jade soup

Jade soup

Can a powerhouse of nutrition-in-a-bowl also be an elegant and delicious first course?

Silky smooth, brilliantly green, and richly flavored with tarragon, basil, and freshly ground cumin, this is one great way to eat your vegetables. I promise, this doesn’t taste like “health food.” And, you can make it pareve, dairy, or meat…it’s totally up to you.

Serve this soup as is, or with a swirl of cream.

Finish it off with a grinding of tri-color peppercorns or a sprinkle of Aleppo pepper.

Garnish the soup with croutons, marcona almonds, toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds, snipped chives, crispy shallots, maitake mushrooms, asparagus tips, crumbled feta or ricotta salata…or even matzo balls…or kreplach…there’s no limit to the creative ways you can make this recipe your own.

For a lower fat version, you can reduce the amount of butter/oil that’s called for in the recipe, but it’s the fat that gives it that silky mouthfeel.

The trick to creating a bright green, rather than an olive drab, soup is to cut your vegetables into small dice so that they cook quickly.

Ingredients:

• 4 Tbsp butter or fruity olive oil

• 1 large white onion, diced

• 3 fat cloves garlic, minced

• 1 large Russet potato, peeled cut into small dice

• 2 lbs asparagus, tops and tender part of the stems, chopped

• 2 cups baby spinach leaves, rough chopped

• 2 cups arugula

• ½ cup parsley, chopped

• chopped tarragon and basil, about a tablespoon of each, or to taste

• 4 cups chicken or light colored vegetable stock

• Juice of ½ lemon

• 1 teaspoon cumin, preferably freshly ground

• Kosher salt to taste

• garnish(es) of your choice—see below

  Method:

• In a medium sized soup pot or Dutch oven, warm the oil or butter over medium heat. Add onion with a pinch of salt, and sauté until it’s soft and translucent. In this application, you don’t want the onion to turn brown.

• Add the garlic and sauté for another minute or so.

• Then add the potatoes and the asparagus and the broth, and simmer, uncovered until the asparagus and potatoes are quite tender but not mushy. This will take about 10 minutes. Now add in the spinach, arugula, and parsley, and continue to cook for a few more minutes until the greens are wilted Note: if you overcook the vegetables the soup will lose its bright color and drift into more of an army green, but you do want them soft enough to purée, so find that “sweet spot.

• Remove the pot from the heat, add the tarragon and basil, and blend the soup in a blender or with an immersion blender. If the soup is too thick, thin it with a little more stock.

• Return it to the pot and add the lemon juice and the cumin. Add salt and pepper to taste.

• Rewarm the soup—don’t let it boil—and serve with the garnishes of your choice.

  Some ideas are…

  A sprinkle of fancy salt, a few grinds of pepper or a sprinkling of Aleppo pepper, a swirl of heavy cream or sour cream, croutons, marcona almonds, toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds, snipped chives, crispy shallots, maitake mushrooms, asparagus tips, crumbled feta or ricotta salata…it’s your palette, as well as your palate.

Did you make it? Was it fabulous?