Broccoli and Blue Cheese Soup

This simple soup was inspired by a short holiday we took a few weeks ago in the West Country, a part of England neither of us were familiar with. One highlight was driving across North Somerset, down through Exmoor and then arriving at the lovely village of Dulverton, where we happened upon a little café called The Copper Kettle. It was the middle of the afternoon and by this time we were tired and hungry. Unfortunately we’d just missed lunch at this café, but the staff very kindly rustled us up a bowl of soup each, served with some delicious bread. We would normally avoid soup when we eat out as we’ve had a few disappointments, but the soup served to us here was truly a revelation! This recipe is my own version of the Broccoli and Blue Cheese Soup we ate that day.

Ingredients:

Serves 4

1 large head of broccoli (mine weighed 600g), roughly chopped (including the stalks!)

2 medium onions, peeled and chopped

2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped

40g of butter

2 stock cubes, either vegetable or chicken, mixed with 1.5 litres of boiling water

500mls of milk

100g of blue cheese (I used Bleu D’Auvergne, a mild and creamy French blue cheese)

salt and pepper

optional:

fresh herbs for garnish – I used parsley, chives and French tarragon

a drizzle of cream for decoration

Method:

melt the butter in a large saucepan
add all of the chopped vegetables and stir them well so that they are all coated in the butter
sauté the vegetables for about 5 minutes, until they are just starting to soften
add all of the stock to the pan and bring the soup to the boil

cover the pan with a lid and cook the soup until the vegetables are all soft, about 20 minutes (I used a pressure cooker, in which case the cooking time was reduced to 10 minutes)
using a stick blender, blend the soup to the consistency you like – we like to keep a bit of texture but you could make it completely smooth if you prefer
add the milk to the pan and bring the soup back to the boil
remove the pan from the heat and crumble 75g of the blue cheese into the soup (keep the remaining 25g of cheese to crumble on top of the soup just before serving), stirring it well until the cheese is almost melted