soup – Page 12 – Myfrenchkitchen

I’ll eat soup any day. A consommé or creamy, spicy, rich, hearty, chunky, nutritious…nothing more satisfying than slowly sipping a hot soup spoon by spoon.

A quick, nutritious vegetable soup for an ordinary week night. Or for that time when you’re alone at home and feel like snuggling in front of the fireplace with a book or an old movie. And you make a big enough quantity, because tomorrow it will be even better.

Chunky vegetable soup.

No quantities are given. Just open up your veggie basket and throw a peak in the fridge, fiddle in the pantry and put together what you have available or feel in the mood for. I can tell you what I did.

I sauteéd some chopped shallots and leeks. I then added the chopped vegetables I dug out of the pantry – 2 tomatoes, 2 carrots, a handful of green beans, 1 sweet potato and a few mushrooms. I boiled about 3 large cups of water with 2 organic vegetable stock cubes and poured it over the vegetables, leaving it to soflty simmer for about 45 minutes.

Then I decided to give some substance to the soup, by throwing in a fistful of quinoa, a tablespoonful of sundried tomato bits. I also found some spinach leaves which I couldn’t leave behind and added them at the last minute. After some 10 minutes more, I tested for seasoning and drizzled lemon juice, wine vinegar and salt and pepper to my taste.

The fire was ablaze with invitation and I quickly cleaned the dishes, lit my tealights, called the cats, served myself a a generous helping of soup, drizzled some olive oil and cuddled up to watch “Fiddler on the Roof”, while sipping my soup spoon by spoon.

I love topinambour, for their quirky shapes as well as their earthy smell and somewhat different, slightly sweet taste. Delicious are they in a cocotte or pureed as a side dish and just as wonderful are they as a soup. Unlike a chunky vegetable soup or earthy legume soup, we rarely have only a creamy soup for dinner. I don’t find it substantial enough, unless you eat a huge bowl or two, which makes it too rich. So I’ll normally serve this soup as a starter and then follow up with something like maybe a warm salad or chicken filet with a tomato sauce.

See also Zlamushcka’s version of a topinambour soup.

Velouté de topinambours(Jerusalem artichokes)

About 400 g topinambours
3 shallots
1 large sweet potato
750 ml organic vegetable stock(or chicken stock)
1 bouquet garni(parsley stems, thyme, bay leaves & lemon peel wrapped and tied in the green part of a leek)
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
cream to add to taste(milk for a lighter version)
a drop or two of freshly squeezed lemon juice

Peel the topinambours and the sweet potato and cut into slices.
Peel, chop the shallots and sauté in some olive oil until translucent.
Add the sliced the stweet potato, topinambours, the stock, the bouquet garni and let it simmer for at least 30 minutes or longer. The topinambours needs to be well cooked and very tender.
Take off the heat, remove the bouquet garni and mix until smooth and velvety, adding milk or cream to your preferred consistency.
Heat up gently, add some lemon juice and salt and papper to taste.
Serve in warmed bowls and finish off with a drizzle of fruity extra virgin olive oil and a a turn of the pepper mill.
Serve warm with toasted bread triangles or a grainy baguette.

Serves 4 – 6

This is an entry for WHB nr 111, hosted by Kalyn at Kalyn’s kitchen. For more info on weekend herb blogging read here.