Friday, June 22, 2012

Sir Cess's cooking of his Jerusalem Artichoke Soup




The cooking of this glorious soup is time consuming but it is worth all the trials and tribulations that go into the making. First you have to wash the tubers and remove all the earth in all the nooks and cranies, a small nail brush is an excellent tool to have at hand.

 You then place all the tubers in a pot, cover with water, add the juice of one lemon, some salt, and boil for aprox twenty minutes.The tubers should then be easily pierced with a sharp knife. Strain them keeping all the juice in a seperate pot.

Now comes decision time. To peel or not to peel. If you want a clear white soup then you must peel. This is a long winded operation and I tend to leave then unpeeled.

In a seperate pan, place a finely chopped onion, a chopped carrot, a chopped stick of celery, crushed garlic to taste, add some olive oil and gently cook. 

After about ten to fifteen minutes add to this the pre-boiled artichokes, which you have cut in half. 

During this process stir constantly mixing all the ingregients with the olive oil. Next, add the cooking liquid that you have kept slowly stiring all the time. Bring to the boil and cook for aprox fifteen minutes.

Now it's time for the liquidizer. Liquidize the whole shee-bang!

You're almost finished!

Add salt and crushed black or green pepper corns to taste.

And there you have it.

Serve the soup with a dol-lup of sour cream in centre of the bowl and sprinkle fresh garden herbs across the top. I used garlic chives & parsely.

I accompany this amazing soup with a tot of pure well iced Polish Vodka.