Creamy Sunchoke Soup with Watercress
Sunchokes have a wonderful nutty taste that is sure to delight. This soup goes well with a wide variety of vegetables, grains, and other dishes.
Sunchokes have a wonderful nutty taste that is sure to delight. This soup goes well with a wide variety of vegetables, grains, and other dishes.
- Carbohydrate 16.4175556176018 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 1.15660674593499 g
- Fiber 1.57174762503674 g
- Protein 3.57600293550811 g
- Saturated Fat 0.150791432452282 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (471g)
- Sodium 792.190837877865 mg
- Sugar 14.8458079925651 g
- Trans Fat 0.150578690447164 g
- Calories 86 calories
Step-by-step
- Put 1/4 cup of the broth and the leeks, onion, celery, shallots, and garlic in a large pot and over medium heat.
- Cook, stirring ocasionally, for about 5 minutes. Do not brown the vegetables.
- Stir in the sunchokes and the remaining 1 3/4 cups of broth.
- Increase the heat to medium-high and bring to a simmer.
- Stir in the soymilk and return to a simmer.
- Cook for 20 minutes, using a ladle to skim off any foam that forms at the surface.
- Discard the foam.
- Transfer the soup to a blender and process on high speed until smooth.
- You may need to process the soup in batches depending on the size of your blender.
- Serve immediately, topped with the croutons and watercress.
Silky sunchoke purée coats the palate with distinct notes of roasted chestnut and globe artichoke, while raw watercress cuts through the richness with a sharp, peppery bite. Building this base requires sweating the aromatics in a small amount of liquid rather than oil, a technique that extracts natural sugars without introducing Maillard browning that would muddy the pale ivory color. Simmering the tubers for exactly twenty minutes gelatinizes their inulin starches just enough to thicken the liquid naturally when processed at high speed in a countertop blender. If sunchoke tubers are unavailable, jicama serves as a direct one-to-one replacement, though it lacks the earthy, nutty complexity of the original ingredient and requires a pinch of nutritional yeast or white miso to replicate the missing depth. Skimming surface foam during the simmer eliminates bitter compounds that concentrate at the liquid boundary. Working in small batches prevents thermal expansion accidents inside the blender vessel when handling liquids above 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Pouring the hot purée immediately over chilled greens activates volatile oils in the foliage, releasing herbal aromas right at the table.
