Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Amazing Broccoli Cheese Soup



I can't emphasize the goodness of this soup enough. It's just SO yummy! The recipe comes from the huge yellow brick - that'd be the Gourmet Cookbook. I played a little with the spices, but it's pretty true to the original.

Broccoli Cheese Soup
2-3 servings

one bunch of broccoli, about 250 g
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 medium potatoes, diced
1 large clove of garlic, minced
1 red bellpepper, diced
pat of butter
salt, pepper, dried chili powder, cumin, chipotle chili powder (optional)
2 tbsp flour
175 ml cream
150 g cheese, grated

Cut the broccoli in to small florets. Cut away any hard bits of the stalks, and finely chop the rest. Blanche the florets in lightly salted water for 2-3 minutes, then plunge them into an ice bath. Make sure you save the water that you cook the broccoli in!

Melt the butter in a large pot. Fry onion, garlic, red pepper, potatoes and the chopped broccoli stalks for 5-6 minutes or until they start to soften. Add salt, pepper and the other spices. Start with a little, and gradually add more to taste.

Add the flour, and stir well while it's frying, for about two minutes. Add about 600 ml of the saved broccoli water. Cover with a lid, and let it boil softly for about ten minutes, or until the potatoes are soft.

Add the cream and the cheese, and let it melt. Get your immersion blender (or a regular one) and blend the soup for a few seconds - I like mine to still have chunks, so I don't make it entirely smooth. Taste, and add more spices if you want to. Finally, add the blanched broccoli florets, and let them get warm for a few minutes. Serve immediately.

Fenomenalt god soppa med broccoli och ost

11 comments:

Pene said...

Anne, I have to try this recipe real soon. I lke the fact that the broccoli is still bright green when the soup is served. And cheesey also!! And it is still very much 'soup' weather here in Tartu.

Anonymous said...

This looks great, definately want to try this!

Anonymous said...

This looks delicious. I love the smokiness of chipotles, and I think it would work wonderfully in this dish.

Out of curiosity, what type of cheese did you use? Any types you'd care to recommend?

Anne said...

Rob - Sweden has such different cheeses from the US that I didn't bother saying anything about it. I used a fairly generic, mild tasting shredded cheese. I'm not sure I'd go for a sharp one in this recipe.

Anonymous said...

Sounds yummy! I was just wondering what do to with the broccoli that I’ll get in my organic box today. Fredrik doesn’t like broccoli ,but he really loves cheese above everything (except maybe bacon). If I’ll make this soup maybe he won’t even notice the broccoli. Haha :-)

Carbon said...

I thought for sure you'd add Velveeta cheese to this recipe ;-)

I just LOVE your blog. I'm always copying recipes to try out. Thank you, thank you.

Anne said...

Dagmar - haha, add some chopped bacon to his soup, I'm sure that would be fantastic with it. (In fact, why didn't I think of that..?)

MommyMaki - if I *had* any, that sure would be good :) I think it works with any cheese though - it's so soft and tasty.

Anonymous said...

Better late than never - I thought I'd try this soup, right in the middle of sweltering Amsterdam summer. The bell pepper and broccoli stems give this a nice crunchy texture, and used dried chili flakes to season - which gave it a nice, surprising kick.

And for once, I managed to make soup without burning the flour!

Anne said...

Cool Henrik - glad you liked it! I'll make it again as soon as it cools down a little - right now the thought of hot soup is not-so-great. :)

Karin said...

Very tasty indeed! Made this soup yesterday (with some adjustments of course - added a potatoe, more garlic and red chili, removed the bell pepper etc.. ) and it turned out to be a hit. Thanks for the inspiration, this soup will be a regular in my kitchen!

Anonymous said...

Sound absolutely delicious, gotta try it soon, but I´ll skip the potatos ;-)