Celery Soup with Sour Cream & Poached Egg
I always remember as a child, being told that celery was fantastic and being encouraged to eat lots of it because "you burn more calories eating it than there is in it". And yes, I did try hard to eat lots of it because of what I was told. Lets face it though, it just tastes so plain and boring on its own. I would sprinkle some salt on it, serve it up in salads or dip it in some dips , but it doesnt really make it interesting to eat...
Thats when I discovered celery soup. I can safely say that celery soup is my favourite because the subtle, sometimes monotonous flavour of celery can be brought to life with a whole new depth of flavour that you just cant imagine from it when you put it in a salad or sprinkle salt on it!
I have been on a quest since I was 15 to make a perfect celery soup, but somehow it has taken me until now to find something that has gotten close to the perfection I craved. I am 23 years old now, so it has been a long time, but I was inspired by watching Tom Kerridge on his "Food & Drink" programme shown on the BBC to try one or 2 different tweaks to what I had done previously.
The major change that his recipe inspired to me to try was to serve the soup with a poached egg, and this works really well as it provides a contrasting texture to the soup, and the runny yolk adds a slightly luxurious nature to the soup that I hadnt experienced previously. Also, there are the obvious nutritional benefits to including egg into the recipe, such as the protein boost you get from eating eggs.
However, the poached egg also inspired me to sprinkle the smallest hint of Cajun Spice onto the soup as I served up my lunch with it yesterday, and it just seemed to bring together all of the flavours already in the soup which were complimented by a slight kick provided by the Cajun Spice!
One last thing I have done is to not include double cream in the recipe. Firstly, this is really high in calories, and with celery being so good for you, I felt that there should be a lighter alternative to use instead. However, I also felt that double cream always seemed to detract away from the other flavours in the soup, so it never seemed to do justice to the celery in the recipe. Therefore, I placed small blobs of reduced fat Sour Cream & Chive dip into the soup whilst serving instead. This gave the soup an added freshness and gave the soup a cleaner, more vibrant flavour than double cream ever did in my honest opinion.
After making this soup yesterday, I remembered what I used to be told and thinking that celery was boring as a result. BUT, if prepared in the correct way, it can turn one food that is becoming increasingly old fashioned and make it into one amazing ingredient and make food very special indeed!
