For me the lonely dishes are pureed soups. Yes, really. My mother refers to them as baby food. My father...well he rather has a problem with what I put into the soups. Or...into almost any savoury dish.
The soups may be lonely, but...at least I can have the whole potful for myself. I must thank Janelle of Let's talk of tomatoes for this lovely soup - half the amount made a good portion of warm food for two days:)
Fennel and pear soup
(Talk of Tomatoes, serves 6)
2 bulbs fennel
1 onion
2 (comice) pears
2 tbsp butter
9 dl chicken broth
2 tbsp flour
salt, white pepper, sugar
1 dl light cream
- Trim the base and stalks of fennel, thinly slice bulb. Do the same with the onion.
- Add fennel, onion, butter and 2 tbsp water into your soup pot. Cover and cook over medium heat for 5-7 minutes.
- Add 2 tbsp flour, heat stirring for 1 minute.
- Add peeled and chopped pears and broth. Cover and simmer until pears are soft, for 5 minutes.
- Puree the potful (You can leave some of the soup as it is to have some pices in it).
- Return the soup to the pot, add cream and flavour with salt, white pepper and a bit of sugar.
- Simmer 6-8 minutes, serve. (optional garnish: fennel fronds).
The more I ate, the more I liked it. When the soup reached a kind of moderately warm temperature, I decided to start loving it. The obvious wonderful flavour of fennel in creamy consistency, supported by the faint presence of pears. If I hadn't known there were pears in the soup, I probably wouldn't have guessed the 'secret ingredient', but they do deserve the name 'secret ingredient', as they seem to somehow bring out the best in fennels.
Do add a bit of sugar! Although there are pears in the soup the sweetness - on the whole - needs your tiny support. The soup tastes good when it's cooled down too, but I'd still recommend this 'moderately warm' temperature - it'll wake up your taste buds!
