After you’ve made some nice onion soup, how about trying a different soup? The soup is called Dutch country cheese soup.

Yet again, it is a soup that is perfect for the cold winter days (speaking of which, today it’s -15 C here).

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The recipe makes for 6, and like the onion soup, is suitable for vegetarians too. Be sure to have big pot to avoid overflow errors (a 4 liter pot will be all right). Here’s what you need:

50 g butter
olive oil
1 large (yellow) onion, chopped
4 stalks celery, sliced
1 kg white potatoes, peeled and diced
1 small head of cauliflower, cut
400 g carrots, peeled and chopped
2 l vegetable stock
salt and pepper
400 g Gouda cheese, grated
6 slices country-style bread, baguette, or other white bread
2 tbsp chopped parsley

Like with the onion soup, the big idea is to make a soup, then place a toasted cheese-crusted piece of bread over the soup and serve. Unlike the onion soup, the soup itself does not need to go to the oven – however, you will need the oven to first roast the bread, and second to cover the bread in delicious molten cheese. Yum yum yum… Half of the cheese will be used for the soup, the other half for the bread pieces.

That said, let’s start. It’s good to prepare everything before starting to fry things.

You can start by preparing the stock first: add 2 l of water into a big pot, add appropriate amount of bouillon and heat the whole thing up with medium heat. Don’t boil it, and be sure to mix the thing every now and then. When there’s first big bubbles, turn off the heat and let the stock just sit there waiting for its turn. This is the same procedure as with the onion soup.

While the stock is heating up, peel and hack the onion. Place the hacked onion into a bowl.

Next, wash and slice up the celery. Place the sliced celery to the same bowl with the onion.

Next, peel and chop the carrots. Discard the ends of the carrots, they’re not good. Place the chopped carrots into a new bowl.

Trim the cauliflower by cutting out the green parts. Wash the whole thing. Next, cut out tiny trees from the vegetable. If you want them soft, then make them very very tiny; if you want them a bit crunchy, leave the pieces bigger. Put the chopped cauliflower to the same bowl as the carrots.

Peel the potatoes and place them into a new bowl. Note, the bowl is filled with water, otherwise the potatoes will turn dark after a while. You could also cut the potatoes now, but if you do, place them under water anyway.

Next, we have the most important ingredient, the cheese! Take out the Gouda, admire it for a while, remove the plastic wrapping (if any) and cut a 400 g chunk out of it.

Unless you like eating wax, it should be “obvious” to remove the yellow wax before grating the cheese… Just cut the wax away and discard.

Next, introduce the cheese to the cheese grater and turn the chunk of Gouda into a bowl of grated cheese.

If you didn’t already do so, cut the potatoes into small cubes and place it into the same bowl as the carrots and cauliflower.

Turn on the oven, 200 C.

Take out at least a 4 l pot and turn on the heat. Melt the butter with some olive oil in the pot until the mixture starts foaming. Add the onion and celery and fry it there for 5 minutes. The onions will turn a bit yellowish (depending on which onions you used).

Add the diced potatoes, cauliflower and carrots, and some more olive oil and mix well. Continue to fry for another 5 minutes.

Pour in the vegetable soup stock, mix well and bring it to boil. Let the whole thing boil for around 25 to 30 minutes until all vegetables have softened and the potatoes have boiled enough. Just have a taste every now and then, starting after 20 minutes or so.

If you’re drinking wine, now is a good time to open the bottle.

Also, while the soup is boiling, slice up some bread and put it into the oven to toast. It’ll take a few minutes, depending on the bread. When the bread is toasted, take it out but leave the oven on, you’ll need it soon again.

Once the vegetables are soft enough, add salt and pepper to taste.

Next, slowly start adding 200 g of the Gouda to the soup, mixing well all the time. Eventually the soup will look something like this:

Next, take the toasted bread and divide the rest of the Gouda (approximately 200 g) over the bread, and place back into the oven, until the cheese has melted.

Scoop the soup into bowls, place a toasted piece of bread with molten cheese on top of the soup bowl, and decorate with some parsley.

Well done! Now, serve the soup immediately while it’s very hot. Enjoy your meal!