Goodbye and hello: cauliflower soup

On Friday, I got an email from one of the food magazines that I read. It was an extremely well written little piece, about how here , in the tristate area, we are now in the most interesting time of year for cooks. For a few, short weeks, we'll have access to all of that wonderful summer produce, like peaches, nectarines, plums, tomatoes, baby zucchini and eggplant, as well as the produce of autumn, like pears, apples, grapes, leeks, celery root, and so on. And it's true. The market is a flood of riches right now: do we cook summer style, or do we cook autumn style? Do we mix them both in a meal? If we do, how?

Last week, I found myself buying strawberries, and red cabbage. Raspberries, and leeks. Pears, and tomatoes. It's wonderfully maddening.

But with all of this going on, I find myself drawn to cooking from what we associate with autumn, rather than summer. At least for now.

For years, I was not a fan of cauliflower. I don't know why. It wasn't as if I had had a bad experience with badly cooked stuff, or anything like that, but I just had a period of about two or three years when I could not get it past my nose. I don't remember how or when it changed, but I do like it now. It will never replace tomatoes, or green beans as my favorite vegetable, but I l ove cooking with it. Especially in soup. And that's what we're about today.

Some years ago, there was some kind of breakthrough, if you want to call it that, in cauliflower genetics. We all grew up with those huge heads of white cauliflower, that blackened as they got older and uncooked. Then, one day, almost overnight, it seems, we had purple cauliflower, and yellow cauliflower.

Anyone who worked with these varieites when they first came available will recall the issues with the yellow cauliflower. See, it "bled" a little. Not enough to turn white, but enough to turn the color of , well, piss. Now there are readers out there who will say "what's wrong with that?" and t hat's fine. But for those of us who had visions of buttery looking purees, or golden soups, the stuff just wasn't going to work. I am pleased to say that this problem seems to have been solved, and the golden color of this early cauliflower now holds.

I say "early" because if you look for this golden cauliflower late in the autumn, you won't find it. The colorful varieites don't hang around long, so get them now.

And when you buy them, go for small. For many people, cauliflower, and the other members of the cabbage vegetable family, are problematic. They smell. They have strong flavors. Stick to smaller heads, and buy two rather than one. You'll be better off.

This is my favorite way of cooking the stuff, in a nice, simple soup. You'll need two small onions, diced, some vegetable oil (no olive oil here. You don't want to mask the taste of the vegetable), some salt, a quart of chicken or vegetable stock, and about ten cups of cauliflower florets. That's easily obtained. You can get ten cups from two medium heads or three small ones. Just cut away the leaves, and break the little "flowers" off of the stem (you did know that the word for cauliflower in Italian is "flowering cabbage," didn't you? Well, you do now. And if you look at the little stalks, you'll see why).

You don't want any spices or herbs in my version. What you do is you cook those diced onions, in about three tablespoons of oil, with a teaspoon of salt, until they just begin to get translucent. When that happens, add the stock and then your cauliflower.

Now, take a look at where the liquid level is with the vegetables. One of the ways to diffuse the strong flavor of these cabbage family vegetables is to use enough liquid. If you don't have the vegetable covered by about an inch of liquid, either add more stock, or some water. Bring the stuff to a simmer, and then cover the pot, but leave it just slightly ajar. Let it cook for about fifteen or twenty minutes. You'll know when it's done, by taking a small knife, and seeing if it penetrates the stem of the florets easily. If it doesn't, let it cook a few more minutes and test again.

Let this cool, because you're going to puree it. When it's at room temperature, ladle it into a blender, and whirl it unitl it's nice and smooth. This will take about 90 seconds for every three cups. Do it in batches and then combine them.

When you're done, taste and adjust the seasonings. I find this soup just fine as it is: nice and thick, bright yellow and delicious. If it's too strong for you, you can add some milk or cream, but be gentle with how much you add. Too much dairy will obscure the flavor of the cauliflower, and if you do that, you may as well make a different soup.

What I've given you here will make about 2 and a half quarts of soup. Too much for you? Well, I've been telling you all along, share it with friends.

From the ingredients, you'll also gather that this is a fairly light soup. So, you can feel good about serving it with the recipe that will follow, the incredibly rich, and incredibly delicious, bacon and leek tart.