A nice variation on courgette soup

With varying degrees of buy-in from its highly carniverous membership, we have instituted a family meat-free day once a week. The logic for this move, at least as proposed by me, is a kind of equivalent of carbon offsetting - in this case an offset for the increase in meat-eating in developing countries.

(This increase is, among other effects, having the slightly comical consequence of making potash sexy.  At least, it would be comical if the hostile bids for various till now dull-as-ditchwater potash miners don't turn out to be the first skirmishes in a pretty serious resource war over agricultural inputs, as the Observer suggested last week.)

The first menu I served up under the new regime consisted of a couple of dishes from the River Cafe Green book of veg recipes - a mushroom frittata and then puy lentils with Swiss chard and Italian herbs. Pace Lady  Rogers and the late great Ms Gray, neither was all that great, if you ask me (and the assembled clientele seemed to concur).  The frittata had lemon juice in it - not a nice omelette ingredient in my experience, which you'll hear about in a moment - while the puy lentils could have done with that lemon in their dish instead. But the Swiss chard, which has done brilliantly in the garden this year, was very nice.

(My citrus-in-omelettes prejudice arises from the single most disgusting dish I have ever cooked.  This was a grapefruit omelette (made with tinned grapefruit). I was a student at the time, and had ended up in strange house after a very long night, but I still have no idea why I ever thought it would be interesting to find out what a grapefruit omelette tasted like.

At least I had a reason for the second most disgusting thing I have ever cooked, which was a sprout loaf.  This was in a cottage somewhere in the New Forest, and followed what was probably a similarly long night; but there was a glut of sprouts and nothing else at all, so improvisation was called for.)

But here - by way of another offset for those horrible things - is a nice vegetarian recipe I've done a couple of times when we've had visitors in the past few weeks.  It's a variation of courgette soup - handy for those gluts at this time of year, and what's more it uses sorrel.

It's a problem, sorrel.  Hardly a life-threatening one I grant you, but when I first planted it a couple of years back, I had no idea how vigorous and persistent it would be.  So now I have loads of it, and the problem is that a little of its bitter pungency - delightful as it is - goes a very long way.

Anyway, here's my Courgette Soup with Perfumed Rice and Sorrel Two Ways.  The rice is the thickening agent (which in most recipes is provided by potatoes, but I think this gives a lovely perfumed addition).  Should serve eight handsomely. All quantities approximate only:
Ingredients:

• 1 large white onion 
• 2 or 3 cloves of garlic
• 2 oz unsalted butter
• About 2-3 lbs courgettes - I used round yellow ones, which give a nice colour
• About 2 pints of chicken stock
•  A few springs of parsley
• 5 level tablespoons of a perfumed rice like Basmati or Jasmine
• Milk
• Single or whipping cream
• Sea salt and black pepper
• About 20 nice young sorrel leaves, any thick stalks removed

Method:

• Peel and chop the onion roughly
• Cut open the courgettes and remove the seeds and soft stuff around them, so you are just left with the flesh and skin
• Sweat the onion and garlic very gently in the butter for about 10 minutes
• Add the courgettes and continue to cook until their liquid starts to run freely - about another 10 minutes
• Season well with salt and pepper
• Add the chicken stock and parsley and cook another few minutes
• Add the rice and stir well to separate, then cook a further 10 minutes or so till the rice is completely cooked and fluffy
• Cool and then liquidise thoroughly, so that the soup is very smooth.  Add some milk before this if you want, or after, in order to give the soup the consistency you like.  I make mine fairly (but not too) thick (how's that for an accurate benchmark!)
• Add about half a pint of cream - again, to taste - and stir it in well
• Adjust the seasoning 

 Meantime:

• Cook half the sorrel leaves in a little butter so that they collapse like spinach.  Then add a bit of cream and stir to make a thick paste.  Keep warm
• Slice the rest of the (uncooked) sorrel leaves crosswise into thin strips (say 1cm)

Finally:

• Reheat the soup slowly so as not to burn the bottom
• Put a small handful of fresh sorrel leaves in the bottom of each soup bowl
• Ladle the soup on top
• Put a small dollop of sorrel paste into the middle
• Swirl some cream around this
• Scatter with chives if you like

The sorrel adds two variations of lovely bite against the sweet perfume of the rice.