Today was one wet day. The wind and rain would not ease up. It's a good soup day. When the weather turns cooler, I like to make a big pot of soup and leave it in the refrigerator for a quick lunch or dinner. Pureed vegetable soups are easy and a good way to use up miscellaneous vegetables you have in the cooler. Best part, you don't even need a recipe. You just have to follow some basic steps and you are on your way to making some of the most flavorful soups.
Roasted Cauliflower and Sunchoke Soup
- 1 large onion
- cauliflower
- sunchokes
- stock or water
- fresh herbs
First, start with any type of allium such as onions, leeks, shallots or scallions. You want to slowly sweat them in some type of fat. For this particular soup, I caramelized the onions. By slowly cooking the onions in olive oil, the natural sugars in the onion caramelizes, intensifying the flavor of the onions.
Next, pick your vegetables. You can use a combination or just one type. Roughly chop them since they will be pureed, the cuts do not have to be uniform. I wanted to make a roasted vegetable soup so I tossed some cauliflower and sunchokes with olive oil and cooked them in a 425 degree F oven until they were slightly charred. It's not necessary to roast the vegetables. You can skip that step and put the chopped vegetables into the pot along with the sweated allium and cook for a few minutes. Add in some aromatics such as dried spices or some fresh herbs and sauté for a couple of minutes to bring out the flavor.
Pour in water or stock until the vegetables are covered. If you want your pureed soups to be on the thicker side, you can add a small potato. Since the sunchokes are starchy, they will help thicken the soup. Simmer the soup until the vegetables are tender. During the cooking process if the water has evaporated, you can add in more stock or water. Season with salt and pepper.
Before blending the soup, make sure you pick out any stalks from the fresh herbs, if used. Puree in batches. If the soup is too thick, you can adjust the consistency with water. If the finished soup is too thin, you can simmer the soup to evaporate some of the liquid. Garnish your soup with some toppings such as flavored oils, sour cream, toasted nuts or croutons. Enjoy!
