Vanessa’s Lake: Soup of Asparagus, Artichoke and Leek
A long time ago, so long ago I can’t hardly remember, I read a recipe for a soup called Veronica’s Lake. The chef was…wait for it… Veronica Lake. Look, I don’t even know who she is. But she’s famous. And she made a vegetable soup that looked like a lake.
Since I can’t remember what was in Veronica’s Lake, I get to make different soup, pick the ingredients, and name the soup… wait for it… “Vanessa’s Lake.” I wanted this soup to be a nice, misty green… like fog kissing a forest pond at sunrise.
I was simultaneously intrigued by the Amateur Gourmet’s call-to-arms for photos of blue foods. If I was making a lake, why not make it a blue lake? But blueberries didn’t belong in a root-and-shoot soup. Blue potatoes seemed too purple. Blue corn chips… too easy.
Then I recalled a bit of food lore I read a few months ago in the New York Times - that garlic turns blue under certain conditions. I dug the article up again (here from a different site,) followed the instructions, and holy blue cow! Garlic does turn blue:
I figured I could top Vanessa’s Lake with some blue garlic oil and, like an Indian tarka, it would add the last wallop of flavor.
However, the Amateur Gourmet is onto someting… the moldy blue color looked downright gross on my lovely spring-moss soup. I mean, doesn’t it look frighteningly like Smurf-Berry Crunch? It’s practically the color of chewed cardboard. Not that I’ve ever chewed cardboard, though I had a gerbil once that was quite fond of it.
My advice is to make Vanessa’s Lake, savor the rich winter-to-spring soup and forget about eating blue.
Time: 1 hour
Serves: 4 - 6
Vanessa’s Lake
3 medium leeks, sliced
olive oil
4 1/2 cups water or broth
1 bunch asparagus, cut into half inch chunks
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 1/2 tsp Herbes de Provence or a combo of rosemary, thyme and basil
2 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 can white beans, drained and rinsed
1 can artichokes in water, drained and rinsed
salt and white pepper to taste
basil chiffonade or blue garlic to top
Add a long pour of olive oil to a big soup pot. Toss in the sliced leeks and cook until wilted, about 12 minutes.
Then add the broth, asparagus, herbs and vinegar. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
Take off the heat. Add the beans and artichokes and blend in batches in a blender, food processor, or using an immersion blender, taking care not to splatter the hot soup on your pants because it will scald you right through your jeans. Ahem.
Return the puree to low heat, adjusting the seasonings with salt and white pepper.
Ladle into bowls. Top with a chiffonade of basil or blue garlic paste. You can make blue garlic paste by blending (in a blender or similar) a few old cloves of garlic with an equal amount of minced onion. Stir in a small saucepan over low heat. Keep stirring, be patient, and your garlic will start turning greenish-grey then greenish-bluish grey. Viola! A perfectly edible, perfectly revolting topping.
February 21st, 2007 09:53
I never knew that garlic can turn blue. Thanks for that piece of info!
I guess I’m just old enough (or enough of an old film buff) to know Veronica Lake (referred to by Raymond Chandler as “Moronica Lake”). Her signature look was her hair that fell over one eye. Personally, I wouldn’t trust any soup she cooked not to have a hair in it! You’re sounds much better, even with the smurf topping.
February 21st, 2007 13:58
The soup sans blue stuff = delicious.
The soup with blue stuff = frightening, but a very amusing (and odor-ific) food experiment to have taken place in our kitchen.
As far as the soup, i thought it was like mom’s good ol’ heartwarming potato soup, but better. (Sorry mom!) Can’t go wrong with artichokes and aspargus. We ate it with a warm bread that we put a yummy bruschetta-like topping on. Would have been extra delicious with a hearty Belgium beer.
February 21st, 2007 18:58
Hi there - I’ve included this recipe in this week’s Semi-Weekly Gluten-Free Roundup at my blog, Gluten-Free By The Bay. Keep up the great work!
February 21st, 2007 19:47
The soup recipe looks beautiful, but with the blue clouds of mould, it’s so very, very, very wrong. It looks like the sort of thing you’d have on halloween.
Although I’m yet to meet anything made with garlic that I don’t like.
Good commitment to the cause Vanessa!
February 22nd, 2007 18:39
This sounds delicious! Beautiful photos too. And I think you’re right about using the basil chiffonade instead of the blue garlic. Although perhaps sautéing a little garlic with the leeks might add a nice touch.
As another option to the blue garlic, you could also reserve the asparagus tips, cooking them for just two or three minutes separately, then topping the bowls of soup with them. A nice bit of color and crunch to complement the velvety texture of the soup.
February 23rd, 2007 17:26
Susan- yeah, I googled Ms. Lake and in all her pics her hair is covering practically a full eye. Not sure if this is sultry or just plain dangerous.
Sis- I think you’re right. about both mom and the beer.
Gluten-Free- thank you! I love being in such good company.
Kathryn- the strange thing is that as awful as the garlic looked it still smelled and tasted just like garlic…wrong, but oh so right.
Terry- thank you for the asparagus-tip tip. I think in the spring when aspargus is at it’s freshest best I might try this again… less potatoes, more aparagus. That would really look beautiful…gosh, can’t wait till spring.
February 24th, 2007 01:03
wow, the soups sounds delicious.. even with the blue stuff topping it… in fact, I see why that would be an important part of the final dish!
February 24th, 2007 12:44
The lengths one will go to to participate in an online food roundup!
Why didn’t you just change the setting on your camera to “dusk/dawn” and take the photo? I used to get blue-ish photos of cows all the time cause I was using the dusk setting, being as it was evening when I was taking the pictures!
March 3rd, 2007 11:59
Brilliant! And congrats on winning the contest!
March 4th, 2007 18:08
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but… I won hizah! I’m going to… The Blue Man Group. yip yip yippee!
September 25th, 2007 21:29
I made this soup for the first time today and it turned out spectacularly! I’ve never cooked with leeks, and I’ve never made a soup that involved a blender - so I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t care for the taste or that it would be too ’soupy’ and not filling.
But, no worries. The taste was excellent (needed extra spices, probably because I used water instead of broth) and it’s a nice thick soup that is very filling.
My soup turned out much more green than the pictures, though. Very very green. Like I added a few frogs to the blender green. I’m not sure why that is, but nontheless it was delicious.
Thanks for the great recipe