Having grown your cauliflower - what do you do with it?

Cauliflower cheese of course, and cauliflower as a side vegetable, but if you’re running out of ideas by now, and having a bit of a cauli glut, here’s a recipe I can highly recommend. Cauliflower soup.

Okay, it doesn’t thrill on first reading and – to be perfectly honest – most cauliflower soup recipes smell like something dreamt up by the worst school dinner lady ever, and taste quite revolting. This one though, is a real winter warmer; it’s filling and luxurious and while it can smell pretty horrible while cooking, the answer to this is to grab a handful of parsley and throw it in a little pan of water, bringing it to a fast boil for three or four minutes after the soup has finished cooking – just as parsley purifies the breath, so it purifies the air …

Ingredients

50g butter
Bay leaf
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 large cauliflower
900ml water or low salt vegetable stock
50g mature Cheddar or Wensleydale cheese grated
50ml double cream

Rosemary oil for decoration

1 - Heat the butter in a large pan. Add the bay leaf onion and garlic and leave to cook on a medium heat until translucent.
2 - Whilst they are cooking, chop the cauliflower as finely as possible – I slice it with a knife and then use a curved herb blade - then add it to the onions and pour in the water or stock Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for about thirty minutes.
3 - When the cauliflower is tender, stir the mixture, then taste the soup and sprinkle in your cheese, giving it a few moments to combine before tasting and adjusting the seasoning if necessary.
4 - Now pour the soup and the cream into a liquidiser and process it until it is velvety smooth – a food processor will leave it grainy so if a food processor is all you have, just process and then put the soup through a large sieve to remove all the bits – it’s not quite as good but nearly. Reheat gently if required and serve with a splash of rosemary oil in the middle (if you don’t infuse your own herb oils you can buy them in posh cookshops!)

Labels: allotment-crops, allotment-recipes