So it’s almost the end of our courgettes, my husband and daughter decided to make a soup from an internet recipe. They found this on BBC food. I have to admit to having a bit of a giggle watching them follow the recipe almost exactly. I was thinking “it’s only soup!” When I tasted it, it was delicious. Restaurant quality. I absolutely loved it and I’m not a fan of courgette. There’s the healthy ‘to serve option included in the recipe. If you look carefully at my photo, you’ll see we had ours with pizza! It worked! It’s a great way to use up courgettes..
Gingerbread (Grasmere Type)
Ingredients
- 60ml/2fl oz extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp chopped garlic
- handful basil leaves (preferably Italian), chopped (we didn’t have basil so used mixed herbs)
- sea salt and ground white pepper, to taste
- 1kg/2¼lb green courgettes, cut lengthways into quarters then into 1cm/½in slices
- 750ml/1¼ pint chicken stock
- 60ml/2fl oz single cream
- 50g/2oz freshly grated parmesan, plus extra to serve
To Serve
- crusty bread
- green salad
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
- Heat the oil in a heavy-based pan over a medium heat.
- Cook the garlic, basil, salt and courgette slowly for 10 minutes, or until the courgettes are lightly browned and softened.
- Add white pepper, to taste, then pour in the stock and simmer for 8 minutes, uncovered. Remove from the heat.
- Put the soup mixture into a food processor (we used a stick blender) and blend until smooth.
- Return the mixture to the pan and stir in the cream and parmesan.
- To serve, ladle the soup into a bowl and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Sprinkle over more parmesan, to taste. Serve with crusty bread and a green salad.
Recipe by Neil Perry
Photo by Marina Campbell