1000 th blog - Endive Soup with Goat cheese

When I started blogging in December 2015, I never thought it would be so much fun and so much work. But the fun is what keeps me doing more. And I learned so much diving into foreign kitchens and aquiring new cooking techniques. This alone is worth all the work that comes with this food blog.

Short before the Christmas holidays I wanted to prepare an easy and meat free dish. During this season you get large heads of endive at all markets.  Endive is not a salad I normally turn to, it comes with some bad memories.

It was the cheap winter salad my Mom used to prepare often. It was harsh and mostly bitter and I hated it as a child. Later on, Dad's good friend growed large amounts of endive heads in his garden and loved to give them to my parents when he visited twice a week to have a beer. He wasn't a master gardener and failed to bind the salad heads together to make them yellow and soft in the middle. The heads often were full of snails and other critters.  Since my parents weren't able to eat all the salad, they often gave a head to me.
Twice, I tried to slice a head in two halves and my knife run through a snail. Brrr. After that, all other heads went into the organic bin just outside the entrance and never reached my kitchen again.

But now to a phantastic soup. I will prepare it again, when I have friends over for dinner in January. The refined part of the recipe is the creamy goatcheese, that is coated in two different ways.
I found this on German food magazine Essen&Trinken  (eat&drink) and as always made my own version of it.

Recipe for 2:
3 potatoes
1 parsnip
1 clove of garlic
2 shallots
1 spring onion
150 g endive
500 ml veg stock
150 ml double cream
2 bay leaves
Lemon juice
Salt and pepper
1 tbsp butter
6 discs of goat cream cheese
1/2 ripe pear
2 tbsp chopped walnuts
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp sesame seeds

Peel potatoes, garlic, parsnip and onions and cut them into medium chunks. Wash the center leaves of the salad and rip it into shreds.

Put the butter in a pot and add all veggies and give them 3 min and several good stirs. Season.
Add stock and cream and bay leaves, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 20 min.
In a small pan toast sesame and ciriander seeds and in a pestel and mortar make a finer crumb.

Now the veggies should be soft, take the pot off the heat and use a stick blender and make a creamy soup. When it looks too thick now, do not worry, add the salad and blend it into the soup. The salad contains so much water, it gives enough liquid to the soup.

Cut the piece of pear into tiny cubes, chop up the walnuts and mix both.
Dip the cheese on both sides into the mix. Weather you like more nuts and pears or sesame and coriander, it depends how many cheeses you will cover.
Serve the cheeses on endive leaves beside the soup bowls.