Veloute

Last night, I watched with some amusement as a colleague was served a pumpkin and sage veloute with scallops at a work dinner. He'd ordered it, thinking that it was some kind of casserole that majored on the scallops and pumpkin; to his surprise, he got soup. (Which shouldn't have been so much of a surprise, given that the waitress had removed his knife and fork and substituted a spoon, but hey -- the conversation was riveting!) A very fine soup it was, too. Veloute is just a posh way of saying thick and creamy, as far as I can tell, and it's my favorite type of soup. I know some deluded fools prefer thin soup with bits in it, but they're wrong. Thick and creamy is reminiscent of the finest soup known to mankind -- Heinz Cream of Tomato --it's soothing, and requires no mastication whatsoever. (That's mastication, for all you illiterate pervs out there.) How could it get any better?

As further evidence, I give you my cauliflower cheese soup, with a garnish of roasted cauliflower. Liberally laced with grain mustard and strong oud kaas, this is exactly what you need as the temperatures drop and the rains come. And, they're incredibly easy to make. Lightly fry garlic and onion, stir in chopped veg (preferably including a potato, Atkins be damned), add boiling water and Marigold stock powder and a few herbs, and simmer until everything's soft enough to put through a blender. Stir in some milk or cream while reheating and Bob's your uncle etc. You can do this with any kind of root veg and it will always be fabulous.