April 1, 2008: Spicy cauliflower soup and braised mushrooms

With Melbourne turning wintry, I was nagging Cindy to dig me up some soup recipes. She pointed me in the direction of her del.icio.us bookmarks and told me to find my own. Luckily, I was sold by the very first item on her list: spicy cauliflower soup and braised lobster mushrooms, provided by the Amateur Gourmet. Our dinner wasn't quite as thrown together as Adam's - we shopped around for lobster mushrooms, but ended up settling for Swiss browns, which aren't even vaguely similar. Ah well, they're still mushroomy and delicious. We also didn't have a big pot of chicken stock on hand, instead making do with our relatively impressive Massel 'chicken' stock for the bulk of the soupy liquidness.

Still, these were minor changes. The soup was spicy from the chilli and just a little smoky from the paprika. We threw in a decent sized chunk of blue cheese, but it didn't really shine through - adding maybe a little creaminess, but not a lot of extra flavour. This wasn't a problem, the cauliflower and spices provided enough taste for our needs. The mushrooms were even more impressive - the vinegar and pepper contrasting with our slightly salty stock base. This was all pretty easy to throw together (particularly when you skip the hours of stock-making) and was a good start to my plans for a winter of creamy soups.

Check out the recipe in full here.

Comments

  1. SarahApril 8, 2008 at 11:17 PM

    Hi Michael,

    Looks yummy!

    I use that Massel faux-chicken stock too. My aunty recommended it to me because it doesn't have MSG in it, and now we always use it.

    Just out of curiosity - Do you guys eat meat stock? Or always veggie?

    ReplyDelete
  2. VeggieGirlApril 9, 2008 at 4:12 PM

    that soup looks WONDERFUL!!! and I love your variation of th recipe!

    ReplyDelete
  3. CindyApril 9, 2008 at 5:03 PM

    Sarah, that Massel stock is great, isn't it? It took a recommendation from a friend for us to discover it, it says "chicken" so prominently on the label that I always bypassed it. :-D

    We never make or use meat stock at home. When we're eating out I tend not to hassle restaurant staff about ingredients, so there have probably been a few occasions where we've inadvertently eaten it.

    Thanks, Veggiegirl! Nice to have you visit. :-)

    ReplyDelete

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