A good warm vegetable soup is an irreplaceable dish once you have fully immersed yourself in fall. The combinations are endless, and we advise you to stock up on a few recipes as they will accompany us for a few months, until spring arrives. Vegetable creams are very nutritious, light, provide many vitamins and minerals and also – and this is essential if you don’t have time – they are very quick to prepare.
If you are part of the group of people who tolerate vegetables but are not an unconditional lover, we are going to give you some tips to get the most out of your vegetable creams and make them much more attractive and appetizing. By putting into practice a series of recommendations, it doesn’t have to be that bland, boring dish that might come to mind when you think of “typical mash.”
To start, go to the market and choose seasonal fruits and vegetables. They will always have more flavor and be fresher; In addition, they will retain more of their properties. The less time that has passed since they were collected, the better. And if they come from local producers, that’s another positive point.
In any case, this type of recipe is also an excellent way to use leftover vegetables that you have at home and that you no longer know how to get rid of. If we combine them correctly we will obtain a very rich cream also with vegetable scraps.
How to cook our vegetables
If you already have the basket ready, the next step will be to choose the combination of vegetables you most want to prepare your cream. And of course, the method you will follow in your recipe. For example, if you are using pumpkin and carrots, a very healthy and delicious way to cook them is to bake them.
You will hardly use any oil – a little extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is more than enough – and the result is delicious, because it releases all its sugars, it caramelizes and gives it a flavor with softer nuances and intense.
Sautéing our vegetables with a few drops of oil and browning them a little also gives the recipe more personality and makes it more appetizing. A tip is to use an oil can with a sprayer to use the right amount of EVOO.
Of course, using the spices and condiments that you like the most will always be a plus: cardamom, black pepper, cumin, nutmeg, turmeric or curry and ginger powder are never lacking. They can be added during cooking or later to season the dish before consuming the cream.
The timing of whipping the cream is very important. The ideal is to do it with the broth in which the vegetables were cooked and which will also contain some vitamins and minerals. Be careful and do not overcook vegetables as they may lose some of their properties.
For the cream to be perfect, you must use a sufficiently powerful blender or a food processor. And if you think there were any lumps or strings from the vegetables you used, you can also use a potato masher to remove the lumps.
Creamier, richer
The creamier the creams, the richer they are. If you are one of those who still think that the only way to give them that extra creaminess is to use half a stick of butter or culinary cream, take note of these tips, lighter, more nutritious and with greater flavor contribution:
- It may never have crossed your mind, but using rinds or already hard pieces of a type of Parmesan or Grana Padano gives exceptional flavor and texture to the vegetable cream. It may be another type of cheese, but always very mature. We are going to put it in the casserole dish with the vegetables so that it cooks with them. Before we overwrite them, we have several options. Either remove them, grind them with the vegetables, or eat them directly because with the cooking time they will have softened quite a bit.
- A less intense but creamier flavor is to use other types of cheese with milder flavors, such as cream cheese or portioned cheeses. The flavor of the cream won’t change much, but its texture will.
- We can also add Greek yogurt, which will provide greater creaminess as well as protein and healthy fats.
- If you are vegan, one way to add more creaminess to the vegetable cream is to use potatoes in addition to the cream, which always gives it a more pleasant texture, or one of the vegetable drinks that can replace Milk. , or vegan cream cheese.
Enrich the cream
To finish enriching our creams and making them even more interesting, we can add some additional ingredients such as trim. You can choose the ones you like the most.
For example, we suggest a few pieces of a cheese that you like if you have not added it before – if you like strong flavors you can use crumbs of blue cheese for example -, a little Serrano ham or dried meat in the tacos, a crumbled hard-boiled egg, some sesame or pumpkin seeds, or simply a little EVOO with the spices of your choice.
A few croutons, a few finely chopped nuts – walnuts, pistachios, cashews, as you wish – a few previously browned legumes, a little chives or fresh basil, a handful of arugula, crispy tofu or a handful of quinoa, the possibilities are endless to combine our creams and make a more complete and tasty dish.
You see that by following a series of recommendations you can get the most out of the most basic recipes cooked with a single vegetable such as the classic carrot, pumpkin, zucchini or leek creams, or more sophisticated combinations. We suggest you try one with broccoli with coconut milk and mascarpone; leek with potato and pear or pumpkin with lentils with red curry which will surely change your mind about the vegetable cream recipe book.
