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Recipes from my Lincolnshire kitchen

Broccoli Soup with Ricotta Cheese Dumplings – another Random Recipe

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bless The Viking for being so organised this month… as you know I had to shoot over to Cannes last week for work and I left a message for him to call me so that he could pick a Random Recipe for me… I didn’t explain to him that I needed him to select it from Nigel Slater’s The Kitchen Diaries, so he went ahead and randomly chose this fabulous soup from Georgio Locatelli’s brilliant book Made in Italy… although I have a sneaking suspicion that his selection process was not quite as random as i’d have done myself because i’m sure I seem to remember him lusting over this recipe a while back… so, in his honour, I bring you this delicious bowl of green…

… oh and my actual Random Recipe will be coming next week!

Broccoli Soup with Ricotta Cheese Dumplings
I’m going to repeat the recipe direct from the book with my notes to what I changed because quite frankly there where a couple of steps that seemed quite laborious to me!

3 heads of broccoli – (I used 2)
2 onions – finely chopped (I used one)
1 large leek – finely chopped
2 large potatoes – finely chopped
1.5L veg stock
150g ricotta cheese
1 tablespoon grated parmesan (I used a strong cheddar)
1 egg – beaten

The recipe asks you to take a small sharp knife and shave the small green bobbles off the tops of the broccoli which you then blanch, then crush with the back of the knife and add to the soup at the end but to be quite frank I really couldn’t be bothered with this stage!

– in a heavy pan, saute the onions, leeks and potatoes in oil and butter until soft, about 5 mins

– add the chopped broccoli and saute again with the lid on for a further 5 mins, then add the stock and gently simmer for 20 minutes.

– meanwhile mix the cheeses and beaten egg in a bowl

– next, liquidize the soup and place it back on a gentle simmer whilst you make small quinelles out of the ricotta mix… its very easy to do, simply get two large spoon and scoop up a small amount of the cheese mix and scoop the mix from spoon to spoon until you have an elegant egg shape, then drop this gently into the simmering soup for 2 minutes.

– gently serve as the dumplings are very very delicate… but utterly delightful little clouds of cheesy air!!

eat and of course, enjoy!

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Comments

  1. Ruth says

    This looks really good – well done Viking!

    And its also a good reminder that I was (yes really) going to join in this month – so I'd better get cracking!

  3. Ruth says

    I've just chosen – so to make sure I do it – the boook is Nigel Slater's 'Appetite'! And I didn't even cheat – its just that there are so many of his around here…..it is something I would never have made though – but it will remain a secret until I make it!

    I'm giddy just thinking about how great this little game is, because I think we are all guilty of continually going to our favourite books, or favourite recipes within those books!

  6. StephenC says

    What would make this even more fun is homemade ricotta. It's easy. I did it once, and this posting inspires me to think I should do it again.

  7. Michael Toa says

    The soup looks delicious and the delicate dumplings like little clouds of cheesy air… Well done The Viking for choosing the recipe and Dom for cooking it 🙂

  10. Janice says

    Soooo glad you didn't de-bobble your broccoli lol! Life's too short and all that, looks delicious though.

  11. Corina says

    I can understand why the Viking was lusting after this. Those cheese dumplings sound amazing. That's an idea that I'm definitely going to pinch from this.

  12. Aveen says

    I'm lusting after this one too! Wonder if I could get hubby to eat broccoli. I agree that step seems unnecessary but don't you think lots of recipes have similar daft-sounding instructions these days?

  14. Les rêves d'une boulangère (Brittany) says

    Hello! Sorry I haven't commented in ages, my URL got changed and messed up…anyway..I've missed your posts! And you know what this is a great recipe to return on because I LOVE ricotta. I am a huge fan of its creamy texture! Plus, broccoli is one of my favourite veggies. Perfect in every way.

  15. Choclette says

    Well, I can quite see why the Viking would be lusting after these ricotta dumplings. They are now on my must have when next making soup list.

    Made my random recipe this morning.