All content copyright Katrina Hall 2008 through 2025

Friday, January 2, 2009

persil frise ( winter soup)





Do you ever have days when you suddenly crave greens? Hot greens in particular, which means a beautiful, thick, hot green soup. I not only feel virtuous, I feel strong and healthy - like Popeye!
When I serve this soup, I present it in my best French accent - "pairsil freesay" - which simply means curly parsley. It always has at least one cup chopped parsley, and I usually use the flat leaf kind, as it has more flavor. But the first time I made it, I only had curly parsley, so thence its name.
You can vary this by composing your own soup using:
4 cups of various greens
2 cups stock
1/2 cup diced raw potato or 1/2 cup cooked rice for the starch
Make sure the vegetables go together well by tasting them together before cooking them.
To make:
1 T. olive oil
1 T. unsalted butter (optional)
1 T. cumin
pinch hot pepper flakes (optional)
1 large clove slivered fresh garlic
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 cup leeks, white only, sliced
1 cup celery, sliced, with some leaves
1/2 cup diced potato
2+ cups arugula and parsley, chopped
1 t. dried dill or 1 T. fresh, chopped
1 t. dried or fresh oregano
Heat olive oil and butter in pot. Add the garlic, hot pepper, and cumin and briefly saute.
Add the stock, celery, leeks, and potato and turn heat to medium.
Cook until the celery and potatoes are tender.
Turn off heat and stir in the parsley, arugula and the dill.
Using an immersion blender or a regular blender, puree.
Taste carefully and adjust seasoning. Very little salt, if any, is needed.
Float toasted croutons on top, or serve with a gooey, grilled cheese sandwich.
Happy New Year to all - and don't forget to eat your greens!


6 comments:

Martha said...

I've never made parsley soup -- will have to try it!

Anonymous said...

Oh, it's lovely on a cold day, Martha! I usually make thinner "green" soups - like my chard or kale soups, but there are times when I want a thicker soup - and this one fills the bill. I swear it also helps cope with winter flu and colds - cross fingers!

Anonymous said...

Besides parsley, what other 'greens' did you put in this soup? It's a beautiful color and looks delicious!

Anonymous said...

Hi Barb - as you see in the recipe , I used arugula,parsley,really fresh celery and celery leaves, and leeks, plus dill and oregano - which I had fresh. I almost used the kale, but decided to make the kale and lentil soup tomorrow -
You probably realize by now that I'm a certified soup fanatic - and yes, it's delicious! Thanks for coming by - and hope you're keeping warm!

Anonymous said...

Oops! Sorry! I read the recipe, just didn't read it well enough to realize all the greens that you did use - and now I will be looking forward to your use of kale (which I don't believe I've ever eaten!!). I'm sure you will inspire me (and I'll read the recipe more thoroughly.)

Anonymous said...

Are you foolin' me, Barb? You've never eaten kale??? I grew up eating kale soup on Cape Cod - a wonderful, deeply satisfying soup made of a Portuguese sausage ( linguica) and kale, potatoes, and maybe some beans. It's my chicken soup - cures everything! I also have posted here before kale with fresh pea soup, kale soup, and kale with lentils and tomatoes - you can find them under the "soups" tag on theright of the blog. Kale is not only tasty, but loaded with outstanding vitamins, so I do hope you'll become friends with it soon.