Cream of Cauliflower Soup With Cardamom

Submitted by Roosie

"We recently discovered that we love cauliflower. Cardamom is a personal favorite too. :) This recipe can be served warm or cold and is from "The Bread & Circus Whole Foods Bible"!"

 

• Ready In: 55mins
• Ingredients: 12
• Serves: 6

ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 jalapeno, cored seeded and minced (you may keep the seeds if you want it to be hotter)
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 1⁄2 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1⁄8 teaspoon ground mace
• 1 large cauliflower, cored and chopped (about 2lbs)
• 4 cups vegetable stock or 4 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup milk or 1 cup soymilk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄4 teaspoon white pepper, freshly ground
• fresh chives, chopped, to garnish (optional)

directions

1. Heat the oil in a soup pot and add the garlic, jalapeno, onions, cardamom and mace.
2. Sautee until the onions are soft, about 5 minutes.
3. Add cauliflower and stock and bring to a boil.
4. Cover, reduce to a heat and simmer for about 30 minutes.
5. Strain soup, seperating and reserving liquid and solids.
6. Puree the vegetables in a blender or food processor until smooth.
7. Return vegetable puree to the soup pot and add milk.
8. Add enough liquid to reach desired thickness.
9. Season with salt and pepper and gently reheat.
10. Garnish with chives, if desired.
11. For Vegetarian use vegetable stock and for Vegan also use soy milk.

Reviews

[COOKGIRl]

I love the flavors of cardamom and cauliflower together. Used 2/3 cup whole milk and 1/3 whipping cream. Added a bit more cardamom at the end. I couldn't figure out why this soup was so spicy until I realized I forgot that it has jalapeno. Out of mace, used a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg.

 

[Anne La Quebecoise]

Excellent soup! It's amazing how cauliflower and milk can become sooo velvety. I love the combination of cauliflower and cardamom - find it very sophisticated - and the flavors are perfectly balanced. I have to admit that I would put cardamom in nearly everything, these days, but BF loved it too (which surprised me, since I thought cardamom was a girl thing). Puréeing the vegetables without the broth and then adding it to taste is a great idea ; since my blender works better with a little liquid, I puréed the cauliflower with the milk to keep all my options with the broth. Be warned though that at this point, your broth is a cardamom-jalapeno infusion, so adding more will increased the spicyness of the soup, even though adding at all was perfect for our taste. Also make sure that you measure your cardamom AFTER grinding it, because 1/2 tsp seeds will yield more than 1/2 tsp powder. Thank you for this great recipe!

 

[sugarpea]

Delightful way to have your cauliflower. The addition of the milk at the very end makes the recipe in my humble opinion. It was easy to prepare this ahead and then reheat it for dinner. We'll definitely be having this again.

 

[Miss Annie in Indy]

Very good, I went a little to heavy on jalapeno pepper (used the kind in the jar, I did't have any fresh) next time I'll cut back. Cauliflower is so mild the jalapeno overpowered it. Instead of using milk, I added powered non fat milk using just the broth for the liquid.This is a wonderful low calorie soup if you like cauliflower. A great pre-dinner filler. Thanks for posting Roosie.