Cauliflower Soup with Porcini Oil

You can spend hours in the kitchen, elbow deep in exotic ingredients. You can use every dish and pan in the house to conjure up a gastronomic masterpiece. You can sweat and swear over the technical processes of complicated recipes. You can create foams, airs, jus's'sss, gastriques, edible spheres and pearls. Or you can cut a humble cauliflower from the garden and make a beautiful, velvety cauliflower soup. Add a touch of luxury with an incredible infused oil, and -  voilà, refined dining without the syphon, sous vide or liquid nitrogen.

NOTE: Please promise me you'll make the oil to go with the soup? It really does take the soup to a whole new level.

Cauliflower Soup with Porcini Oil

from Donna Hay's Seasons

For the Soup:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped

1 pale green stick of celery, chopped
1 cauliflower, roughly chopped
11/2 litres vegetable stock
salt & pepper
200ml pouring cream

Heat the oil in large saucepan, add the onion, celery and cauliflower. Fry gently for 2 – 3 minutes until the onion is tender. Add the stock, and let it cook for 10 – 12 minutes or until the cauliflower is done.

Blend the soup in a food processor until smooth. Pour it through a sieve back into the pan - sieving the soup is important if you want a sublimely smooth and refined soup. Stir in the cream and simmer for another 5 mins. Add pepper and salt if needed.

For the Porcini Oil:
10 g dried porcini
125ml olive oil

Slowly heat the oil and dried porcini in a saucepan for five minutes over low heat. Set aside and let it cool.

Pour the soup into a bowl and drizzle the porcini oil over the soup. I served it with my own Sourdough Bread.