Roasted Garlic Soup

I  love garlic - can't get enough of it!  Possibly because I was scared of vampires and brought up watching old Hammer Horror films.  Anyway, I was also feeling like I was coming down with a cold, and somebody told me that garlic soup was a good cure.  So here, without further ado, is the Garlic Soup recipe that I cooked up.

And it did cure the cold (possibly with the aid of paracetamol and plenty of sleep)  Oh, and the wild garlic really adds something to it, either as a garnish, or just thrown into the soup as it cooks.  Wild garlic grows all over the place from about March to June and its' leaves can be used raw in salads (and potato salad too) or as an ingredient in a lot of cooking.  It has a much more mild flavour than cloves of garlic, so shouldn't be overwhelmed by other ingredients.

Ingredients  
4 bulbs garlic
3 tbsp oil
6 tbsp butter - preferably unsalted
2 leeks
1 onion
6 tbsp plain flour
1 liter stock - chicken or vegetable
5 tablespoons sherry
225ml single cream
1 tbsp lemon juice,
2 tbsp chopped wild garlic

Method

1. First, you need to prepare the garlic cloves.  to do this, cut off the very top of each bulb. Next, put them into a shallow baking dish. Drizzle them with the olive oil, and then put into a hot oven (180ºc) until they turn golden.  This should take about 1 hour.

2. Let them  cool slightly before pressing the individual cloves between thumb and finger to release the garlic puree and give it a good mashing.

3. Next, melt the  butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic, leeks and onion.  Cook until the onion is soft. Add the flour and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Stir in the stock and sherry. Simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally then puree the soup in a blender

5. Finally put the soup to back on a low heat and add cream. Simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Add lemon juice to taste. Season with salt and white pepper. Ladle into bowls. Garnish with fresh wild garlic (or fresh chives if you can't get wild garlic).  Enjoy!