A good warm vegetable soup is an irreplaceable dish once we have fully immersed ourselves in autumn. The combinations are endless, and we advise you to stock up on a few recipes because they will accompany us for a few months, until spring appears. 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 in the group of people who tolerate vegetables but are not an unconditional lover, we are going to give you a few tricks to get the most out of your vegetable creams and make them seem much more attractive and appetizing. By putting into practice a series of recommendations, it does not have to be that bland and boring dish that perhaps comes to mind when you think of the ‘typical puree’.
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 maintain their properties to a greater extent. The less time that has passed since they were collected, the better. And if they are from local producers, it is another positive point.
In any case, these types of recipes are also a great way to use leftover vegetables that we have at home and that we no longer know how to dispose of. If we combine them in the correct way, we will get a very rich cream also with vegetable scraps.
How to cook our vegetables
If you already have the shopping basket ready, the next step will be to choose the combination of vegetables that you most want to prepare your cream. And of course, the method you are going to follow in your recipe. For example, if you are going to use pumpkin and carrots, a very healthy and delicious way to cook them is in the oven.
You will use practically no oil – a splash of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is more than enough – and the result is delicious, as it releases all its sugars, it caramelizes and gives it a flavor with sweeter and more intense nuances.
Sautéing our vegetables with a few drops of oil and browning them a little also gives more personality to the recipe and makes it more appetizing. One 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 never fail. They can be added during cooking or later to season the dish before consuming the cream.
The moment of whipping the cream is very important. The ideal is to do it with the broth in which the vegetables have been cooked and which will also contain some vitamins and minerals. Be careful and do not overcook the vegetables because they may lose some of their properties.
For the cream to be just right, you must use a mixer with sufficient power or a food processor. And if you think there may have been lumps or filaments from the vegetables you used, you can also use a potato masher to eliminate any 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 cooking cream, take note of these tips, lighter, more nutritious and with a greater contribution of flavor:
- Perhaps it has never crossed your mind but using rinds or already hard pieces of some type of Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese provides an exceptional flavor and texture to the vegetable cream. It can be another type of cheese, but always very cured. We are going to put it in the casserole along with the vegetables so that it cooks with them. Before crushing them, we have several options. Either we remove them, we grind them together with the vegetables or we eat them directly because with the cooking time they will have softened quite a bit.
- Less intense but creamier in flavor is to use other types of cheeses with milder flavors such as cream cheese or portioned cheeses. The flavor of the cream will not change much, but its texture will change.
- We can also add Greek yogurt, which will provide greater creaminess as well as proteins and healthy fats.
- If you are vegan, one way to add more creaminess to the vegetable cream is to use potatoes as a complement to the cream, which always gives it a more pleasant texture, or one of the vegetable drinks that can be used as a substitute for milk, or vegan cream cheese.
Enrich the cream
To finish enriching our creams and making them even more interesting, we can add some more ingredients such as topping. 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 previously – if you like strong flavors, you can use some crumbs of blue cheese, for example -, a little serrano ham or jerky in tacos, hard-boiled egg crumbled, some sesame seeds or pumpkin seeds, or simply a splash of EVOO with any spices you fancy.
Some croutons, some finely chopped nuts – walnuts, pistachios, cashews, whatever you fancy – some previously browned legumes, a little bit of fresh chives or basil, a handful of arugula, crispy tofu or a handful of quinoa, there are endless of possibilities to combine our creams and make them 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 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 red curried lentils that will surely change your idea about the recipe book of vegetable creams.
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