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This recipe is from Cherie Hausler, one of our own students, in her new book A Plant-Based Farmhouse.
“I will never forget our first ever cauliflower; home grown and hand picked, it barely resembled the giant, super white, versions of cauli on offer in a shop, but it was held aloft in triumph, a la ‘Statue of Liberty’ style regardless. Any fellow gardeners will appreciate the celebration of all and any homegrown food, but I’m grateful we’ve upped our cauliflower growing game since that very first harvest. It was a little on the small side but was bound to continue shrinking if it was left to the fat green grub that was sharing it with us. He’d eaten the equivalent of a small acreage, leaving a trail of chewed destruction in his wake, so it was an obvious choice to make soup. Our Brassica gardening efforts have evolved enormously over the years (thank you grub eating runner ducks) but I haven’t changed this soup recipe since the first time I made it.
Roasting veggies before they go into a pot for soup makes every difference to the depth of flavour and I do the same when I make any Winter vegetable soup; a simple pumpkin soup becomes something you’ll be asked the recipe for when roasting is part of the process. You’ll likely come up with lots of new soup ideas when you start doing the Weekly Roast, they pretty much make themselves when you have any leftovers from your leftovers.
And I know you’ll be aware by now of how often the Wholefood Veggie Stock makes an appearance in my cooking, but soup season is possibly the best time to start making the fresh stock paste if you haven’t yet. Plus, I know you’ll use it for everything besides soup too; it’s the quiet achiever of recipes in this book.”
Ingredients:
800g-900g roasted cauliflower, roughly cut into 3cm-4cm pieces
700g roasted potatoes, roughly cut into 3cm-4cm pieces
50g + 50g extra virgin olive oil
8g yellow mustard seeds
45g wholefood veggie stock (see Editor’s Note)
1000g water
25g turmeric butter (see Editor’s Note)
30g macadamia parmesan (see Editor’s Note)
Fresh rocket flowers, if available
Extra virgin olive oil, to serve
Salt, to taste
Method
To roast cauliflower, cut into 3-4cm pieces and place onto a baking tray. Drizzle with 50g extra virgin olive oil, season with salt and pepper and place into a preheated oven at 200C for 20-30 minutes or until the cauliflower is tender and starting to caramelise along its edges.
To roast potatoes, cut into quarters and place onto a baking tray. Drizzle with 50g extra virgin olive oil, season with salt and pepper and place into a preheated oven at 200C for 30-40 minutes or until the potato is tender and starting to caramelise along its edges.
Toast the mustard seeds in a dry pan over high until they start to pop. Remove from heat and grind with a mortar and pestle into a powder.
Into a large soup pot add turmeric butter, veggie Stock, cauliflower and potatoes and panfry for 2 minutes over high heat to cook the stock paste.
Add the freshly ground mustard seeds and stir through.
Add the water to cover, bring to the boil and leave to simmer for 5 minutes or until all ingredients are piping hot.
Remove from heat, and puree the soup with a hand blender until smooth and creamy. Check seasoning and salt to taste.
Serve the hot soup with a sprinkling of macadamia parmesan, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and some rocket flowers if you have them.
Editor’s Note
Wholefood Veggie Stock
Cherie uses a clever recipe for a homemade vegetable stock paste. We recommend using a homemade vegetable stock here as a substitute
Turmeric Butter
Cherie’s turmeric butter is coconut oil based. Try blitzing coconut oil and ground turmeric with some salt for something similar, or use Vanessa’s turmeric butter recipe for a cultured dairy alternative
Macadamia Parmesan
Cherie has a recipe in the book for macadamia nuts blitzed with nutritional yeast and a little salt to use as a sprinkle of “familiar cheesy intensity”. Feel free to play around with this idea or to substitute parmesan cheese here.
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