Serious Eats: Recipes
Dinner Tonight: Creamy Broccoli Soup
If cream of broccoli soup has a bad reputation for you—as it does for me, conjuring up a picture of thick sludge—then this might be the soup for you. I pulled it from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, entranced by the use of onions sauteed in butter, a splash of white wine, and sour cream. I imagined a rich yet balanced broth, neither gluey or floury, made to complement, not hide, the broccoli.
The wine and sour cream are indeed essentials here, the wine bringing a gentle acidity and the sour cream a key tartness. Heavy cream is often used in soups like this, which is undoubtedly luxurious, but I preferred the roundness and balance of the sour cream. I also took Bittman's suggestion in the recipe description to have the soup next to a grilled cheese sandwich, a natural pairing.
Apparently, I'm in the mood for creamy soups—last week's corn soup with roasted poblano, now this. It must be the time of year.