This is a slooooow (incredibly cheap) soup to make, you’re extracting a huge amount of flavour from the veggies, and you just can’t rush that. It’s rich yet sophisticated, with a superb vegetal/mushroom flavour, and the spelt rounds it out beautifully, with a great nutty taste and texture. It is very easy to make it vegan, just replace the butter with a vegan butter substitute. You'll need a large stock pot or wok for this. You don’t need bread to serve with it, but it’s nice.

Stock:-

4 whole spring onions

Trimmings from the mushrooms and carrots

8 strands of chives

25g dried shiitake mushrooms

2 litres water, or half stock made with kombucha seaweed

Soup:-

2 tbspns extra virgin olive oil

15g butter or vegan butter substitute

1 onion, very finely chopped (0.5 cm dice)

1 celery stick, very finely chopped (0.5 cm dice)

1 carrot, very finely chopped (0.5 cm dice)

450g mixed mushrooms cut into thin slices: shiitake, chicken leg, chestnut and portobello works well

6 sprigs fresh thyme

5cm sprig rosemary

125mls sweet Marsala

1 tbspn red wine or sherry vinegar

80g spelt

To serve (optional):-

Sourdough toast

The stock:-

• Combine the stock ingredients, bring to a boil in a wok or stock pot then barely simmer, covered, for 30 minutes. Then take the lid off and barely simmer for a further 30 minutes. Strain and set the stock aside, and set the empty pan aside for the soup (don’t clean it, there will be a certain amount of flavour on its surface

The spelt:-

• Meanwhile boil a full kettle. While the stock is simmering, rinse the spelt, drain well, then get a small saucepan hot over a medium heat and add the spelt. Stir for 3-5 minutes, allowing it to dry out, and the flavour to develop. It is ready when it smells toasted. Take off the heat and pour in enough of the boiling water to cover. Return to the heat and cook the spelt as per the instructions on its packet, ensuring that it keeps covered by water. Drain, rinse in cold water and set aside

The soup:-

• Put the empty stock pot/wok on a medium heat, and add the olive oil and butter/butter substitute. Add the chopped onions, celery and carrot and cook till they start to soften without colouring, about 5 mins. Add the mushrooms, thyme and rosemary, season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring, for another 5 minutes or so then add the Marsala and vinegar and stir till nearly evaporated, then add the stock, bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer uncovered, for about 20 minutes

• After it’s simmered for 20 minutes, add the spelt and simmer for another 10 minutes. Remove the rosemary and thyme, and serve, with bread if you fancy