How to cook: Broccoli and blue cheese soup

Blue cheese has quite a strong flavour, so you don't need to add much to give a real flavour boost to the broccoli and courgette.

Instructions

Pour the chicken stock into a 2 litre saucepan with a lid and bring to the boil.

While the stock is heating, prepare the vegetables. Wash well and cut the broccoli into approximately 5cm-sized florets, and cut large florets in half. Top and tail the courgettes and cut into 2-3cm lengths.

Add to the stock and bring back to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 7-10 minutes with the lid on, until the vegetables are just tender (a knife or fork will enter easily).

Remove the pan from the heat and blend the contents of the pan to a smooth consistency using a hand-held blender, or a large blender or a food processor. As a last resort try a potato masher, but be prepared for a lumpy soup.

Crumble the cheese, add to the pan and blend again. Serve with fresh or toasted bread, and if you love blue vein cheese crumble some extra on top as you serve the soup.

Variations

• For extra colour and goodness, add a handful of fresh spinach leaves just before blending.
  
• If you prefer, replace the blue cheese with a low-fat cream cheese.
• Sauté 1 small thinly-sliced onion until it is soft but not brown, in 1 teaspoon of olive oil in the pot before adding the stock.
• Use about 200g of peeled, cubed kumara to thicken the soup instead of courgette. The saltiness of feta cheese goes well with this variation.
• Leek and potato makes a tasty chunky soup. To make about 4 servings, use about 500g leeks, then clean and slice thinly in rings. Peel, wash and slice thinly 500g general purpose potatoes like Desiree or Rua or floury potatoes such as Agria. Simmer the prepared vegetables in the heated stock for 10 minutes or until tender, but add a little salt to taste at the beginning if necessary. If you like, roughly mash the potatoes with a potato masher when they are cooked.

What you need to know

• The quality of the soup depends on a good-flavoured stock. Making your own is ideal, but quality natural chicken stock is available commercially. Look for this in a plastic pouch in the chiller section of your supermarket.
• Do not add salt until you taste the soup as some commercial liquid stocks, or powder and cube stocks, may be salty enough, and blue vein cheese is often salty.
• Simmering the vegetables in a well-flavoured stock until just tender helps to maintain the nutritional value. To simmer, cook gently just below boiling point so the bubbles rise slowly to the surface.
• A hand-held blender makes it easy to blend the stock, cooked vegetables and cheese to a creamy soup.