Cream of Broccoli Almond Soup

Some left over broccoli which had turned yellowish and hence didnt want to use it for normal stir fry or in mix veggie dish preparation. So soup it was to cater to the kiddo tummies in the evening..

Ingredients :
Broccoli - I used 3/4 of a medium sized broccoli cut into medium sized florets
6-10 Garlic cloves chopped roughly
1 tej pata
Almonds - a handful...about 10-15..blanched, to ease the removal of skin
Salt
Rocksalt
Pepper corns ...freshly crushed
black Pepper powder
Chili flakes (optional)
grated Cheddar cheese
Milk - 3 cups
butter

Procedure :
1. Pressure cook the broccoli, chopped garlic with tej pata and a pinch of salt.
2. After blanching the almond in hot water, peel off the skin and saute the almonds in butter till golden brown
3. Now in a blender, make a paste of the pressure cooked broccoli-garlic and sauted almonds.
4. Heat butter and add crushed peppercorns to the heated butter. Fry for a few seconds and add the blended broccoli-garlic-almond. Cook on high heat till the raw flavour is eliminated.
5. Add milk and milk cream (malai/দুধের সব্র ). till it is of creamy & soupy consistency. Mix on high heat and lower the heat, cover and bring to a boil.
6. Adjust the salt by adding rock salt.
7. Sprinkle pepper powder, chili flakes (optional). Take it off the flame.
8. After pouring into soup bowls, garnish with grated cheddar cheese.

Serve this bowful of healthy goodness ....steaming hot...it's a meal by itself!

Mushroom & (Pan) Roasted Broccoli Soup

Realised (seeing the date of my last post) that I'm posting after a year! Most of the times, the urge of posting has been pushed to the backburner, was due to lack of photographs! Several posts are gathering dust in the drafts for want of pictures ...

Managed to click a few quick pics and hence this post happened....and hopefully a few more will follow too!

Ingredients (yielded 4 soup bowls of soup)

Broccoli - 1 small - cut into small florets

White button mushrooms - 250 gms

Milk - 750 ml - boiled and lukewarm

Onion - 1/2 , finely chopped 

garlic cloves - 2-3, chopped.

Bay leaaf - 1 (optional)

Butter / Oil

grated processed cheddar for garnishing

Salt  & Pepper

Chili flakes - optional

crushed dried oregano leaves - optional

salt - I used rock/black salt (beet noon/kaala namak)

Procedure :

1. In a thick bottomed wok/kadai, pan roast (I used butter) the broccoli florets alternating between medium-to-high heat. Season with rock salt and freshly crushed pepper. Roast till the brocolli has a nice brownish speckles all over. Keep aside and let it cool.

2. Again in the wok,  heat butter / oil, and add the cleaned and halved mushroom and cook till water starts oozing out. sprinkle (black)salt and pepper while cooking. Take it off the gas before the water dries off.

3. Blend the roasted broccoli & fried mushrooms.

4. Again in the wok, add a tbsp of butter, add the bay leaf, some chopped onion and garlic and crushed pepper and a pinch of sugar for caramelisation (that's the bong in me!!) fry till the onions are golden brown. 

5. Add the blended broc-mush paste. Stir well. Check for salt and add if needed. 

6. Now to liquefy, on low heat, add the milk while stirring continuously till you get the desired thickness of your soup. Cover and bring to a boil.

7. Sprinkle chili flakes and crushed dried oregano leaves .

8. Serve after garnishing with grated cheese.

Yummy on a damp rainy evening!!

This is linked to Let’s Cook #18 ~ Starters / Appetizers