Creme Du Barry : French Cauliflower Soup

A cauliflower recipe, my kingdom for a cauliflower recipe!  A few weeks ago I had a surfeit of cauliflower, doe to getting them two weeks in a row in our veg box delivery and not quite getting round to eating them with anything.  I asked around on twitter and got quite a few suggestions for what to do with the vegetable, as all I could think to do was either cauliflower cheese or a curry, neither of which took my fancy at the time.

One of the recipes that I made was a Cauliflower cake, which was savoury and much nicer than it sounds - indeed, I mainly only made it as a challenge and due to the fact that I seem to be drawn to odd recipes.

Another suggestion, made by Jac on twitter (@clickerjac if you want to follow her) was Creme Du Barry which, contrary to my first guess, is NOT a soup made by or from a guy called Barry but instead a cream of cauliflower soup.  Anyway, Jac sent me a recipe, which I have to admit to slightly altering, just because it's cold and miserable and I felt like jazzing things up a bit to make it a bit more rich and comforting, and here it is...

You could always add some meat to the mix if you wanted - I'm thinking some crispy bacon or cubes of black pudding liberally sprinkled on top would be great too (In fact, what am I thinking, I have no idea why I didn't try that myself.  I must be slipping...)

Ingredients
500g Cauliflower
1 Large Onion
1 Potato
2 Leeks
3 Cloves Garlic
20g Butter
1l Chicken Stock
200ml White Wine
150ml Single Cream

Method.
1.  Heat the butter in your soup pan, then gently sweat the finely chopped leeks and onion for 5 minutes

2.  Add the cubed potato and garlic then cook over a moderate heat for a further 5 minutes.

3.  Add the wine and simmer until the liquid has reduced by half.

4.  Add the stock and cauliflower florets, but put a few aside for later.  Bring the soup to the boil and then simmer for 30 minutes, until the cauliflower is cooked through and soft.

5.  Take the soup off the heat, leave to cool and then blend until smooth, then return to the pan.

6.  In a frying pan, heat some more butter and then gently fry the remaining cauliflower florets until they are golden.

7.  Heat the soup up, then add the cream and season to taste.  Serve and garnish with the fried cauliflower florets.  Enjoy