This Just In

Read all about it: the de-Russification of cauliflower soup!

There is a vegetable soup that my mom used to make pretty much every day of the week after work that was followed by some kind of meat or fish dish that usually varied from day to day. The cauliflower soup, however, nearly always stayed the same and it always kind of grossed me out. It had mushy pieces of cauliflower and carrot shavings floating in a wan broth and had oily bubble slicks on the surface whose job was to collect and pool the multitudes of tooth-clogging, cough-inducing little dill shavings. My job, as it seemed to me then, was to try to get all the oily little bubbles to form one big bubble in the middle of the bowl. (I seem to remember being made to sit with it late into the evening if it was not consumed... Sorry, mom!) Anyway, can you believe, I had a bona fide nostalgia craving for the cauliflower soup yesterday? It's true. Turns out it's not as bad as I remember it. Plus, I discovered an ingredient that saved it from the murky depths of the usual dilly cauliflowery pervoe (1st course) of traditional Russian dinner. Rice wine vinegar! Strange, but true.

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Not Your Mama's Cauliflower Soup

-1 head cauliflower, cleaned and chopped into bite-sized pieces
-1 carrot, peeled and chopped into circles
-1 yellow onion, chopped
-2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
-as much dill as you can handle
-olive oil
-vegan bouillon cube, if you so desire
-wheat pasta spirals
-rice wine vinegar
-fresh basil leaves
-chopped black pepper

1. Saute onions in olive oil until translucent. Add garlic and carrots. Stir around to get everything coated.
2. (Optional: roast cauliflower before adding.) Add cauliflower, dill, pepper. Stir and cook covered so the vegetables sweat a bit.
3. Meanwhile, boil some water and dissolve the bouillon cube in a bit of it. When the veg is nearly ready - still crunchy - add the water and cube and bring to boil.
4. Once everything is boiling, drop in some handfuls of pasta spirals and cook just until al dente. Turn off heat and sprinkle with some rice wine vinegar.
5. Serve garnished with fresh chopped basil.

I wonder how adding the vinegar at the sweating vegetable stage would change things? I like how adding it at the end gives it a vinegary kick. Maybe cooking it in earlier would mellow it out and make it a more "mature" melding of flavors? Based on the previous anecdote, though, I probably prefer my soup in its juvenile state.