Thursday, March 6, 2008

Sunchoke Seafood Soup

I'm a big fan of leek and potato soup. It always seems like a miracle to me that such simple ingredients - leeks, potatoes, water, salt - can make such a heavenly soup. So, when I saw a recipe recently that seemed like a riff on that, but more complex and interesting, I wanted to try it.

This recipe, a variation on the one La Tartine Gourmande posted a while back, called for Jerusalem artichokes, potato, fennel, shallots, rosemary, celery and water to make the soup base. Then, it was enriched with some creme fraiche and enhanced with shellfish at the end.

I used quickly (30 seconds) sauteed bay scallops in My Beloved's portion as he is very partial to scallops but added bay shrimp to mine - I ate too many scallops as a child and seem to have permanently injured my scallop gene.

We enjoyed the fresh veggie taste of this soup base and felt that it made a nice, lighter alternative to heavy chowders but the sunchoke flavor was rather lost. Another time, I think I'd leave out the potato and try using only the sunchokes as the base. However, it was a really nice spring soup and I'd happily make it again.

3 Comments:

Blogger Nancy Ewart said...

Hi Zoomie - do you have any oranges left? this recipe in the Wed section of the SF Chron looks tailor made for you:

Roasted Root Vegetables with Blood Orange Vinaigrette

Thursday, March 06, 2008  
Blogger Zoomie said...

NamasteNancy, thaks for the tip - I'll check it out! I do have four or five left!

Thursday, March 06, 2008  
Blogger Terry at Blue Kitchen said...

Zoomie--I am delighted to have discovered your lovely blog. With spring finally here [although it's supposed to snow in Chicago tonight], you might enjoy a cold version of potato and leek soup with watercress.

Thursday, March 20, 2008  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home