COOK THE BOOK: POTATO-ASPARAGUS SOUP (pg.99)

It’s asparagus season so this recipe seemed quite appropriate. Too bad our supermarket didn’t get the memo as they were completely out of asparagus when we went shopping for our ingredients. Oh well, only delayed us by a day. On a side note, too bad we weren’t delayed by an extra day as our new Le Creuset dutch oven arrived today. The last one, about 10 years old chipped due to wear and tear and the company made good on the lifetime guaranty and replaced it with a brand spanking new one! Check it out.

So, here are the ingredients nicely displayed.

We’ve got potatoes, asparagus, onion, garlic, vegetable broth, bay leaves, lemon and dill. Simple enough.

Here is everything chopped, asparagus tips separated from the chopped stems.

As an added step to boost the flavor I added the asparagus stems, a bit of dill, chopped carrot, celery and bay leaves to the vegetable broth. At the same time the potatoes were started in cold water, brought to a boil and simmered for about 20 minutes. I dutifully obeyed the recipe by draining the potatoes, wiping out the pot and using the same pot to sauté the onions and garlic, then seasoning with salt and pepper. It saved dirtying another pot and probably added a bit of starch (though seemingly unnecessary as half the 3lbs of potatoes were pureed, adequately thickening the final product).

The broth was added to the onions and garlic to briefly simmer, then the potatoes and asparagus were added to bring up to temperature. The recipe called for pureeing ¾ of the soup but we went with only about ½ as we prefer a bit thinner consistency.

A squeeze of lemon, some chopped dill and a drizzle of our sundried tomato-chile oil brightened up the presentation. Some whole wheat bread helped cover the rest of the nutritional pyramid, for a complete supper.

Verdict: Quite tasty, wouldn’t really change a thing (other than what we already changed!) I suppose some small, crispy croutons would have been nice but why bother. Surprisingly the dill worked perfectly and was not overpowering or off-putting. In fact there are many, many people who actually hate the taste of dill as evidenced by the 36 members of the Facebook page “I Hate Dill”

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