Roasted Garlic Soup
Ingredients
- 6 garlic bulbs
- 2 Tbsps olive oil
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1/2 shallot (peeled and minced, can use 1/4 small onion)
- 1 small potato (peeled and cubed)
- 4-5 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 2 Tbsps brandy
- 1/4 cup white wine
- 1 pinch dried tarragon
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper (to taste)
- 1/4 cup toasted hazelnuts (crushed into large pieces, for garnish)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºC/175ºF Set garlic bulbs in aluminum foil or dish with a cover, drizzle with the olive oil. Place in oven and cook for approximately 1 hour. Allow to cool until easily handled. Remove cloves from skin. Melt butter in pot. Add shallots and cook until just softened. Add the potato and garlic, stirring. Add the broth, brandy, wine and tarragon. Bring the soup to a light simmer for 20 minutes. Either blend in pot with a handheld blender, or blend in regular blender in batches, until smooth. Return to pot, add the sour cream and parmesan, stirring in completely. Add salt and pepper to taste. Place in bowls, sprinkle the hazelnuts on top and serve.
And now for the details…
Hiya folks. Sorry for the huge delay between posting. I’ve ended up with a relapse of my concussion, and as a result have been trying to limit my screen time to reduce my symptoms. Since I do need to stare at a screen all day for my job, the blogging has taken a bit of a backseat of late. BUT! I think things are starting to turn, so I am going to be spending a bit more time putting together posts. I’ve had plenty of time to cook, so I’ve got a lot of content in backlog! I just need to get the stuff I have written down into posts!
With that, let’s talk about today’s recipe. A roasted garlic soup. This luscious, velvety bowl of deliciousness is so comforting and luxurious-feeling with ultimately fairly inexpensive ingredients (minus the booze and nuts). It plates really nicely too, so you can impress your dinner guests by serving this as a beautiful (and delicious) appetizer. Y’know… when we’re able to have dinner guests again (*silent tears*).
To get this recipe started.. we need to roast the garlic. This part is super simple, just place the garlic in some tin foil (or a covered oven-proof dish if you’re not wanting to use foil), drizzle it with the olive oil, seal the package up, and place it in a 350ºF/175ºC oven. If you want to make it easier to access the garlic later, you can cut tops off to expose the very top of the cloves before drizzling with the olive oil, but I don’t really find it all that easier. Bake the garlic for approximately an hour.
When the garlic is cooked, remove from the oven, open the package up and let the garlic cool until cool enough to handle. Then, remove those delicious little nuggets of roasted cloves from the skin and set them aside.
Next, melt the butter in a pot over medium heat, then add the shallot or onion, and stir until just softened. Add the potato, and stir until the potato is coated with the butter. Next, add the garlic, broth, brandy, wine and tarragon, stirring well. In the recipe I suggest adding a pinch of tarragon. For any cooking beginners, you may ask: how much is a pinch? Well, if you were to reach into your spice jar and pinch a small amount of the spice between your index finger and thumb? That’s about a pinch.
Bring the soup up to a light simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes.
Next is how we get that nice, smooth texture. If you have one, you could use a hand blender to blend the soup right in the pot. I prefer to blend in a blender so the soup is soup-er smooth (yes I did that). If you have a smaller blender, you might have to do this in batches.
Once blended, return the soup to the pot, and add the sour cream and parmesan cheese until fully mixed. Can you use regular cream here? Absolutely. I just didn’t have any and going to get some just doesn’t seem like a necessary trip.
Finally, serve, topping with the hazelnut pieces, a drizzle of olive oil and some parmesan cheese, and serve.
Happy eating.