Sunday, August 3, 2014

Mary’s Cream of Asparagus Soup – August 3, 2014

Hello, everybody.  Welcome to Cépage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s blog about wine, food, culture, and people.   Here’s a post in a series of occasional articles about simple French-inspired dishes and delicious wine pairings.  Today’s post is cream of asparagus soup, what the French call velouté d'asperges because it’s so velvety.  
Asparagus comes into season where we live in Michigan in late spring and continues through the summer, so it is fresh and abundant.  It was in season while we were in France recently, so it was a common first course dish.  Mary’s going to be the primary author of today’s post to talk through the ingredients and preparation.  I’ll be back with the wine at the end. 

On our last couple of trips to France, Brian has raved about fresh asparagus soup.  Brian is a soup guy, while I usually order salad. This year, I decided I would try asparagus soup if it presented itself.  
It was the special seasonal entrée (first course) the night we went to the Auberge Saint Martin in Bouilland, a small village near Beaune.  
We both ordered it and it was fabulous, so delicious and pretty!  When we returned home, I made an attempt at it as a first course.  It turned out to be delicious, probably not quite as wonderful as in Bouilland, but pretty good for my first try.
First, we made a trip to our weekly farmer’s market here in Plymouth to find the best and freshest ingredients possible.
The ingredients are fresh asparagus, chopped white onion, chicken stock (I make my own … maybe a post on that later), butter, whole wheat flour, salt and pepper, whole milk, crème fraiche, and fresh-squeezed lemon juice.  You can use sour cream instead of crème fraiche, but Brian makes his own crème fraiche from scratch and it is so, so much better than store bought sour cream.



I started by chopping the asparagus in lengths of about an inch or so, both tips and stalk.

The asparagus, onion, and some of the chicken stock went into a saucepan and simmered until the asparagus is nice and tender.
Brian was perched on a kitchen barstool while I cooked and snapped a couple of photos of the kitchen counter.  Here’s where we throw wine bottle corks until we figure out how to recycle them.  We’re still working on that.  Brian’s brother, Phil, made a cork trivet for us, but we have way too many corks to do much of that.  I wish we could recycle them somehow.
This picture of the glass of white wine?  That is often the most important ingredient … cooking wine (wine for the cook!).




The cooked asparagus, onion, and chicken stock go into the blender to puree.
I use the same saucepan to melt butter and stir in the flour and seasonings.



After that is blended well, I whisk in more chicken stock.
When the mixture starts to boil, I stir in the pureed asparagus and milk.

I put the crème fraiche in a small bowl by itself, or just a one cup measuring cup like this, and ladled in a little of the hot soup to get the crème fraiche to a pouring consistency.

The cream mixture is added back to the soup along with the lemon juice to freshen it up and add a little acidity.  At this point, it’s just stirred and allowed to come up to serving temperature.
Garnish with a couple of steamed asparagus tips and a little crème fraiche and get ready to enjoy.  Wait!  Brian has to talk about the wine first!  I don’t know how he chose this particular wine to serve with cream of asparagus soup, but it is a match made in heaven!
Brian here.  I chose this wine because it is light-bodied, very fresh tasting to go with the flavors and textures of summertime cooking with fresh ingredients, and has refreshing citrus and mineral qualities. 

Muscadet Sévre et Maine is an appellation in the Loire Valley of France, in the western part almost to the Atlantic Ocean.  The grape is Melon de Bourgogne and the producer is Domaine Bonnet-Huteau.  The “sur lie” that you see on the label means the wine was aged on the dead yeast cells before bottling, which gives it a fuller, creamier quality.  Drinking this wine makes you almost feel the sea spray.  It has a clean, almost saline quality to go along with a lemony citrus aroma and flavor.  At only 12.0% alcohol, it won’t leave you feeling dragged down or lethargic after sharing a bottle with someone you love.  And the best part?  It’s only $13.


A few fresh berries and a dollop of crème fraiche would not be a mistake.
There’s Sonoma in the background, supervising the production and hoping for a little leftover crème fraiche.

That’s our post for today.  We hope you found it interesting and appetizing.  We’re already planning our next blog post, so keep checking back for more wine, food, and cultural adventures at Cépage et Cuisine.  In the meantime,

Cheers!

Mary♥Brian