This week’s recipe is a delicious, simple, comforting soup that can be styled / flavoured three different ways!  Cauliflower is not a vegetable that excites me, mainly because of it’s colour. However, when one arrived home in the weekly grocery shop recently because it was on “special offer” I was scratching my head as to what to do with it! So I  decided to do a little experimentation with the basic soup recipe by making 3 variations from the poor, unloved head of cauliflower! It turns out that the soup is the perfect palate to which flavours can be added to create something that will surprise your taste buds. I used grated cheese in one i.e. basically a cauliflower cheese soup, curry oil to flavour the second one and roasted chickpeas with smoked paprika to add texture and flavour to the third one. Each one was delicious however my own favourite was the Cauliflower Curry version.  Curry Oil is a recent discovery and I love it – it transforms dishes that need an extra kick in terms of flavour e.g. great to drizzle over fish. All it involves is combining curry powder and oil and leaving it for 15/20 minutes to infuse – how easy is that? I can’t believe I never thought of this before? Why don’t you make this soup and be creative by adding your own favourite flavours / variations e.g.  bacon pieces, chorizo etc.

Prep Time: 10 mins
Cooking Time: 30 mins

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower – cut up into small florets
1 medium onion – roughly chopped
1 tblspoon olive oil
400 mls chicken stock or vegetable stock
150 mls creamy milk
Salt and white pepper to taste

Tip: if using curry oil, leave it to infuse while the cauliflower is cooking in the stock

• Sweat the onions in the olive oil for 10 to 15 mins, until soft and translucent
• Add the cauliflower florets and the stock
• Bring to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer for approx 15 mins until the cauliflower is cooked
• Turn off the heat and blend with a stick blender
• Season to taste (use white pepper instead of black so there aren’t black flecks in the soup)
• Add extra liquid if the soup is too thick, it will depend on the size of the cauliflower.
• Transform as you wish into any of the versions below and enjoy!

Variations to serve

Cauliflower Cheese Soup – Add grated red cheddar to the soup and some on top to serve

Cauliflower Curry Soup – Drizzle curry oil over the soup when serving. You can also a pinch of curry powder to the soup itself too if you wish.

Cauliflower Soup with roasted chickpeas – The recipe for roasted chickpeas is contained in this earlier post / recipe for Winter Quinoa Salad