If I want a particular recipe I have read or cooked, I can often remember precisely which recipe book it is in. If I am given tips from friends, or scribble down recipes from magazines or library books, then I shovel the bits of paper together (and with a Library Masters degree I can even shovel the papers into a reasonable order). However, each time I discovered something by happy accident - when I ran out of ground almonds so used ground hazelnuts in a cake instead, or was inspired to put a fried egg on my sobrasada toast - I would forget to note this down. I never remember the ad hoc, unofficial parts to kitchen experiments, which are so often the most fun.
So, hence, a blog. Now I can type 'pasta' into the search box and there is the little homemade supper I did back in Finsbury Park: happy memories plus notes on why to keep the garlic raw!
Today I am berating myself for being so silly as to have had a favourite dish for the past few YEARS for which I still lack notes. I recently tried to convert a friend to this soup, verbally, but really need to cook it for her as I wasn't myself swayed by the description. The thought of adding yoghurt to cauliflower soup wasn't in the slightest bit appealing until I tasted it. Thanks go to Jo for serving it up: I have been making it ever since.
This is the cauliflower yogurt soup from the Moro cookbook. If you are searching for this recipe in your lunchtime at work, because the book is at home and you need to shop for ingredients on your way back, then this time around I am talking about 'Casa Moro'. Every other last result on Google will include coconut milk and be from the Moro East book. One day I'll try it, but for now I can't get past this one. Both books are treasure troves, incidentally.
This soup amazes me every time. I quite like soup, but think of it as a practical way to use up
vegetables, or eat something with vitamins in. This however, is a world apart. The corriander seeds, so lemony when ground, plus the yoghurt partake in some wondrous alchemy to convert this to straight Food Of The Gods.
A note to my future self and also to Tamsin: once you have corriander seeds, cornflour and vegetable stock in your kitchen cupboard (and oil, butter + seasoning, but I am assuming you have those...) you only need to buy fresh:
1 or 2 cauliflowers, Greek yoghurt, an egg, garlic and onion.
Soften onion and garlic in oil and butter, and bash up the seeds in a pestle and mortar to throw in too: cook these three on a low heat for about 10 minutes until it burnishes and turns gold. Hack up the cauli, chuck in the pan, and heave in 300 ml stock. Add a lid and cook for 20 mins, mashing with a potato masher when it starts disintegrating. I only have a potato ricer, so instead have to squash it with the back of the wooden spoon, then semi-blitz it with a hand blender. Not to a puree, just so it loses the bigger lumps. Add another 450 ml stock and bring to a simmer whilst you do the yoghurt bit.
Mix the egg yolk with 1 tsp cornflour or plain flour: add in 400g yoghurt. This will prevent the horror you are expecting: curdled dairy. Somehow the magic works and you will be able to combine the yoghurt mix into the soup without drama.
The recipe also suggests fresh corriander stirred in at the end with burnt butter and chilli flakes atop. I didn't miss this. I did miss the toasted almond flakes which I used to sprinkle over, but forgot about because I didn't blog it: now it is engraved here in Georgia font, I will know for next time.
I chose not to photograph the soup as it looks as you can imagine. White and soupy. However, the kitchen dissection of the cauliflower was really beautiful! Now sit back and enjoy reading the Moro books, whilst eating this beautiful soup.
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