This gorgeous summer soup can be served hot or cold.
You will need a mixture of onion, carrot, celery, fennel, lettuce, frozen peas, parsley and dill. Plus a stock of your choice and either dairy cream or oatmilk cream.
The basis of every good soup is sofritto. Onion, carrot and celery chopped finely and in equal proportions, then sautee’d gently in good olive oil and/or butter with a bay leaf a chopped clove of garlic, fresh rosemary and a pinch of salt. Dont fry it swiftly, do it gently over 20 or 30 minutes. Add a little more oil if necessary to prevent it sticking. This method extracts the natural sugars and forms an unctuous base for any soup or casserole.
Then add sliced and chopped fennel (say one large fennel, minus its fronds) and a finely chopped large courgette including the skin. Put the lid on and leave for 10 minues. Add another chopped clove of garlic, a whole lettuce chopped into pieces. You could add chard or spinach too if you like. Put the lid on and sweat it down for five more minutes. Finally add about 150g of frozen peas. Add about 750ml of vegetable stock and cook for 5 minutes. Then use a stick blender to whoosh it up. Add dairy cream or oat cream – about 150ml. Add more salt and a grind of black pepper to taste. Then finely chop dill leaves, parsley leaves and mint leaves and add to the soup when its is off the heat. Stir the herbs into the soup.
And there you have it – a fresh, aromatic green soup that you can serve hot or cold with a dollop of plain yogurt mixed with more chopped herbs and mixed with good olive oil. What better way to manage a glut of lettuce, fennel and those herbs that are quickly running to seed?
