Broccoli Soup

Broccoli is not most people’s favorite vegetable. This soup is the one that changes minds.

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 head broccoli, florets only
1 carrot
1 potato
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock or water
1/3 cup milk or cream (optional)
Salt
Black pepper

Method

Cut everything into dice roughly the size of a die — uniform, so it all cooks at the same rate.

Melt the butter in a medium pot and sauté the vegetables for 5 minutes.

Sauté means cooking over high heat while stirring. The vegetables should take on a little color without browning.

Add the flour and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring constantly. This is what thickens the soup — and the two minutes matter, because raw flour has a taste you cannot hide.

Pour in the stock and bring to a boil, then lower the heat.

Simmer for about 20 minutes, until everything is completely tender.

Blend with a stick blender until smooth.

Now season. Salt and pepper, but add less than you think, taste, and then adjust.

In professional kitchens we taste a dish several times before it goes out, and nothing leaves the pass until we are sure. It is the least glamorous habit in cooking and the one that matters most.

If you want a richer soup, add the milk or cream in the last 5 minutes of simmering, before blending.

Chef’s notes

Use the florets and keep the stalk for something else — peeled and sliced into a stir-fry, or grated raw into a slaw. It is perfectly good eating and most of it gets thrown away.

For a brighter green, blanch a handful of florets separately in salted water for 2 minutes, chill them in ice water, and drop them in at the blending stage. The long simmer dulls the color; those florets bring it back.

Do not boil it after the cream goes in. Dairy splits at a rolling boil and the soup goes grainy.