Today's chemistry experiment
was to make cream of pumpkin soup. The rules for these
chemistry experiments are simple: must involve root
vegetables, must be vegetarian, preparation time must be
less than 30 minutes. OK, so pumpkin soup does not
usually involve root vegetables. However, I saw a recipe
in Vegetarian Times for a cream of pumpkin soup
that includes celeriac, which is most definitely a root
vegetable - an ugly one at that. Since it also involved
curry spices, I decided I had to try it.
The recipe called for diced
celeriac, but my track record at dicing is not good. Oh,
and I added a new rule - no giant
vegetables that break the knife.
To be sure I was getting into another enormous turnip
situation I bought pre-shredded celeriac. Celeriac is
bulbous, brown, gnarly and weird looking, so going with
the already shredded stuff avoids peeling too. All to the
good.
Then there's edamame. Can I cook
with something I don't even know how to pronounce? The
recipe says "precooked edamame". OK, so here's this
package of edamame in pods that says just thaw and eat.
Thaw and eat? Don't you have to take it out of the pods?
Yeah, you do. It's in the fine print. Hmm. There are no
instructions for cooking it. So how do I precook it?
Further back in the grocer's freezer is shelled edamame.
This looks more promising. Less work. Also contains
cooking instructions. Hooray.
Next, must score vegan sour cream.
Vegan sour cream? Does regular sour cream work if the
cook/consumer does dairy? Better stick with the shopping
list, so I check out the case with all the weird dairy
substitutes. The only vegan sour cream I can find is made
of rice. Guess that's the ingredient.
Apple juice, ginger, curry powder,
olive oil, and canned pumpkin are easy. Maybe I should
make a new rule that the shopping for the experiment
can't take longer than 30 minutes either.
The cooking doesn't take nearly as
long as the shopping. I've never sautéed celeriac
in olive oil before so have a hard time figuring out when
it's cooked through. And then sautéing the
precooked edamame with the celeriac results in edamame
rolling across the top of the stove, bouncing on the
floor, and somehow landing in the sink. The skillet isn't
big enough for the both of them. Eventually, I deem the
remaining edamame to be suitably sautéed and unite
it with the simmering pumpkin mix.
In what seems like no time, the
soup is ready. I garnish it with toasted pumpkin seeds
and sit down to supper. Wow! Where has edamame been all
my life? This stuff is good. The soup is delightfully
savory. The edamame adds texture and toothsomeness. The
celeriac enhances the sour cream flavor. This is great!
Today's chemistry experiment is a success on the first
try.
