Monday 16 July 2007

Green soup


This is a summer soup. I make gallons of it once the courgettes kick in, mostly at the request of Rosie who calls it "proper soup". It is a bit difficult to write a recipe for it as I usually just use whatever is to hand, but I'll have a go!

I usually head off into the veggie garden in my stripy apron and fill the lap with cucumbers and courgettes, dropping a few on the way back to the kitchen. I might grab a bit of flat leaf parsley on the way too.

It really is great for using up the glut of courgettes - but is at its best once the cucumbers are around too. In fact, 'proper' green soup is probably made with 100% cucumbers, even when served hot it tastes cool somehow! I suppose it could be served as a chilled soup too, but I'm not much of a fan of chilled soups and I have never tried it.

When there is a glut of courgettes I chop them up into chunks and put them in the freezer in plastic bags in the right quantities to make a batch of this soup. I don't bother with blanching - I'm not sure really what that is for - and it doesn't make a difference to the soup. Just grab a bag out of the freezer and put them into the pan frozen, then follow the recipe as normal.



INGREDIENTS



An armful of green things: courgettes, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, nettles etc. Use singly or in combination. The minimum quantity is the equivalent of about four large cucumbers.

A knob of butter or 1tbsp of olive oil

500ml chicken stock (or water and a sachet of instant miso soup)

100g of soft cheese (approximately half a 200g tub of Philadelphia light) or use creme fraiche, or one of the soft goat's cheese logs they sell at Farmers' Markets. I once made it with Feta cheese and that too was delicious.

Freshly grated nutmeg

Black pepper



METHOD


  • Chop the courgettes/cucumbers etc into chunks and put them in a large pan with the butter/oil. Slap on a lid and leave to sweat until soft and transparent.

  • Add enough stock to make the desired soup consistency.

  • Grab one of those stick blender jobbies and buzz the soup in the pan until it is smooth (or put it in a blender/food processor, but that's more washing up!)

  • Add the soft cheese, as much nutmeg as you dare and the black pepper and buzz again.

  • Serve with oatcakes for a delicious healthy low fat, low GI meal.

NOTES



  • Swirl with double cream if you are really posh/showing off/not on a diet.
  • I once made it with yellow courgettes - yellow soup!


4 comments:

Pondside said...

This will be in a bowl on my table this week! I'll let you know how we like it.

Elizabeth Musgrave said...

what a great recipe - and we do indeed have the courgette glut right now!

DJ Kirkby said...

Excellent, must print off and make asap! Remind me to give you my lovely recipe for pumpkin soup!

Kitty said...

Thanks! Will go and investigate the insides of the mystery squashes to see if I think they're edible, I thin if they smell like melon/cucumber then I'm ok, so green soup here we come.

I make green soup with green beans, spinach, whatever we have from the garden too, I always start with a sweated onion with a clove of chopped garlic and then carry on as per your recipe, using the yeast -free Marigold bouillon instead of stock when I don't have any home-made chicken stock.