Yet another puree soup, I love them. I bought some great cauliflower from my veggie guy, I was not planning to get some but he managed to convince me to buy some. What to do with it? I rummaged my cookbooks for inspiration.

This recipe is adapted from the Cauliflower vichyssoise recipe in the French Lessons Cookbook by Justin North. My version is vegetarian by virtue of using a great vegetable stock. The recipe for my vegetable stock is here.

• 30mls(2 tbsp) vegetable oil.
• 1 onion, finely sliced.
• 2 garlic cloves, finely sliced.
• 1 cauliflower, broken into small florets.
• 4 sprigs of thyme.
• 1 litre vegetable stock.
• Lemon juice.
• Chives, chopped .
• Salt & white pepper.
• Cayenne pepper.

1. Sweat the cauliflower, onion, garlic & thyme in the vegetable oil until onion is soft.
2. Add the vegetable stock then bring the soup to a boil, then reduce the heat & simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Remove thyme sprigs & bay leaf from the pot.
4. Spoon the cauliflower into a blender, cover the cauliflower with the cooking liquid, then blend.
5. You can obtain your desired consistency by controlling amount of liquid added to the blender. So, if you want a thicker soup add less cooking liquid to blender.
6. Season soup with few drops of lemon juice, salt & pepper according to your taste.
7. Serve garnished with chopped chives & cayenne pepper. This soup is great served hot or chilled.

Second sweet corn post, my previous one was the Sweet Corn & Thyme Risotto , this week I am cooking vegetarian food. This is not new to me, I once as a result of a dare, tried to live as a vegan for two weeks, it was tough initially but I got to appreciate the lifestyle at the end of it. Not having a massive chunk of animal protein on the plate, forces you to become creative about what you eat. I also became a big alfalfa groupie…..

Vegetable puree soups are great because they are delicious and so easy to make, and they normally require few ingredients. This chilled sweet corn soup uses pureed kernels and a stock made from the cobs. Since sweet corn is naturally sweet & creamy, you don’t need too many ingredients or processes to coax or create flavour. This soup is sweet from the corn, creamy & tangy from the lime mascarpone, and has a little heat from the cayenne pepper. The cheddar tuile has a contrasting crunchy texture.

Sweet Corn Stock

• From 4 corn cobs cut away the kernels. Set the kernels aside.
• Cut cobs into small pieces about 5cm/2inches in size.
• Add cobs into a sauce pan, along with a sprig of thyme, a small roughly chopped spanish onion, a teaspoon sugar & a pinch of salt.
• Cover cobs with about 500mls of cold water. Gently bring to the boil, then simmer for 30 minutes.
• Strain & reserve the stock.

Sweet Corn Soup

• Fill a big sauce pan with water, add lots of sugar & salt. Bring the water to a vigorous boil.
• Add sweet corn into sauce pan, cook for about 8-10 minutes.
• Once cooked, strain off corn kernels. Refresh corn kernels in ice bath to stop the cooking process.
• Working in batches, spoon corn kernels into a blender then add enough sweet corn stock to cover the corn. Blitz until smooth.
• Pass sweet corn puree through a fine sieve.
• Place sweet corn soup in the fridge to chill.

Cheddar Tuile

• Preheat oven to 160 degrees celsius.
• Grate some cheddar cheese.
• On a silicon baking mat, spoon some grated cheese & form to your desired shape.
• Sprinkle some cayenne pepper on top of grated cheese.
• Bake in oven for about 10 minutes, then set aside to let tuile cool & harden up.

Lime Mascarpone

• Add lime juice to some mascarpone cream as per your taste.
• Season with salt.

Assembly

• In a bowl, spoon a dollop/quenelle of the lime mascarpone.
• Pour in the chilled sweet corn soup.
• Sprinkle a little cayenne pepper on soup, then garnish with cheddar tuile.
• Done!

This lovely soup is about all the peas you use, so taste the peas raw before deciding if you want to use them to make the soup. Tasting will also help you decide if you want to tweak the sweetness with some sugar. The method I used to prep this soup is loosely based Thomas Keller’s english pea puree & his big pot blanching technique, which are found in his French Laundry cookbook.

Great soup for a sunny day, it is very sweet & refreshing…

Pea soup

No precise measurements needed to make this soup, just go with your taste & instincts,

• Fill a big pot with boiling water, add lots of salt & sugar.
• Add peas to boiling water, cook for about 10 minutes.
• Strain peas from boiling water.
• Add peas to ice bath(bowl with water & ice cubes). This is really important in giving the peas the brilliant green colour.
• Strain peas, put them into a blender with enough vegetable stock to cover the peas, blend until smooth.
• Pass the peas through a fine sieve, the colour of the blended peas might be a bit light, this is because of the air incorporated into it whilst blending. The air bubbles away with time.
• The pea soup is done, it will be quite thick. You can tweak the consistency by adding more vegetable stock. Season with salt or sugar (if you want to sweeten it)
• Chill the soup.

Parmesan crisp

• Preheat oven to 160 degrees centigrade.
• Grate the parmesan cheese, prep a baking sheet with grease proof paper or silicon baking mat.
• Thinly spread grated cheese on baking use a pastry cutter as a guide.
• Bake for 10 minutes.
• Let them cool for another 20 minutes for the crisps to harden up.

Mint chantilly

• Gently heat mint leaves & cream in a sauce pan. Take off the heat, then let mint infuse for about an hour.
• Strain off mint leaves, chill cream in fridge.
• Whisk chilled cream to stiff peaks, season with salt & few drops of lemon juice.
• Done!

Assembly

• Spoon a dollop of the mint chantilly to centre of bowl.
• Pour pea soup into bowl.
• Garnish with parmesan crisp.
• Done!