NCR Spring onion soup

Life is busy with painting a doll's house, a Homeland DVD and a local singing circle.  Yesterday I baked bread and brie.  Those will be shared another time.  Today I will tell you about what to do when you send your partner to buy a few spring onions and he returns with 2 bunches.  E hadn't been sure how many I needed.  He didn't realise I can take weeks to use up a whole bunch.   and erred on the generous side.  Fortunately Kirsty's dad had already found that Ottolenghi has a solution for too many spring onions.

I made changes.  After all I have never heard of kashk.  At least Ottolenghi offered creme fraiche and parmesan as an alternative.  I went with what I had.  Despite my complaints about the spring onions overload, I had less than Ottolengthi's 700g.  And I thought my parsley would be enough but apparently 80g parsley is quite a bit.  I only had 60g.  It is good to know that the recipe is forgiving.

Making the soup was more fiddly than my usual chuck-everything-in-a-saucepan soups.  I was probably tired as I cursed Ottolenghi for making me chop so many spring onions that I had tears in my eyes and no room for all the little pieces.  When it came to removing some soup and blending some, I spent my remaining energy finding my blender, which had been put away in a cupboard that is hard to reach.  It just went into all the soup and roughly blended it.

By the time I served the soup, we were both agreeing that the soup better be good after waiting so long to eat.  We also agreed it was excellent.  E thought it like French peasant food and would have benefited from a chunk of rustic bread.  I had made Mexican rice to serve with it.  We were polite for a while and ate the soup and rice from separate bowls.  Then we started to mix bowls and it was very good, if perhaps not what Ottolenghi had intended.  E was very pleased with his mistake in buying too many spring onions.

As E had been buying the spring onions for our New Year's Eve haggis nachos, I am sending this soup to Lisa for the January No Croutons Required, the vegetarian soup and salad event she coordinates with Jacqueline.  The theme this month is leftovers.

Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
One year ago: Child-Friendly Almanac - recipes, eating out, playgrounds
Two years ago:  Sylvia's dinner - hit and miss
Three years ago: New Year's Raspberry Punch
Four years ago: Miso Soup for after the feasting!
Five years ago: WHB Vegetable Stories and Potato Salad Glory

Spring onion soup
Adapted from Ottolenghi
serves 4

550g spring onion, chopped in about 2 or 3 cm chunks
1 generous tsp butter
1 slurp olive oil, plus extra to finish1
1 whole medium garlic heads, cloves peeled and roughly chopped
3 bay leaves (from our garden)
300g frozen peas
1 medium zucchini (courgette), diced
1 litre vegetable stock
3/4 tsp french lavender salt (or regular salt)
1/4 to 1/2 tsp black pepper
60g parsley leaves, roughly chopped
1 dessertspoon of greek yoghurt
40g parmesan cheese, finely grated
20g mint leaves, thinly chopped (I used scissors)
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon

Fry spring onions over low to medium heat in butter and oil for 15 minutes.  While frying, chop up garlic and add.  Add bayleaves, peas and zucchini and fry for another 5 minutes.  (I didn't hear the timer and fried them for longer.)  Add stock and seasoning.  Bring to the boil.  Turn off the heat and add parsley.  Roughly blend with a hand held blender leaving some texture rather than trying to make it really smooth.  Stir in yoghurt and parsmesan.  Check seasoning and adjust if necessary.  Ladle into bowls and garnish with mint and lemon zest.  Keeps well overnight in the fridge.

On the stereo:
Original album series box set: The Incredible String Band