I cooked: Broccoli Cream Soup (Martha Stewart)

Rich, creamy and comforting...

My mum loves rich and creamy soups, but we all know too much cream is not good for the waistline ;) When I was browsing Martha Stewart's website, I came across this recipe for broccoli cream soup, which according to Martha "is super creamy in texture, but it contains very little actual cream." The butter and flour mixture, also known as roux, is what gives it body and silkiness. Just perfect!

The soup delivered what it promised... we loved its smooth, rich and creamy texture. This will make a great vegetarian starter, since you can opt to use vegetable stock instead of chicken. The addition of heavy cream (whipping cream) in the original recipe is optional, but I say a little cream will not hurt. To serve, we garnished it with fresh basil leaves and a teeny drop of olive oil.  This soup is great with fresh bread (we had ours with some freshly baked pumpkin muffins - recipe coming soon!).

This is perfect for a quick lunch, you can actually make it the night before and just heat it up when you want to serve it. My daughter sure enjoyed this for her lunch after she got back from school.

Broccoli cream soup

Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 25-30 minutes

Serves 2-3

Ingredients

2 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter (approx. 35g)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken stock (or vegetarian stock)
1 broccoli (approx. 300g), trimmed and cut into florets; peel and cut stems crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick pieces
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup heavy cream / whipping cream (optional)
Fresh basil leaves, to garnish

1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter and then add the onions. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring, until translucent. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute (the flour should not take on any color).

2. Pour in stock, whisking until fully incorporated, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, whisking often, until thickened, about 10 minutes.

3. Add broccoli stems and season with salt and pepper. Return to a boil, stirring to combine. Add florets and return to a boil. Reduce heat and gently simmer until broccoli is tender enough to mash with the back of a spoon, about 10 minutes.

4. Transfer broccoli mixture to the jar of a blender, bowl of a food processor, or puree through a food mill fitted with a fine or coarse disk, or an immersion blender. (I used a hand blender) 

5. Strain soup through a fine mesh sieve into a clean pot, pressing down on solids. (I skipped this step since I do not mind a little texture in my soup)

6. Set pot of soup over low heat and whisk in cream. Thin with more stock or water, if necessary. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately. To store soup, let cool, then cover and refrigerate, up to 1 day.

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I am submitting this to the "Cook Like Martha Stewart" bloghop which I am co-hosting with Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Jocelyn of Riceball Eats. To join, simply cook or bake any recipe from any Martha Stewart websites or cookbooks and blog hop with us for the whole month of December 2012.

Your post must be a current post i.e. posted in December 2012 - please do not link older posts.Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Jocelyn of Riceball Eats and Baby Sumo of Eat your heart out.

You can get the HTML code here: get the InLinkz code (Click on the link, copy and paste the HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML mode when you paste in the code)

Happy cooking! Do check out the other bloggers recipe below:


*This recipe was featured on Asian Food Channel's Facebook page on 7 December 2012.