It’s the middle of winter here in Montevideo, and a few nights ago we had a hearty celery soup, accompanied by some lovely sourdough bread made by neighbour Maggie in appreciation of the kiwi fruits she and her brothers had been able to pick from our bumper crop.
The decision to make celery soup was made because we had a huge bunch of gorgeous crunchy celery that in a household of only two we were taking a while to get through. It’s not salad weather, and there’s only so much celery+dips or celery+crunchy peanut butter you can deal with in a small household like ours 🙂
This beautiful celery soup was based on the BBC good food recipe with a couple of additions:
- 2 TBS olive oil
- 300gm celery, remove strings, finely slice
- 1 or 2 cloves garlic, peel, finely chop or press
- 200gm potatoes, peeled, finely dice 1cm.
- 500ml vegetable stock
- 100ml milk or cream
- 1 TBS or ‘slosh’ of canned diced jalopeno
- crusty fresh bread, to serve.
In a large saucepan, heat oil on medium heat and saute chopped vegs. Add splash of water and a pinch of salt; cook stirring regularly for 15 minutes. Add a little more water if the vegs begin to stick. Add the stock, bring to boil. Simmer another 20 minutes until potatoes fall apart and celery is soft. Add jalopenos, then use blender to puree the soup. Add cream. Adjust S&P seasoning; reheat, and serve with crusty bread – enjoy!
I mentioned this lovely recipe for celery soup to son chef Ivan a short time ago, and he commented he’s rarely had it …. I agree, it’s not common, probably because as a soup it is a bit bland. But it is high in fibre, and low in calories and carbs, a good source of several vitamins and other nutritional goodies including potassium, calcium and magnesium – so there’s good value to eating it regularly. I like it crunchy and fresh, cut into sticks and coated with tasty dips or crunchy peanut butter. To pep up the flavour of the soup, I added some canned jalopeno, but grated fresh parmesan or other tasty cheese with a pinch of chili or cayenne pepper would be fine, too.