Normally when I share a more formalized recipe, there’s a specific place I can point to and you can look and see for yourself what my source was. “Aha,” you’ll say, “Interesting recipe – I wonder what else that blog has to say about…” etcetera. The point is, there’s usually a live link. Today’s recipe does not have that. Today’s recipe is based on an experience I had with my friend A twice, where she made soup for me and her husband. That soup was garlic soup, and it was then we knew she loved us, because A does not care greatly for garlic, but her husband and I do.
Recently I had these memories of the soup, and I thought, “Yes, I need to make that for my garlic-loving husband!” and so I texted A and was like, “Do you have that recipe”, because I didn’t have it in my email. Or so I thought. After a few weeks, and some back and forth, A found the original email which she had forwarded which had a link to the recipe, and I felt like a doofus for not being more hardcore in my email searching. Because that is why I keep things saved in my email: in order to save them and make them searchable for later. When the librarian is too lazy to have found it, you know things are bad.
In any case, I did go above and beyond in another way, finding the link to the original version of the recipe, which appeared on the blog for a farm which produced (produces?) fiber for yarns which were then sold to knitters and crocheters. The blog disappeared, and so did the recipe. Unless you know to go to the Wayback Machine, and I did. And I found the old post, and I recovered the recipe, and now that I have it, you can too.
This recipe is VERY simple. And would benefit from finer mushing of the garlic to ensure that the result is a very smooth paste. The smoother your garlic paste, the fewer bits of garlic chunk you’ll find in the soup. And since the goal of the soup is to be smooth and velvety…mush that garlic extra fine, my friends. This is really a recipe for garlic lovers. Don’t make it for someone who won’t kiss you after you’ve made it. They don’t deserve it.
Garlic Soup
Yield: 4 small servings
Ingredients:
4-5 heads of garlic
3 spring of thyme
1 tsp olive oil
2 tsp flour
4 cups of stock (vegetable or chicken)
pepper, parmesan and toast for serving
Instructions:
Separate the heads of garlic into cloves, but peeling the cloves is not necessary. Put them into a baking dish with a the springs of thyme and a teaspoon of olive oil. Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil and put it in the oven at 350 degrees F for one hour. Carefully remove the foil and allow the garlic to cool for about 20 minutes.
When the garlic is cool to the touch, squeeze the pulp into a medium pot, discarding the paper peels. This is a tricky and messy step, but will be worth it in the end. Once all garlic is in the pot, use a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon to mash the garlic cloves into a smooth paste. Put a bit of flour in the garlic paste – about 2 tsp – and stir thoroughly to fully incorporate the flour.
Now for the liquid. You’ll need four cups of stock, either chicken or vegetable, preferably homemade but good quality store bought will do just fine if it’s all you have. If you do use boxed, add a heaping tsp of Better than Bouillon to perk it up.
Using a whisk, slowly incorporate the stock into the garlic-flour paste, then set over a medium-high burner. Allow the soup to simmer and thicken for 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the pot from heat and stir in a good squeeze of fresh lemon. The lemon brightens the soup (Note: a step I forgot to do. Whoops).
Serve with toasted bread, parmesan cheese, and fresh ground pepper.
Details: Anti-Valentine’s Day Garlic Soup originally appeared on the Juniper Moon Farm blog.