During the colder winter months, there's sometimes nothing better than tucking into a hearty bowl full of soup, be it some kind of vegetable one or a meaty broth.
And if you're thinking of having a go at making a tasty winter warmer for lunch or dinner, then soup is an ideal option.
Oliver Marlowe, the chef director and owner of The Ganymede in Belgravia, London, has shared his top tips for making soup with The Mirror, including the two ingredients his restaurant uses as a base for all their soups at the moment.
The expert, who has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants throughout his career, explained that all you need to get started is an onion and a potato.
The two items add flavour and thickness to the soup, without having to add lots of dairy to the mix.
He said: "If you want to save adding loads of dairy to your soup and want it to actually taste like vegetables, do it this way as it's a nice thickening agent instead of butter or cream."
Marlowe went on to demonstrate how to make a tasty butternut squash soup and onion and potatoes were the two key ingredients - aside from butternut squash of course.
"The ingredients are really simple, just one onion, 100g of sliced potato, a small bunch of thyme, a bay leaf, 125g butter and a touch of salt (13.75g).
"These all go into a pan and then you want to sweat that down before adding 1kg of peeled and chopped squash and seeds as well as some chicken stock and rather than making a long and painstaking chicken stock at home, we're going to add some chicken Bouillon paste.
"We use Bouillon in the restaurant kitchen and it's a great little hack for home cooking as it gives you all the flavour and consistency of homemade stock without the fuss.
"You can use the chicken or the veggie one, it's up to you."
Before adding the stock, give your veg a quick mix in the pan the pour over one litre of water, making sure everything is nicely submerged.
Then you want to add 25g or a kitchen tablespoon worth of Bouillon per litre of water.
"That will then tick away on a gentle simmer for 20 minutes on the hob and then you'll have a soup ready to blitz."
To finish it up, remove the bay leaves and thyme leaves as you don't want to blitz them into the soup and then use any kind of blender you like to whizz all the ingredients until smooth.
You can then serve your soup with a drizzle of olive oil, some croutons or a chunk of bread if you'd like.
This comes after the chef shared his top tips for making the 'creamiest' mashed potatoes, and he claims the trick is to bake the potato like a jacket potato instead of boiling it.
This way the potato isn't saturated with too much water and moisture can be added with cream or butter when you mash.
Do you have a cooking tip to share? We want to hear all about it. Email courtney.pochin@mirror.co.uk
