This week I've taken inspiration from the beauty of green leaves, which are, lucky for me, all in season at the moment.
Whether you're looking for soft and subtle or bitter flavours there are a wide range of green leaves available which makes the opportunities truly endless.
For this dish I've decided to use spinach leaves, the young leaves are a vibrant emerald green which look spectacular in this dish. What makes this dish even easier is that you aren't restricted on what salad leaves you're allowed to use, you can use anything from Chinese leaves, lambs lettuce, little gems, watercress - or you can use a mixture of them all The more the better!
Serves four
Ingredients
500g washed baby spinach
Half an onion
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons of nutmeg
1 pint of chicken stock
4 teaspoons of sour cream
4 teaspoons of salad cream
To serve
New potatoes
Chopped gherkins
Chopped parsley
Olive oil
Olives (green or black)
Sprinkling of nutmeg
Method
1 To start, chop up half an onion and crush two cloves of garlic. Sweat off for a couple of minutes in a pan. Add two teaspoons of nutmeg
2 Take the spinach and chuck it all into the pan with the onion, garlic and nutmeg
3 Pour a pint of chicken stock into the spinach mixture leave until it starts to simmer and then take off the heat
4 Pour the mixture into a blender and blitz until you have a smooth consistency and then pass through a sieve
5 Whisk together the sour cream and the salad cream until they have combined and make four quenelles (instructions on how to make a quenelle below). Place them delicately in the middle of each soup
6 Around the outside of each bowl drizzle some olive oil and lightly scatter chopped gherkins, chopped parsley, olives and nutmeg
To make this dish extra special and to give it a little Michelin-starred twist try a one-spoon quenelle to sit in the middle of the soup. Making a quenelle can be slightly intimidating but once you've mastered it it's fantastic.
1 Start by dipping your spoon into a cup of boiling water
2 Hold the spoon with the rounded bottom up, placing the far edge of the spoon into the mixture, with the near edge close to the surface but not touching, and drag the spoon toward you
3 The mixture you're scraping should curl with the shape of the spoon. As you drag, twist your wrist up until the quenelle folds over itself into an egg shape.
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