Mediterranean Savor: Cream of green bean soup garnished with red cabbage.

The styles I use to prepare a cream soup with vegetables:

1- Place all the ingredients in the saucepan, previously washed and chopped, fill with water (or vegetable stock) and cook.

2- Cover the bottom of the saucepan with extra virgin olive oil to sauté, one by one, the ingredients (previously washed and chopped), beginning by the onion if it is part of them.

Both styles give delicious cream soups, but with different savors.

3- To give a touch of spicy savor, add a dried chili pepper (or more, depending on taste) at the moment of boiling the ingredients. In addition to the nutritional benefits, it is a way to reduce the amount of salt that is added to the food. The use of spices to season food is very widespread in Ayurvedic cuisine.

In one or another style:

• When the ingredients are tender, remove a little of cooking liquid and reserve to be able to calculate the degree of creaminess you want to give to the cream soup or use as vegetable stock for other dishes. With the electric mixer we create the cream.                  

• At serving time, I like garnishing the cream soups with vegetables, shredded or diced, sautéed on the grill with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil: Cream soups with colorful “garnishes”.

For this recipe I use the red cabbage as a garnish of the cream soup and as it gets dark a lot when sautéing it, a way to brighten is to add a few drops of balsamic vinegar of Modena (or other vinegar, to taste): 

- “Furthermore, it goes very well”, as my grandmother said.

Ingredients: (serves 4 / in a 3-liter saucepan):

200 g  green beans  (chopped),
200 g  red cabbage  (cut in small strips),
500 g potatoes,
1 turnip,
1 onion,
1 dried  chili pepper ,
 extra virgin olive oil ,
 Balsamic vinegar of Modena IGP  (or another kind of vinegar),
and sea salt (as needed).

>> see more cream soup recipes