Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Is there anyone on earth who hasn’t yet discovered the joys of oven-roasted vegetables?

I’m not talking about the potatoes, carrots and onions mom used to throw in to roast with a chicken or a hunk of beef (although those are certainly lovely in their way). I’m talking about treating vegetables – almost any vegetables – to a gloss of olive oil and the merest sprinkling of salt, then running them through a hot, fast oven until their natural plant sugars start to caramelize, adding a toasty sweetness to the pure, clean vegetable flavor.

Steaming used to be my default method of cooking vegetables. But since I discovered the joys of roasting them, my trusty steamer basket has been relegated to the top cupboard, the one I can’t reach without a step-ladder, where things like the waffle iron and bundt pan live.

There’s hardly a vegetable that doesn’t take well to roasting. The leafy ones, I guess – they’d pretty much just dessicate. But anything else, from root vegetables to asparagus to crucifers to eggplants, peppers and tomatoes, is wonderful roasted. OK, peas are a little fiddly unless they’re the edible-pod variety, but otherwise …

The basic method is a snap:

• Cut or break the vegetables into roughly equal-sized pieces. I usually go for “bite-sized,” except for asparagus, which I roast whole.
• Toss with just enough extra-virgin olive oil to give the vegetables a slight sheen. Less is more – the goal is to enhance the roasting process and keep the vegetables from drying out, not to render them oily. For change of pace and a bit of a tang, add a splash of balsamic vinegar, lemon juice or lime juice to the oil.
• Spread the pieces on a baking sheet in a single layer. Try not to let them touch.
• Sprinkle with a little coarse salt.
• Roast in a 350-degree oven for … as long as it takes. That’s highly dependant on the vegetable. Dense tubers (beets, potatoes, carrots) can require 20-30-minutes in the oven. Thin asparagus needs barely five minutes. Roast enough vegetables and you’ll get a feel for the timing. Meanwhile, keep an eye on things – the bottoms will brown faster than the tops, and you might want to turn the chunks over midway through the process.

That’s it: A side dish fit for a five-star restaurant, or even a main dish if you’re craving veggies.

But you can also use those roasted vegetables as an ingredient, with surprising and wonderful results.

This past weekend I picked up an adorable little cauliflower at the farmers’ market. I thought I might just snack on it raw, but our hot spell left me without much appetite all weekend. Now it’s cooling off again, and I felt like playing in the kitchen. A little of this, a little of that, and I came up with:

Roasted Cauliflower Soup with White Truffle OIl

Ingredients

• 1 small cauliflower, broken up to make about a cup of smallish florets. Chop the stem pieces to about the same size.
• 1 large shallot, peeled and cut into chunks about the same size as the cauliflower
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• coarse sea salt (optional)
• 2 cups low-salt chicken stock (feel free to use flavorful vegetable stock if you’re a vegetarian)
• White truffle oil (I get mine from Trader Joe’s when I visit my sweetie in Seattle, but I’ve seen it on the shelves in the local Safeway store).

Method:

Toss cauliflower, shallots and garlic in a mixture of olive oil and vinegar until well coated. Use a slotted spoon to transfer onto a baking sheet, sprinkle very lightly with salt (or not) and roast as above for about 20 minutes, turning the vegetables halfway through the cooking.

In a saucepan, heat the stock until boiling and add the roasted vegetables, reserving a few small florets for garnish if you like. Reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are very tender, 10-15 minutes.

Remove from heat. Using a wand blender or food processor, puree until the vegetables are one with the liquid. Don’t expect a creamy white soup; it will be the color of good brown bread from the caramelization. Taste and correct the seasoning if necessary.

Ladle into bowls and drizzle a few drops of white truffle oil on top. Float a floret on the soup. Eat with good bread. Purr.

(You can skip the truffle oil if you don’t have any, but try it sometime. Its flavor is a wonderful compliment to roasted vegetables, enhancing the toastiness.

Serves two, though it would be easy to increase the recipe to use a larger cauliflower.

“… and friends, they may think it’s a movement!”*

There’s nothing new about farmers’ markets; ours in Albany, for instance, is in its 29th year, making it the oldest continuously operating farmers’ market in Oregon. And farm stands have been around just about as long as there have been farmers with extra produce and roads going past them.

But the eat-local movement seems to have reached some sort of critical mass here in the mid-Valley this spring. I’ve already mentioned the Eat Local Challenge (and will be mentioning it again), but suddenly local food events are springing up everywhere I look.

Last Friday was a “Farms Feed Everyone” benefit dinner at the First United Methodist Church in Corvallis; this Thursday, students from the Oregon State University Restaurant/Food Service Management program will take over the on-campus Pangea Restaurant for a “Taste of the Valley” feed featuring fresh local ingredients from salmon to strawberries.

And on Sunday, June 1, the new Slow Food Corvallis group is hosting “Local Bounty: a Farmer-Chef Celebration,” featuring some of Corvallis’ top restaurants preparing a tasting menu of dishes made with local ingredients. (Tickets are $15 and reservations are required; contact slowfoodcorvallis@comcast.net for details).

While these folks take different approaches, all share the same goal: Reaquainting people with the variety of good food originating – sometimes literally – in their own back yards.

This rocks me down to my (hand-knit) socks. When I started writing this blog last year, it was partly because I kept running into people who said things like “We have a farmers’ market? I had no idea!”

Now I’m seeing more people at the Albany market every weekend, overhearing conversations that start “I’ve never been to the market before” and watching farm stands spring – or expand – along unexpected byways. I especially love that restaurants are getting in the act. I even had a great conversation this past weekend with the manager of a local brewpub the other night about his efforts to find local sources for everything from the dishes on his menu to the components of his beer.

At this rate, I won’t run out of subject matter any time soon. (-:

*Alice’s Restaurant probably served local food, too.