extra salt, even more salt and MSG.

So we stopped using it and switched to a mega-pricey and incredibly dull powdered stock called Marigold.

And you would not believe how much we had to tweak the original recipe in order to get the same full-on flavour that we could achieve with one tiny spoonful of that evil fairy dust.

It is quite scary how these "fake" foodstuffs cover up lack of quality and seasoning in real cooking by creating super-salty, crave-inducing flavours that cannot be matched by quality cooking. They can make anything taste "good" in a Western sense and they do it in a very convincing way.

The problem is that once you get a taste for that kind of flavour, it is hard to wean yourself back to plainer grub.

Think about it: most of us love Chinese food that is drenched in sweet, greasy flavours in the same way we like Western deep-fried salty carbohydrates and grilled animal proteins.

It may only be an occasional fling with the food-devil or one that is encouraged by a bad hangover, but it creeps out every now and then, despite our best intentions. It is the marriage of salt and fat that seduces us away from boiled vegetables.

So it is with great pleasure that I'm giving out this recipe. It really is full of goodness. I make it once a week in a big batch and hope that I can squeeze two days' worth out of it and have some to freeze.

Sometimes it gets plainer, sometimes a little more Asian in style, but either way, it feels good to eat because it's low in fat, vegan and full of good carbs and protein from the lentils.

If you're coeliac, it's also a winner, but don't season with regular soy sauce and check that the sweet chilli sauce is also gluten-free.

And because you're being super-healthy, it's okay to serve it with the ultimate cheese on toast: Welsh rarebit!

For those of you interested in the small print, this recipe makes approx 2.5 litres. A generous single portion of soup is around 250ml, a small carrot weighs about 100g and a smallish onion about 150g.

Vegetable lentil soup

1 tablespoon sunflower/olive oil

1kg white onions, peeled and diced

1.5kg carrots, peeled sliced

1 head celery, chopped

75g Swiss Marigold Vegan bouillon

2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

600g red lentils

Water to cover

Additional flavours to chuck in at the beginning: Large knob of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

6 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

Splash soy sauce

eat the oil in a large pot and then add the onions, carrots and celery and sweat for five minutes. Add the stock and sweet chilli sauce and mix well. Cook for another minute and then add enough water to cover - about 2-3 litres. Rinse the lentils in a sieve under running water and then add them to the pot. Cover with a lid and cook for about 30 minutes at a gentle simmering boil until the lentils are soft and the veg is tender. Season if necessary.

Welsh rarebit

8 slices brown bread

400g grated cheddar

2 egg yolks

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard

2 tomatoes thinly sliced

Black pepper

Wholegrain mustard seems to work well in this recipe. Again, it really doesn't matter, it's whatever you fancy. Remember Worcestershire sauce contains anchovy essence, so beware if you're feeding a veggie.

Serves four. Preheat your grill to medium. Mix the cheddar, yolks, Worcestershire sauce and mustard together. Spoon on top of the brown bread, top with a slice or two of tomato and add some black pepper. Grill until golden brown, which will happen quite quickly because of the egg.