How to Make Cauliflower Soup

Transcripts

Rob Carson: Hi, my name is Carson. I am a radio personality also a nationally syndicated comedy writer and an amateur chef. I have been cooking for about 15 years for my friends, for other foodies and also I have done some cooking demonstrations over the years with professional chefs. I am not professionally trained but I know what I like and I am trying to live the lifestyle moving for couples and also demystify things that you would be otherwise afraid to try. Today, we are trying something very simple, one of the simplest soups I have ever made, it is cauliflower soup, but it is incredibly flavorful.

My ingredients are very simple; I have got cauliflower, I have got onion, I have got chicken broth, I have got little fresh cracked pepper and I am going to top it with some pecans. Right now, I am just getting the cauliflower ready and I know when you are thinking about delicious food you are thinking, "Man I can go for some cauliflower," right? See when I was a kid, cauliflower was boiled and served with melted Velveeta which is a pretty good way to serve cauliflower.

Today, what we are going to do is we are going to make some delicious soup out of it. First step clean up the cauliflower little bit, second step I am going to chop up some onion. I have a large yellow onion here, probably going to use about half maybe a little bit more. I don't use exact amounts of anything. I taste as I go along but you will get a ballpark figure on what you should use in this and it will be good I promise. Everybody has got a way to cut an onion. I am sure that Rachel Ray would not like the way that I cut my onion but I am going to go ahead and do it anyway. You want to cut it up fairly finely, it doesn't have to be tiny because you are going to be softening it up and cooking it for just a moment on the stove so there you go. I am going to add a little extra virgin; this is obviously a very big virgin. I would say a tablespoon or so of olive oil, then I am going to put my onion in here on one side of the stove. I am going to turn on the heat right on. We are going to saut our onion we have got a little bit of virgin olive oil in there and a good share of a medium yellow onion finely chopped.

We are going to cook this until it's translucent and a little bit soft and then we are going add our cauliflower and our broth. Now with the extra virgin olive oil after about two minutes I am bringing the heat down, virgin olive oil has a fairly low flashpoint and I don't want to brown the onions. I just want to cook them and soften them a little bit so I am bringing it down to medium heat for the remaining minute or two. I am going add about a quart of chicken broth. This is not a low sodium chicken broth; you may want to use a low sodium chicken broth. I am just using the regular chicken broth because I don't need to add salt but if you want to use a low sodium you may want to consider adding some salt as the recipes goes on.

I am going to bring this to boil; little bit more of a boil and then I am going to add my cauliflower. Cauliflower is pretty light and so it doesn't take too long to cook, I am going to say probably about 15 minutes at a high boil. We are going to soften it up very nicely and then we are going to puree it in the food processor. I am going to turn it off and I am going to check it real quick and see if it falls apart rather readily and it does. So what I am going to do now is I am going to put it in my big mouth food processor and we are going to make a really creamy wonderful cauliflower soup.

I am going to use my strainer and then I will add the broth as I need it alright. I am not going to add all the broth because I don't want it to be too watery. I am not got to pulse it, I am going to put it on high. Alright, so what I am going to do now is I am going to put it back in my saut pan and I am going to add a little bit of half and half, you can use whipping cream if you want, then I am going to put about 2/3rd of a cup and we will see what it looks like when we get it going.

Again, I don't always cook exactly. I look at how it looks and how it feels and then decide. This looks really good, see how creamy that looks. Cauliflower soup is flavorful, it's wonderful and unfortunately, it's not the best thing if you are going to be sleeping next to somebody. I think you get my drift. I am going to go ahead and add it, what the heck. There you go. I am going to go ahead and add a little bit of fresh cracked pepper right now. This is about half a teaspoon altogether. It's hard to measure obviously when you are using a pepper grinder. It's hard to use too much pepper when you are using a pepper grinder. There we go, I will stir that in, alright. As soon as we get this up to serving temperature we will be ready to serve our guests. Alright, so I have got the cauliflower soup in the bowl, I have got some nicely, finely chopped pecans and we will sprinkle them on top of here that I roasted it raw. Walnuts work really, really well as well and that looks pretty, doesn't it? There you have it, Cauliflower Soup enjoy it.