Broccoli soup

Broccoli has never been my cup of tea. We had bought it just once and never again after that. Even at the restaurants, if it is served as a side , I would just leave it untouched.

Whenever I used to see recipes related with Broccoli in it, I would wonder what makes people to love it. And then one day, I saw Broccoli soup being posted by Meena and Divya. Those soups seemed to be attractive because they didn't have broccoli visible in them(they had added them having pureed). I thought may be if I try something similar, it could drive off the dislike towards Broccoli and it worked. We loved it. It served as a warm appetizer for our dinner.

Try it and if you too are not a fan of Broccoli, I wish it turns out to be a turning point for you to start loving it like I did.

Ingredients

1. 1 Medium sized Broccoli floret
2. 3 tbsp of white onion, cut into small cubes
3. 2 tsp of finely chopped garlic
4. 1 Capsicum/ Bell pepper cubed
5. 3 tsp of butter
6. 1 cup of vegetable stock
7. 1/2 cup of milk
8. 1 tbsp of corn flour
9. Water to boil Broccoli
10. Salt to taste
11. Ground black pepper to taste

Method

• In a pan, take water and drop in the broccoli florets. Boil it untill the florets gets cooked and turn tender. Drain out the broccoli florets and preserve the water to use while grinding the broccoli.
• In another pan, heat the butter. Add cubed onions, chopped garlic and salt to it. Let the onions turn tender. Now add capsicum/bell pepper and pepper to it. Let it get cooked. Remove it from the heat.
• In a blender, add the cooked broccoli and cooked bell pepper mixture. Add just enough water (the water that had been used to boil broccoli) to grind them all together into a fine paste.
• To a pan, pour in the vegetable stock and add the corn flour to it. Mix it well. Now add the ground paste to it and bring it to a boil. Then add milk to it. Let it boil and cook till you get a desired consistency for the soup.
• Serve it hot with some crackers / croutons and some ground pepper sprinkled on top of it.

Tips

1. You could use ghee(clarified butter) instead of butter if you wish to.
2. You could substitute corn flour with all purpose flour to bring about thickness to the soup.
3. If you eat chicken, then you could use chicken stock to make the non vegetarian in you happy :).
4. You could avoid adding black pepper to the soup and then leave it to be added as required while you have it by sprinkling on top of the soup.

Recipe courtesy : Adapted from Elephant and the coconut trees and Dishing with Divya