Recipe - Cauliflower Soup (Minestra Di Cavalfiore)

1 lg Head cauliflower
2 tablespoon White or cider vinegar
One fourth cup Olive oil
4 To 6 cloves garlic
One fourth teaspoon To One half tsp hot pepper flakes
3 cup Hot meat broth
Salt
1/3 cup Chopped fresh parsley
6 ounce Freshly grated pecorino
cheese

"There's probably no sense in making this soup if you don't like
cauliflower. As with so much Italian food, this recipe uses a few basic
ingredients to showcase the star vegetable. A purist would even shudder at
the cheese! Make this soup as garlicky and spicy as you like but be sure
to serve lots of crusty Italian bread or bruschetta (toasted Italian bread
brushed with olive oil). When I want a soup with a bit more texture, I
remove 1 cup of the cooked cauliflower, puree it, and return it to the
remaining soup"

Break the cauliflower florets into small (One half inch) pieces. Trim the stem
end and cut into 1/2inch pieces. Wash the cauliflower in 2 quarts of cold
water blended with 2 tablespoons of vinegar. Drain and drop into a large
pot of boiling salted water. Boil for 4 minutes; drain and dry well.

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot; add the garlic and hot pepper, and cook
gently until the garlic is golden. Add the cauliflower and cook for 5
minutes, stirring to prevent it from browning. Add the hot broth, salt and
parsley and cook until the cauliflower is tender. Ladle into soup bowls and
sprinkle with a generous amount of cheese.

Serves 6.

[ "We Called It Macaroni"; Nancy Verde Barr; Knopf; ISBN 0394557980 ]

Posted by Fred Peters.

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini