Cream of Asparagus Soup

The key to a good soup is to keep it simple and to use the freshest ingredients you can. Overly complicated soups become kind of muddled and you can’t really appreciate the individual flavors of each ingredient.

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Ingredients:

• 3 lbs asparagus

• 1 medium yellow onion, diced

• 3 cloves garlic, minced

• 6 oz baby spinach

• 1 pint heavy cream

• ¼ lb butter

• 2 TBSP lemon juice

• 1 tsp cayenne pepper

• Vegetable stock

Instructions:

1. Remove the woody ends of the ends of the asparagus and cut the remaining stalks into 2 inch pieces. Save a few of the tips for garnishing the soup later.

2. In a large soup pot, on low-medium heat, add olive oil and sweat out onions and garlic. Make sure to move constantly as you don’t want to get any color on the onions.

3. Once the onions are translucent, add the asparagus and spinach and add enough vegetable stock to barely cover everything.

4. Simmer until the asparagus is very tender.

5. Strain out the stock and add solid ingredients into a blender with cayenne pepper, lemon juice, melted butter, and the cream.

6. Blend until smooth and stain through a fine mesh strainer

7. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add lemon juice if it still needs more acidity

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Serving and Plating Suggestions

Ingredients:

• Sourdough croutons

• Diced pancetta

• Shaved Pecorino Romano cheese

• Piment d’Espelette

• Fresh basil

Instructions:

1. On low heat, render out the pancetta until the diced pieces are nice and crispy

2. Pull the pieces of pancetta out of the pan leaving the rendered fat out in the pan

3. Saute the asparagus tips you saved from earlier in the pancetta fat

4. Pour soup into bowl, and line the croutons along the side, sprinkling them with a little of the piment d’Espellete

5. Add asparagus tips, diced pancetta, basil, and shaved Pecorino cheese

6. Enjoy!