Spiced Cauliflower Soup
It is a joy not to rush. A lazy Sunday morning, a relaxing summer evening, sleeping in, dawdling.
It is a beautiful thing to take things slowly, to simply enjoy the moment.
I feel the same way about discovery. To find everything out at once would be overwhelming, disappointingly leaving nothing for the future. This is why I am glad to have only recently discovered the joy of Cauliflower.
As a child, cauliflower was the unnecessary vegetable. Revoltingly pungent, squishy and grey. But recently I have started to love its subtle flavour, its different faces, its ability to transform in different situations.
Paired with chilli, cumin and cooled with coconut cream, this soup highlights and spikes the gentle cauliflower.
Spiced Cauliflower Soup
1 large head Cauliflower, trimmed into florets
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
2cm piece ginger
2t cumin
100ml coconut cream (or more) *
300 ml chicken or veg stock *
1 red chilli
coriander to serve.
Fry chopped onion in a little oil. When lightly browned, add garlic, ginger, cumin and chilli and fry until fragrant. Add cauliflower, coconut cream and most of the stock, season with a little salt.
Simmer the soup, stirring regularly until cauliflower is just tender. Cool slightly, then blend until smooth. Return to cleaned pan and heat until bubbling. Taste again and season. Stir through a handful of chopped coriander leaves and stem, serve.
* the amount of liquid required is very variable, dependent on the size and consistency of your cauliflower, and the desired viscosity of your soup.
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
4 Comments
ahhh, the unnecessary vegetable; not always presented to you as grey, repugnant and squishy. Sometimes (maybe just once?) it was presented chopped into tiny white clouds of crunchiness, nestling with cubes of capsicum, slivers of snow peas and just warmed broccoli flowerets with fresh bean sprouts with salt and lemon. Or, baked in creamy, cheesy, crunchy topped macaroni and cheese.
How easily forgotten.
Or is my imagination giving the best of me!?
I am still unconvinced. Perhaps you need to cook this for me? And yet I suspect that it will always be unnecessary in my eyes….
Thanks for telling me you had a blog! Why didn’t I get that memo?
PMum, the cauliflower in the macaroni cheese is one of the reasons for the naming of the unnecessary vegetable!
Ella: I didn’t tell anyone.
Yes it was unnecessary in the macaroni cheese.
A cooking life of often unchosen food grown and presented for use did make for some unnecessary/necessary additions.