Cream of Asparagus Soup (cold or warm)
This is an old classic that I haven't found much improved on during my travels. You can use the stalks of the asparagus and save the lovely green tips to decorate the soup.
Ingredients
- 1 kilo fresh green asparagus
- 1 med onion thinly sliced
- 45 gr butter
- 1-1½ liters water
- 4 tbsp flour
- 235 ml milk
- 120-135 ml heavy cream
- 2 egg yolks
- 2-4 tbsp softened butter
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- salt and white pepper to taste
Instructions
- Wash the asparagus really well and trim off the tips to about 4 -5 cm long (or 2-2 1/2 inches) and set aside. Then remove about 2 cm (or 1 inch) from the bottom of the stalk. Peel the white bottoms of each stalk up to where the green begins. Cut the stalks into pieces about 1 cm (1/2 inch) long.
- In a pot bring 1-1/2 liters of water with 2 tsk salt to a boil add the asparagus stalks and boil gently for 5 minutes. Remove the asparagus stalks. Then toss in the asparagus tips and gently boil for about 4-5 minutes or until they are just cooked. Remove the tips and plunge them into ice water to bring back their color and stop the cooking, when cold, drain and set aside. Keep the cooking water.
- In another pot, on a medium heat place all the sliced onions and 2 tbsp of butter and sweat the onions for 10 minutes until they are translucent and soft. Avoid coloring them, you want them to be stay white.
- Now add the cooked stalks to the cooked onions and cook for 5 minutes uncovered.
- Add the flour and cook for another minute or two. Then add the hot cooking liquid slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon, then the milk. (take care that there is no sand in the bottom of the cooking water).
- Simmer this gently for about 15 minutes or until the asparagus are very tender and soft and the the taste of the flour has disappeared.
- Remove the soup from the stove and let cool for a little while. Place the soup into the container of your food processor or blender and blend until smooth. Using a food mill or a fine mesh strainer, pass the soup thought it. This will take out any fibers from the asparagus. If doing this by hand be sure to press well with the back of a spoon to get all the flesh pressed through
- The soup can be prepared up until this point.
- Heat the soup gently, add the nutmeg. Mix the cream and eggs yolks together well, then whisk this into the warm soup a bit at a time to thicken and enrich the soup. With a wooden spoon stir the soup while it is heating, scraping the bottom and sides of the pot to avoid the yolks making the soup stick. Remove from the heat just before the soup comes to the boil to avoid the eggs from scrambling. Egg will scramble if heated above 85 °C (185 °F)
- Taste and check for salt and white pepper.
- To serve it warm: Put the soup in a pot over a medium heat and warm, whisk in the 2 tbsp of softened butter and heat until it is just hot. Egg will scramble if heated above 85 °C (185 °F). Whisk in the butter pour into soup bowls garnish with 4 or 5 asparagus tips and serve.
- To serve it cold: Don't add the final 2 tbsp (or 2 tbls.) of butter. After it is chilled correct for salt as cold soup usually needs a bit more seasoning. You can also add an extra tbsp of cold whipping cream for each bowl of soup you are serving.
Notes
Chilled creamed soups are the tops on hot summer days and asparagus is a classic. Whether you make it from green or white asparagus I find that guests always love it. They may not make it themselves at home but they do appreciate it when I serve it. Beside that, I personally love it and make it at least 4 or 5 times a year during the season. Only 4 or 5 times because the rest of the time I am eating it steamed whole warm with Hollandaise or simply with a nice vinaigrette chilled.
This is and easy way of dealing with the mass of good and inexpensive asparagus we get in the middle of the season (last weeks in June). Classic cream of asparagus soup, either hot or cold does seem to have that old lady reputation but I haven't yet seen a "rock'n roll" version of it yet that I thought was particularly good. There are ways of stripping this recipe down but it is so simple to begin with I wonder why you would want to.
2 important notes: It is important to pass the soup through a sieve to remove and fibrous threads, it also give the soup a more velvety finish you won't get if you don't. The way around this process is to use a food mill which will do both jobs at the same time.
White asparagus: If you would like, this recipe can be made using white asparagus. White asparagus' skin is tough and bitter so you will have to peel the asparagus from just under the tips all the way down to remove the skin. After cooking the asparagus stalks, taste the cooking water if it's bitter (which it most likely will be) throw it away and use the same amount of new cooking water to cook the tips and use this to make the soup.
Try decorating this with finely chopped chives or replace the white asparagus tips with green to accent the soups lovely white color.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!