French Fridays with Dorie - Creamy Cauliflower Soup sans Cream

Today the recipe for the French Fridays with Dorie group is a Creamy Cauliflower Soup sans Cream.

Cauliflower is incredibly versatile and can be used in any number of recipes such as in soups, gratins, salads and pickles. You can steam, fry, stir-fry or eat the florets raw in salads or eat as crudités with dips. Or serve the cauliflower as a vegetable accompaniment to meat and poultry dishes or as fritters. And if you choose to roast cauliflower in the oven,  it really does concentrates the flavor of this terrific vegetable. Usually it is rather inexpensive and local, so there is more than one reason to try out and cook with this classic vegetable.

When shopping for cauliflower,it is best to choose a firm, compact, creamy-white head with fresh leaves. You should try to avoid buying one with limp, yellowing leaves or spotted brown curds. In Europe, cauliflower is in season from February to May and again from August to December and a good, undamaged head will keep loosely wrapped for over a week in the fridge. To prepare the cauliflower, all you have to do is to trim off the leaves, cut off the core and separate the individual florets.

Dorie´s simple recipe calls for the preparation of a nice basic creamy soup (onion, garlic, celery, cauliflower) that can be dressed up any which way – I prepared a Parsley Pesto and drizzled some on the soup just before serving. Once properly puréed, the soup is naturally creamy without the further addition of cream.

To see how the other members of the French Fridays with Dorie group prepared this Creamy Cauliflower Soup sans Cream, please click here.