Kitchen Experiment: Low Carb Cauliflower Soup

Here’s what I tried when I wanted to make a simple soup great for a cold winter day.

• 1 large head of cauliflower
• 2 whole bunches of scallions – yes – bunches
• salt
• 4 cups of water
• pepper
• 1 cup heavy cream

In a deep cooking pot, place the chopped scallions and the chopped up cauliflower head in 4 cups of water and bring to a boil, then simmer for a half hour.

Next, get out the handy immersion blender. A quick digression: while food processors are great, unless you’re a TV chef that has some poor intern to do your dishes for you, they are a pain in the ass to clean. You can find yourself using it for 2 minutes and cleaning it for 10. The immersion blender tackles a lot of the things a food processor is used for and cleaning is a breeze – I couldn’t live without my immersion blender. Just don’t clean it while it’s plugged in!

Be patient while you blend, fishing out all the little florets that missed the blades. It will turn a nice shade of light green. If you ignored my instructions to do this in a deep pot and did it in a shallow pot, be prepared to clean scallion-encrusted cauliflower goo off your walls and stove.

Next, with the heat off, stir in the cream.

Now it’s a matter of tasting. Depending on your feelings about salt, you might want a lot or a little. I ended up putting in way more than I expected, but the outcome was awesome – it brought out the flavor without overpowering it. I also added pepper.

I let that combo simmer a bit more, just to warm the cream – not too long, maybe 5 minutes.

Nothing but cream and healthy carbs here. No reason I can see why this wouldn’t be induction-friendly.

The reviews were generally positive. Given my crock pot chicken curry debacle, perhaps expectations aren’t high right now. The primary complaints were that it needing more varied seasoning – my older daughter added some additional spices to hers. That’s a philosophical issue, as one could argue I was trying to bring out the flavors of the ingedients and not tart them up with a spectrum of other flavor notes.

On another criticism I must agree: it was a bit too watery. It wasn’t bad, mind you – we just like thicker soups. I will try this again and probably add 3 cups of water rather than 4.

I could also see myself adding other flavor and texture notes in the future. Perhaps some clams and diced turnips to make a faux clam chowder? Maybe some bacon?

Sounds good to me.

I can also report that on the day after, the leftover soup has mostly disappeared, a good indication to me that the stuff I made is good.

I’ll have to try this one again