BM # 74: Week 4, Day 1
Theme : Swedish recipes
Recipe:  Asparagus Soup

My refrigerator is almost always low in essentials. As I am typing this post, all I have in the vegetable trays are tomatoes (tons of it, thankfully) and some broccoli. But as long as I have tomatoes and onions, I don’t go into panic mode. Because there is tons of Indian dishes you can make based on these two humble vegetables.

But no such easy way out when you are trying other cuisines. So I was pretty lucky that I had asparagus stocked up because that’s was my choice for my last Swedish recipe. Asparagus soup. I tried this recipe from the book The Scandinavian Kitchen. The soup is easy to prepare and tasted good. The author Camilla Plum explains that Asparagus has always been an expensive treat and the green asparagus is relatively a recent addition to the kitchens there.

Read for the recipe.

You would need:

• One medium onion, sliced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1 bunch asparagus
• 4 cloves of garlic
• a handful of parsley
• water or stock as needed
• 3/4 cup milk or cream
• salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar

Slice one medium onion, two stalks of celery and a bunch of asparagus. Discarded the white bottom part as it would be too fibrous. Save the tips for later. Add all this to a thick bottom pan.

Slice the middle portion (after you discard the bottom 1″ and save the tips) into small pieces and add it to the pan with 4 cloves of garlic, salt, parsley, pepper and a pinch of sugar. Add enough water or stock to cover the vegetables. Cover and cook for about 15-20 minutes or until the asparagus is cooked completely.

Let the soup cook completely. Puree it and pass it through a sieve to remove any fibrous part. Bring it back to a boil, adding 3/4 cup of milk or cream and the saved asparagus tips. Adjust seasonings and serve.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM#74