la morte sua I
Mon, Dec 4, 2006i have had a long and troubled flirting time with jerusalem artichokes: it took me almost one year to start loving them.
this past spring i started missing artichokes – which i love truly – and decided to add them to one of my weekly abel&cole deliveries. all they had on their catalogue was “jerusalem artichokes”. fine. “they must be a variety of artichokes”, thought he…
all i got in the box besides that week’s selection was a bag with dirty chunks of a root which smelled funny – sort of shoe cream, which is not exactly at the top of my favourites list. so i emailed abel&cole, gently complained about not having found the artichokes in the box, and they agreed to put the jerusalem artichokes in the following week’s box. but, closer to the date, they informed me that jerusalem artichokes were not available for that week’s delivery. and my artichokes lust was rising.
third week, they were available. i got the muddy roots again. “hu-hu”, thinks he… i googled for jerusalem artichokes, and the image search returned the muddy roots.
gotcha!…jerusalem artichokes are not artichokes… go figure: i would like to see what happens if a Brit visiting italy orders “jerusalem pizza” and gets muddy roots?
anyway, they didn’t taste that great. i went to borough market and bought a bagful of real artichokes. jerusalem artichokes? no, merci.
last week, however, they came in the weekly selection, and i didn’t bother putting them in the dislikes list. so today, with this week’s delivery fast approaching, i made the usual tuesday soup (ok, it was monday this time) to put to good use all the vegetables left. and since the week’s recipe on abel&cole’s flyer was “jerusalem artichoke & cheddar soup”, i gave it a go.
man, this soup is really out of this world…
here it goes (recipe courtesy of abel&cole, with a couple of amendments):
(basically, I used a tbsp of my beloved buckwehat flour instead of a third tbsp of white flour, and used vegetable stock instead of chicken stock)
rinse well the jerusalem artichokes and scrap off all the mud (i like them with some of their skin).
peel and chop potatoes, adding them to a bowl of water and lemon juice until ready to use.
in a medium pan melt 2 tablespoons of butter over low heat; add onion and garlic and cook 10 minutes, or until soft.
add artichokes, potatoes and half the stock; bring to the boil, cover, reduce to a simmer and cook 15 minutes, or until vegetables are soft.
remove from heat and puree in a blender or food processor.
in a separate pan, melt remaining butter over medium heat; add flour and stir 2 minutes.
remove from heat and whisk in remaining stock; simmer for 3 minutes.
stir in cheese, mustard, artichoke mixture and cream.
cook, stirring, until the soup is heated through, but do not boil.
season to taste with worcester sauce, salt and pepper.
la morte sua. (not perfect yet, though)
(and now i’m finally friend with the tiny, sweet, dirty, muddy jerusalem artichokes…)