Another day, another bowl of cauliflower soup

It's MIFF time here in cold Melbourne and a good bowl of soup after hours in the dark is a great thing. Last night I had a great big bowl of cauliflower soup with a difference. I added a few chunks of fetta and some freshly ground pepper as a garnish. The pepper added a hit to the soup and the melting fetta was delicious and quite different from the normal Parmesan touch.

As is perhaps inevitable with our population, Melbourne has access to a mountain of different types of fetta - some local and ordinary, some local and gourmet, some full-fat, some low-fat, some Bulgarian, and some Greek. I guess they all have their place in the scheme of cheese making but the fetta I always have on hand is the my old favourite, Dodoni.

I don't know if it really has anything to do with the oracle of Zeus at Dodona near Dodoni in Epirus but the name for me evokes memories of visiting Dodoni one summer and the Greek family who took me into their house on the mountainside for a visit. They thought I was mad wanting to visit archaeological sites and read guidebooks there. But there you are. Greek oracles are long ago in my past but the Dodoni fetta is very much of my present. It is a proionta of Epirus even if not of Dodoni and I get quite anxious when I don't have stocks on hand ;>)

And the highlight of yesterday? Courtney Hunt's Frozen river, which was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance. See it if you get the opportunity. It's not oracular or Epirote but a great film set on the US/Canadian border and about poverty and a hand to mouth existence not dissimilar in some ways to the old Greek subsistence but in other ways very dissimilar.

A pot of cauliflower soup

During the winter I like to have a pot of soup on the go and I like to use seasonal produce for the soup. A few weeks ago I went back to an old favourite, Two in the Kitchen's Pumpkin soup. Last weekend as cauliflowers were plentiful, I bought a cauliflower to make soup. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on which way you look at it), the cauliflower got eaten before it became soup. Cauliflowers are, of course, still plentiful. So yesterday I purchased another and made soup before the cauliflower could be eaten.

This is a pretty simple soup: just butter/margerine, onion, cauliflower, stock and a few additions like ginger, garlic and coriander. As I have been longing to try my piri piri oil, I flung in a dash of that too, though the difference was not at all noticeable. Maybe I need to leave it sit for a bit longer, or it is not as strong as I expected.

Cauliflower soup

Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter or margerine
1 onion
1 whole cauliflower
2 teaspoons crushed ginger
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 dessertspoon chopped coriander
1 teaspoon piri piri oil
1 litre chicken stock
Shaved Parmesan cheese

Mode
Break up cauliflower roughly into flowerlets.
Chop the cauliflower stalk and any leaves.
Chop onion roughly.
Melt the butter/margerine in a stockpot.
Add onion and stir until soft.
Add cauliflower - all parts of it - and stir with butter and onion.
Leave to cook for a few minutes.
Add the chicken stock (or vegetable if you prefer).
Add ginger, garlic, coriander and piri piri oil.
Bring to the boil and leave to simmer until all the vegetables are tender.
Puree the soup.
Serve with some shaved Parmesan to garnish.



You could also reserve some chopped coriander for garnish. If you prefer a creamier soup, add a dollop of sour cream or Greek yoghurt when serving. So, here we can have an almost pointless meal - or it would have been if I hadn't eaten it with toast and butter ;>(



Now I need to think what to do with a whole lot of leftover rice from the butter chicken curry I made during the week. Piperies gemistes?