Soup and salad is my go-to simple meal for nights when I don’t feel like cooking anything but still want to eat something relatively healthy. But I love it so much that I sometimes fancy it up a bit. While today’s version totally defeats the purpose of the original concept (since it’s neither “easy” nor particularly “cheap”), it’s totally worth the effort.
This soup is a hearty, seasonal soup. It’s pretty simple to make, and freezes well. It’s a bit sweet, a little creamy, with a slightly nutty flavor from the celeriac. The salad, on the other hand, is a bit on the fancy side. The bitter radicchio is grilled on a griddle pan, and is topped with slices of pear, crumbled blue cheese, and caramelized pecans. While they don’t need to be served together per se, they compliment each other very nicely.
Cream of celeriac soup
- 1 large celeriac (that’s “knolselderij” to Dutch readers), peeled and chopped into 1 inch cubes
- 1 medium floury potato, peeled and chopped into 1 inch cubes
- 2 sprigs thyme, leaves only
- 400 ml/ 1,75 C vegetable broth (from a cube)
- 100 ml/ 0,5 C milk
- 1 to 2 tsp coarse grain mustard
- 100 ml/ 0,5 C cream
- salt, pepper
- 1/2 TB chopped parsley (optional)
Combine celeriac, potato, vegetable broth, thyme and milk in a soup pot and bring to a boil. Cook over medium-low heat, covered, until the vegetables are very soft. Turn off heat and allow to cool slightly.
Purée the soup with an immersion blender. You can make it very smooth or leave some chunks, whatever you prefer. If you like a very smooth soup you can pass it through a sieve instead.
Stir the mustard and cream in to the soup. Reheat over very low heat (don’t let it boil, or the cream may separate!), taste, and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve it with some parsley, if you like.
That’s it! That wasn’t hard at all!
Notes:
- Did you know that celeriac combines really well with truffles? If you happen to be in the posession of some truffles or some good truffle oil (YOU LUCKY BASTARD!), you can leave out the mustard, and serve the soup topped with some truffle grated on top, or stir in a drizzle of truffle oil. That would be the ultimate NOM!
Salad of grilled radicchio, pear and blue cheese
- 1 1/2 tsp French mustard
- 1 TB honey
- 1 1/2 TB white wine vinegar
- 1/2 tsp dried dill
- 3 TB olive oil
- salt, pepper
- 1 small handful of unsalted pecans, roughly chopped
- 2 TB sugar
- 1 small head of radicchio, quartered, hard white cores removed (leave just enough so that the wedges of radicchio hold together!), all sides brushed lightly with olive oil
- 1/2 small pear, sliced very thinly
- 2 to 3 TB roquefort cheese, crumbled
In a skillet without any oil, toast the pecans together with the sugar until the sugar caramelizes to form a deep brown layer on the pecans. Remove to a plate and allow to cool. Crush slightly.
Heat up a cast iron griddle/grill pan (I mean the kind that had deep ridges). Marbles pan takes about 30 minutes over low heat. If you’re using non-stick, 5 minutes over high heat is probably more like it. Do whatever you need to to get that fucker SMOKING HOT!
Mix mustard, honey, vinegar and dill. Whisk in the oil until it’s a thick dressing. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.
Grill the wedges of radicchio in the SMOKING HOT grill pan for about half a minute on each side. There should be noticeable black markings, but the inside leaves should still be crispy and firm.
Place the wedges of radicchio on a plate. Drizzle on most of the dressing. Place the pear slices on top and drizzle with a few more drops of dressing. Top with the blue cheese and caramelized pecans.
I’ll definitely be trying the soup. Thanks.
I’m terrible at following a recipe, so I’m not sure if I can claim to have made this soup. I wound up adding 2 onions, which I had cooked in butter and the thyme first, as well as a bit more onion. I didn’t use the cream either because that would have involved going to the store. However, the soup that I did make, based on this recipe, was very good. Winterkost.