Subtle Spinach Soup/Focus on Spinach.

I don’t often follow savoury main recipes. I have my own way of doing things which is completely at odds with my cookery training. See, I have a thing about vegetables, something along the lines of a mantra of plenty and varied. This makes it difficult to highlight an individual vegetable as they get overshadowed by the lashings of onion, carrot, zucchini, capsicum, tomato, onions, beans and mushrooms all jostling for space in that same pasta sauce. I could just make vegetables on the side, but thats just too much effort and washing up for a mid week meal.

Thankfully, sometimes I manage to step back and ignore the fact that I’ve only eaten 3 different coloured items in the day and focus my energy on just more green. Just such a thing happened recently when huge bunches of english spinach appeared in the vege section, 99c each, double the size of a regular bunch, each leaf perfect. I couldn’t resist, I mean, how could I resist?

I had some ideas for this haul, but foremost in my mind was a subtle, gentle spinach soup – I pushed my need for a many and varied cornucopia of vegetables to the back of my mind, and there it stayed. This soup is so quick and easy to make, and to eat. It’s gently and soothing with a well rounded complex flavour, accentuated by dots of creamy ricotta and mouthfuls warmed with chilli.

Spinach Soup
This is very light, so best served with hunks of good bread for lunch or as an entree.

2 bunches English Spinach, picked and washed very well and roughly chopped
1 spanish onion
3 cloves garlic
100mL cream
Chicken stock/vegetable stock/ water
1/2 red chilli, diced
100g ricotta
olive oil
1/2t lemon zest
nutmeg, salt and pepper

Chop onion and sweat in some olive oil without colouring. Add garlic, lemon zest and chilli and cook until fragrant. Add stock or water (the amount will depend on how thick you want your soup), and cream and bring to the boil. Add your spinach, stir well and cook until soft, wilted and bright green. Season to taste with nutmeg, salt and pepper and more chilli if necessary. Blend until smooth, and serve immediately dotted with ricotta.
Eat!