Greening Austin Daily

Recipe Review Tuesday: Creamy Fennel and Greens Soup

17th January, 2012 - Posted by katherine - No Comments

I tried out this recipe last night and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was.  Sometimes blended soups can be too baby-foody, and this soup was fairly watery in consistency but it tasted really great. It was also pretty easy to make and doesn’t require a lot of oversight while it’s cooking. If you have an immersion hand blender that makes things even faster and easier.   It’s also a great recipe to use up greens (like beet or turnip greens)  that are sometimes hard to use up.  For mine I used collard greens.

I will admit though that it’s not entirely vegetarian as I used chicken stock rather than water, which I think made the soup.  Reviewers had noted they used vegetable broth rather than water and credited that substitution with giving the soup flavor, so I decided to use some home-made chicken stock I had on hand.  I think veggie stock would be just as good too though, just so long as it’s flavored well.   Also note that the original recipe calls for 6 cups of water, but I only used 4 cups of stock.  I think 6 cups of either water or stock would make it way too watery.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 fennel bulb, trimmed and chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1 pound mixed dark leafy greens such as collard and beet, coarse stems and center ribs discarded and leaves chopped

6 cups water  (or for more flavor, use about 4 cups of veggie or chicken stock)

3 cups baby spinach (2 ounces)

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions:

Heat oil and butter in a 6-quart heavy pot over medium heat until foam subsides. Add fennel, onion, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly browned, 7 to 8 minutes.

Add leafy greens (but not spinach) and water (or stock) to pot and simmer, covered, until greens are tender, about 30 minutes. Stir in spinach and cook, uncovered, just until wilted, about 1 minute.

Purée soup in batches in a blender (use caution when blending hot liquids) until smooth, then return to pot. Stir in cream and lemon juice and reheat over low heat. Season with salt.

I didn’t take a picture but Epicurious had a nice one on their website, above.  It’s not super filling though, so I made some biscuits and sweet potato fries to eat with it.  Very tasty!

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Creamy-Fennel-and-Greens-Soup-358114#ixzz1jl5g8xrZ