VERY BASIC CAWL RECIPE ===================== Cawl is a Welsh vegetable soup. This isn't a definitive recipe, because that's like saying there's a definitive recipe for Bolognese, gumbo, haggis or any other dish that lives in the hearts of the people of a particular nation or culture.
This, however, is my recipe, which was also my Mum's recipe, and her mum's recipe, going back in my family as far as anyone can remember (it's the only recipe that my family shared with me because (a) they didn't want me to learn any 'manual' skills because they were worried I wouldn't socially climb the way they wanted me to, and (b) because my mother didn't eat my food or teach me any cooking after the day we quarrelled about the way to cook Bolognese sauce when I was 14.)
INGREDIENTS =========== 1 leek 3 carrots 2 parsnips 1 largish turnip/swede Lots of parsley. No, more parsley than that. No. MORE.
METHOD =======
1) Wash, peel and dice your veg.
2) Put them in your cooking vessel.
3) Add water. This is more of an art than a science, but I add about 500ml for every person served.
4) Cook for a while. If you're on a stove top, simmer it for about 3 hours, as if you were making stock. If you've got a pressure cooker, like my wanky middle class Ninja Foodi, then stick it on to pressure cook for 20 mins.
5) once everything has simmered or pressure cooked, add a knob of butter (how much? Sorry, this isn't a science. It depends entirely on how much you like butter) and some salt, to taste.
6) Serve with bread and butter.
VARIATIONS ==========
There are many variations of cawl, so long as you're a heretic and not properly Welsh. For those who are either, (a) not Welsh, or (b) numb to the lamenting of the spirits of their ancestors, you can add potatoes, new fangled vegetables of various types, or even cornflour to thicken the stock. The best way, however, to make cawl, is to shun ANYTHING from before the discovery of America, other than necessary cooking implements.
Lamb is a perfectly reasonable addition, and does not sacrifice your Welshness. There is some debate in my household on how to add it, and so it gets left out to save arguments. My (correct) opinion is that you should trim the fat off and then boil it with the rest of the cawl.
My family's (incorrect) opinion is that you should boil the lamb separately and then ruthlessly dispose of ANY stock that might accidentally transmit flavour. You may then add the bland, chewy lumps to your cawl.
You, could, I suppose, add other meats to cawl, if you were either not Welsh, or content to be visited by the weeping night-time phantoms of your despairing forebears. I hear a man in Port Talbot once added chicken to cawl, but they found him dead in the morning, his hair turned white as snow.