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Vegan creamy broccoli soup and semolina dumplings

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A wonderful creamy soup with fluffy semolina dumplings.

Ingredients

Scale

Soup

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 – 1 teaspoon dried marjoram
  • 1/2 teaspoon smoked sweet paprika
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt, more to taste
  • one small cauliflower, chopped into florets
  • one large broccoli, cut into florets, stalk sliced into disks
  • 1.2 liters (5 cups | 40 fl oz) vegetable stock (or water with bouillon)
  • small bunch of parsley, finely chopped

Dumplings (not vegan)

  • 60g (5 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
  • 145g (11 tablespoons) fine semolina (cream of wheat)
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • a pinch of freshly ground black pepper
  • For serving: whipping cream (optional)

Instructions

  1. Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat, toss in onions. Cook until soft and translucent (some browning is okay). Stir in garlic and all the seasonings. Add cauliflower and broccoli, stir to coat, then pour over vegetable stock. Sprinkle with 1/2 of chopped parsley, cover pot with lid and bring to a boil. Once it starts to boil, lower heat to medium and cook covered for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender.
  2. Remove pot from heat and puree the soup with an immersion blender. (You can also puree it in a food processor, just do it in batches.) Taste the soup and season with more salt and some pepper, until you get a desired flavor. Set aside until ready to serve.
  3. As the soup cooks, prepare the dumplings: In a bowl, whisk together butter and about 1/3 of your semolina (to bring the butter to a room temperature). Beat in the eggs along with the seasonings, then stir in the rest of the semolina. Beat for about a minute, to make the batter fluffier, then cover the bowl with foil or a lid and place in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes. This allows semolina to plump up and butter to set.
  4. To cook the dumplings, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Form dumplings with two spoons, by taking a tablespoon of batter with one spoon and then sliding it off with the other, forming a little dumpling. Your batter should be thick and it should hold its form, but you don’t want it do be rock solid. Add more semolina if dumplings aren’t forming right.
  5. Drop dumplings into boiling water and cook them for about 15 minutes. As they cook, they plump up and become more pale in color. (To test if they are done, take one out first, cut it in half, it should be cooked through on the inside and not dry.)
  6. How to serve: ladle soup into bowls, add dumplings, top with a drizzle of whipping cream (optional), a sprinkle of parsley and pepper. Store leftover soup in an airtight container in the refrigerator and eat within 2 days.

Notes

If the soup is too thick for you, thin it out with water, cream or milk (plant milk works too).

I don’t normally weigh the cauliflower or broccoli when making this soup, because I prefer to use whole vegetables and adjust the seasonings around them. However, the combined weight of the two used in this recipe is about 700 grams (1 1/2 pounds). To get that rich broccoli taste, never use less broccoli than cauliflower, I always try to aim for more broccoli than cauliflower. On the other hand, the cauliflower gives the soup that bite and thickness it needs, so use at least 1 part cauliflower for 2 parts broccoli.

My favorite pot to cook this in is the 4-quart Staub cocotte. I like this one because the lid is heavy and doesn’t move during cooking. But any large pot works, as long as its volume is about 4 liters (4 quarts) or more.

Find it online: https://www.sugarsalted.com/vegan-creamy-broccoli-soup-and-semolina-dumplings/