Mystery Produce Review: Green Garlic

[hrj]

As promised, my experiment with a produce item I've never cooked before: green garlic (i.e., immature garlic bulbs). In my initial brainstorming of what to do with it, I was feeling rather soupy, and when I fed green+garlic+soup into Google, one of the hits was for a garlic-asparagus soup. Since I already had a bunch of asparagus pencilled into the food plan[*] for today, I took the basic idea and then torqued it all out of recognition. Mushrooms were also pencilled in for today, and I still have a couple open containers of commercial almond milk to use before they go bad, so I thought of doing a sort of chunky-creamy soup with an almond milk base, pureed asparagus, and the garlic and mushrooms sauteed but left chunky. There was also a duck leg pencilled in for today, and that got worked in as well.

Green Garlic and Asparagus Soup

Take one bunch (ca. 1 lb) asparagus, remove and reserve the tips, and chop the stalks into approximately one-inch pieces. Simmer the asparagus in 2 cups almond milk until tender.

In the mean time, peel the outermost skin off a bunch of green garlic (my bunch had a finished weight of ca. 100 g) and trim the stalk where it stops being solid (this leaves about 6" of stalk as well as the bulb). Slice the garlic across in thin slices. Also slice about 150 g of mushrooms. Heat about 1 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet, sear a duck leg on both sides then add the garlic and stir about while it softens, then add the mushrooms and asparagus tips and ditto. Add about a cup and a half of hard cider (my usual substitute for white wine, since I keep the former around for drinking but not so much the latter) and simmer covered until the duck leg is well cooked and the cider is nearly all reduced.

When the asparagus in the almond milk is tender, puree it. Remove the duck leg (and do whatever else you're going to do with it) then combine the puree and the other ingredients and simmer long enough for the flavors to mingle. (My standard unit of time at this point is "while I change out of the gym clothes and shower".) This recipe made about a quart and a half of soup.

Results: I like it. The texture is just what I had in mind: a thick, creamy (in the texture sense) base with suspended chunks of garlic and mushroom. When I tasted it for seasoning, I decided not to add any salt which is a bit unusual for me. The overall taste is both mild and complex. You can smell the garlic more than taste it but it's definitely there underneath the asparagus, and there's even a perceptible hint of duck. There's a bit of sweetness due to the cider which probably wouldn't be there if you used wine, but I like it. If I weren't trying to use up the almond milk, I would have used chicken stock for cooking the asparagus, which would alter the balance as well.

[*] "The food plan" is partly about shopping-planning and partly about food-journaling. At the start of the week I do my major shopping without necessarily having specific meals in mind, then I sort out the results in to the food-journal spreadsheet to make sure I have something interesting and filling planned for each dinner. Things get moved around in the spreadsheet as the week progresses and plans change, but having it all pencilled in helps me keep track of what's in the refrigerator and needs to be used.

Comments

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

That sounds really quite good! I bet it would also work with broccoli in lieu de Spargeln. I'm growing quite a lot of garlic and broccoli right now, and of course have lots of hard cider, so...

What hard cider do you usually have around?

[hrj.livejournal.com]

It varies depending on what's available in the particular store I'm in when I remember I need to pick up more. Mostly domestic brands (Wyders, Ace, Hornsby) although every once in a while I'll run across someone who imports Strongbow or Woodpeckers and have some just for a change. I like having perry on hand too, but haven't been as impressed by the peach and berry flavored varieties. Due to my consumption habits, I don't tend to buy the French brands because they come in full-size bottles and I rarely want to consume more than a 12 oz bottle at a time.

I'm extremely fond of using cider when cooking lamb or pork -- the touch of sweetness works very nicely with them.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

It sounds good.
What did you do with the duck leg?

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I was lazy and just had it as-was. In retrospect, it would have been nice to put it under the broiler and crisp up the skin a little. But it was perfectly delicious without anything else.