An idiot's guide to making vegetable broth from scratch

A pot of steaming chicken and vegetable soup is an economical way to feed the family and is very easy to put together once you have assembled the correct ingredients.

And, ideally, of course, you want to serve it up with some crusty bread and pure Irish butter.

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil

2 onions, chopped

3 medium carrots, chopped

3 celery sticks, chopped

1 tbsp thyme leaves, roughly chopped

1 x chicken stock cube

300g leftover roast chicken, shredded, deboned and and skin removed

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 tsp. pepper corns (or cracked black pepper)

2 bay leaves

2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme

The full-proof method:

Firstly, you should saute the freshly-chopped onions, carrots, and celery (large chunks are fine) with a bit of garlic in a large pot of your choosing, adding spices and salt to taste, as is your preference. You don’t have to stick religiously to these vegetables and some people like to add turnip or even potatoes, although you should be aware that the latter can leave the soup with a gummy texture.

After the vegetables have cooked for a few minutes, add water and the chicken stock cube, and any extra vegetable scraps you’ve saved.

After adding the requisite amount of water (approx 1 litre), add the chicken (ensuring to remove bones and skin), and the fresh thyme and bay leaves.

Bring this to the boil and simmer for 20-30 minutes, tasting and seasoning with the cracked black pepper as the mixture bubbles in the pot.

There are so many variants on this dish, including vegetable broth, ie the soup sans the chicken and the liquid drained and removed from the vegetables to produce a clear but tasty liquid, or chicken and vegetable broth wherein you boil the chicken with all the vegetables and herbs in a large pot.

Boiling a raw chicken with the vegetables will take one to one-and-a-half-hours and you then need to remove the chicken and carve up what is going to be used in the broth, discarding the bones and skin as you go.

Some prefer to liquidise the vegetables and chicken, although a tasty conglomeration of whole chicken pieces and vegetables that retain their shape (and more nutrients) while swimming in a vastly flavoursome stock is perhaps the most popular option. Innumerable Irish chefs like to add pearl barley and sometimes lentils to the mix.

Once the whole melee of chicken, vegetables and stock are steaming hot, ladle lovingly into bowls and serve with crusty bread and butter.

The pot is bound to last you for several days and keep the family nourised on a budget.

You can find more recipe ideas online from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, BBC Good Food and a plethora of other online recipe websites for more advice or alternate ways to make the perfect pot of chicken and vegetable soup that is surely a must-have dish for autumn and winter.