What do you do with a cauliflower? Make cauliflower & chestnut soup!

Right now, my true love is living in the UK for a few weeks.  We’re a dual-profession household and that means that I’m holding down a more or less empty fort for some of the year.  This means that I get a chance to do some experimentation without anyone noticing how badly I’ve screwed up but it also means that I don’t get any kind of objective feedback.  It also creates some procurement problems.

For example, you can’t buy half of a cauliflower.  If you’re cooking for one, do you know how long a cauliflower can last?  Three meals at least, maybe up to five.  Figure that you have the same problem with a bunch of asparagus or a head of broccoli and dinner can get real boring real fast.  I mean, how many times can you eat roasted or steamed cauliflower?

The solution presented itself to me after our last trip to London.  We always stay at the Citadines in South Kensington and we often have dinner in MK Bar and Grill, also known as Med Kitchen.  It’s an unpretentious, reasonable Mediterranean based place in a very convenient location.  One evening on our last trip, the soup of the day was Cauliflower Chestnut.  It was a typical 41°F damp London winter day, so hot soup sounded great although I was a little skeptical about a cauliflower soup.  It turned out to be delicious and it gave me an idea for when I got home.

I have a regular approach to making pureed vegetable soups so I thought I’d try it with cauliflowers and chestnuts.  The hardest part was finding cooked chestnuts – none of the grocery staff at the supermarket knew where to look and I wound up with three different clerks scouring the store.  Ultimately, one of them succeeded.

Start with prepping the cauliflower and the chestnuts.  I use roughly the same amount of vegetables and water or chicken stock, depending on how much I want to make and the water can be varied a bit to thicken or thin the soup.  In this case, I used three cups of veggies and a little more than three cups of water.  I used water because I wasn’t quite sure how the color of chicken stock would affect the finished soup.  I also had to experiment with the proportion of cauliflower to chestnut and settled at 2 parts of cauliflower to 1 part chestnut – it was the right balance of robust flavor and sweetness.

So to get started, heat some olive oil in a dutch oven and then cook a good-sized diced onion until soft.  While that’s going on, dice a potato and finely chop 2 cups of cauliflower and 1 cup of chestnuts.  When the onion is soft, add the potatoes, salt, pepper, a bay leaf, a tablespoon of fresh ginger, and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg or mace.  Nutmeg is more conventional but I’ve been experimenting with mace lately and have been very surprised and happy.  Cook for another 3 minutes.

Then add the water.  If you like a thick soup where the spoon can almost stand on its own, use 3 cups of water.  Four cups will be thinner, more conventionally soup-like.  I use about 3 1/2 cups.  Bring it to a boil, add the cauliflower and chestnuts, reduce the heat to simmer and let it go for about 15 to 20 minutes, until everything is soft and then take it off the heat.  Let it sit for about 5 minutes or so and then puree.  If you’ve cut everything into small enough pieces, an immersion blender is great here.  If it’s a little chunky, use a regular blender.  Taste and adjust for salt and pepper and you’re ready to go.  Nice garnishes croutons, sour cream, or my current favorite – fried root vegetable peels (really! – look for a future post).  The spices add some edge to the big sweetness of the chestnut and the basic onions give depth.  It’s hearty and a little different from the normal pureed vegetable soup.

Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups cauliflower, finely chopped

1 cup cooked chestnuts, finely chopped

2 tbl olive oil

1 large onion diced

1 medium potato diced

1 bay leaf

1 tbl ginger, chopped

1/4 tsp mace (or nutmeg)

3 1/2 cups water

salt & pepper

Directions

Heat the oil in a dutch oven.  Add onions and cook 5-7 minutes until onions are soft.

Add potatoes, salt, pepper, bay leaf, ginger, and mace.  Cook another 3 minutes, stirring regularly.

Add water and bring to a boil.

Add cauliflower and chestnuts and reduce heat to simmer.

Cook for 15-20 minutes until vegetables are soft.  Remove from heat for at least five minutes.

Puree mixture with immersion blender or traditional blender.

Taste for seasonings and reheat if necessary.

Add garnish (croutons, sour cream, fresh herbs, etc.) and serve.