Ingredients

• 1 small onion
• 2 celery stalks (or leek)
• 1 zucchini (200 g)
• 2 carrots (200 – 300 g)
• 4 small poatoes (preferred types: Laura, Desiree or Linzer Rose)
• 1 small red kuri squash
• 4 ripe plums
• 1 glass of red wine
• 60 g butter or 6 tablespoons olive oil

Please Note! You will need a potato ricer. Ask your Mum or Grandma if you don’t have one.

Step 1: Boil Potatoes

Wash the potatoes and put them in a saucepan. Add half a liter of water, cover the pan with a lid and bring to a boil over medium heat.

Hint: Try to buy organic potatoes if you can and boil them with skin, which will provide some beautiful creamy texture to your soup. Otherwise, peel potatoes.

Boil the potatoes for about 20 minutes until soft, then drain and set aside with lid on to cool for at least ten minutes.

Step 2: Vegetable Stock

Meanwhile, peel the onion and cut into pieces – you don’t need to chop or dice the onion.

Cut celery or leek, zucchini and carrots into large chunks.

Heat some oil in a saucepan, add all the vegetables and sauté for 3 to 4 minutes.

Next, add one liter of water and a half teaspoon of salt. Cover the pan with a lid and cook for 25 minutes.

Step 3: Toppings

Meanwhile, cut a small piece of squash into slices and roast on both sides with a bit of olive oil.

Hint: The red kuri squash provides gorgeous orange color and beautiful texture to your soup. It is locally grown and is an easy food to buy organic. Moreover, its thin skin is edible – so no need to peel it.

Cut the four plums into halves and sauté them in olive oil over high heat for 2 minutes.

Remove skillet from heat and let cool.

Step 4: Potato Soup

Having cooked for 25 minutes, strain the stock using a spider skimmer or slotted spoon.

Hint: Remove all the pieces of cooked vegetable and do not add them to the potato soup – it would turn green. You can use the vegetables to prepare a delicious sauce for roasts or mashed potatoes: Just add a glass of white wine or beer, salt and starch, bring to a boil and puree with an immersion blender.

Now is the time to use Mum’s potato ricer: Process the boiled potatoes through the ricer’s sheet of small holes into the vegetable broth.

Add one glass of red wine, a pinch of salt and 6 to 8 tablespoons of olive oil.

Remove the soup from the heat and puree with an immersion blender for one minute, until smooth and creamy.

Please Note! Return the soup to heat afterwards and simmer for about 3 minutes to let the alcohol evaporate.

Check soup for seasoning, add more salt if needed, pepper and butter to taste.

To serve, ladle into four soup plates, garnish with the sautéed plums and pumpkin, and a drizzle of truffle oil.

Hint: Do not use bowls to avoid your toppings becoming immersed in the soup.

Enjoy!

This recipe was created by Oscar Germes Castro who runs the sophisticated one-man restaurant named “Oscar kocht” (Oscar Cooks) in Innsbruck. The Mexican native who has found a second home in Tirol serves Vegetarian, Tirol-inspired dishes in a contemporary casual environment with locally sourced, organic ingredients.

Photos by Charly Schwarz