bedroom galilee clive barker bathroom amy and isabelle elizabeth strout car/walk evening susan minot
office look sharp! joe jackson lilith fair 2, 3 various car more tales from the city [book-on-tape] armistead maupin living room the sci fi channel
brand x the message came from out of the blue: Brand X welcomes you into its clutches.
1999 june 09
cream of the crop
until i made cream of asparagus soup last night for dinner, i had forgotten i intended to write about my status as queen of broccoli soup.
actually, now that i have had such a rousing success with the asparagus, i am going to promote myself to queen of cream of; no need to limit myself to one vegetable when i can excel at all of them. of course i may never make some of them, beets come to mind, but i have no doubt that if i were to make cream of beet soup, it would taste delicious to those of a beet bent.
it is rather a zen thing, making the soup. first you must chop up the desired vegetable into smallish pieces, then chop up an onion as well. i try to make each piece the exact same size, which slows the whole process down but makes for a very nice picture when looking into the saucepan. put the vegetables in the pan with some water and the seasonings of choice, then let the whole thing boil until the veggies are tender. i leave a lid on to keep all the happy little vitamins in the water and since none of it is thrown out, i don't feel too badly about the boiling versus steaming thing.
pop the whole lot into the blender and puree. i use a pulse maneuver -- vegetables spin, vegetables sit, vegetables spin, vegetables sit. if i am in a particularly chunky mood, i leave out a good ladleful of the veggies to throw back in later, else i just turn it all into a barely lumpy mass. last night i kept out all the asparagus tips, even from the boiling, deciding instead to roast them and use them as garnish; it was a fabulous idea.
then comes my favorite part: throw some butter into the pan, and add some flour, whisking the whole lot until it makes a golden roux. gradually add milk, constantly whisking until the whole thing starts to thicken. i love this, watching it get thicker and thicker and more and more golden in colour, like magic making the liquid into an almost solid.
still whisking, gradually add in the pureed vegetables, paying careful attention to the green swirling into the cream, the stripes and striations as they start to meld, the way the green gradually starts to lighten as it is incorporated into the creamy base, the way the soup gets more liquid for a minute and then starts to thicken again. i have been know to stand over the stovetop, stirring very slowly, for ten or fifteen minutes, watching the different patterns, smelling the vegetables and the spices, almost hypnotized by the whirlpool in the pan.
makes you want to throw out all the campbell's in the cupboard, doesn't it?
creamy good, claire
home - < previous < - > next > - archives