Food photography + a recipe: Roasted Fennel & Celery Soup
Food photography + a recipe
Welcome to a series where I like to show off some of my food photography work, but also share a recipe for you to enjoy.
Has celery “fever” hit your town yet??
I live in LA, and around the new year, the celery juicing trend hit HARD. It seemed every blog I clicked on was touting the benefits of juicing the green stuff straight. The result? ALL THE GROCERY STORES HERE WERE RUNNING OUT OF CELERY!! For realz! There were a couple of weeks there where it was pretty touch and go. I don’t know why, but I found it to be one of the more hilarious things I’ve witnessed here.
Now, I’m all for juicing celery. In fact, I was trying it out long before it became a buzz-worthy thing to do. And I gotta say, the benefits are legit. But here’s what none of the articles DO tell you:
Juicing celery SUCKS.
All the stringy bits clog up your juicer and they’re an absolute nightmare to clean out of the cracks and crevices. I even tried going the Vitamix route- which was admittedly better- but still no walk in the park. There’s lots of straining and transferring of containers… it’s not fun. Ultimately, this always leads me to throwing in the towel on my celery juicing experiments. (To those gals out there still gleefully sipping their bright green elixirs of goodness every morning, I salute you. You’re better- or maybe more patient- women than me!)
So what does this have to do with soup?
Glad you asked. The whole celery juicing thing got me thinking; there must be other ways to elevate this star ingredient. Why should it always be relegated to an aromatic, or crunchy filler for chicken or potato salad? Onions get to have their moment of glory with french onion soup, so why not celery?
Enter Roasted fennel & celery soup. I LOVE how this turned out. It has an interesting balance of freshness + roasty-ness that’s hard to find in most dishes. Plus, a few baby potatoes make it creamy and filling.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And once you try it out, let me know what you think in the comments. Or maybe you’re looking at this recipe thinking “this sounds totally weird Sarah. You’ve lost your mind, no thank you.” Hey, that’s ok too. :)
Roasted Fennel & Celery Soup
ingredients
Fennel bulb
head of celery
2 shallots
4 cups of stock (I used chicken stock for a richer flavor + minerals, but vegetable stock can be subbed to keep it vegetarian)
4-6 baby potatoes
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
directions
preheat oven to 425
chop fennel and celery
season with salt & pepper then toss with oil to coat and spread on baking sheet
roast for 30-35 minutes or until vegetables begin to caramelize slightly
While fennel and celery are roasting:
chop and sauté shallots with couple tbsp of oil until translucent. Set aside
Bring broth to boil.
Add potatoes to broth and boil until they are soft (About 8-10 minutes)
Add shallots, fennel and celery to broth and potatoes
Blend all together with emersion blender or transfer in small batches to a blender to puree. (be careful transferring hot liquids)
Stir in apple cider vinegar and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Top as you choose. I used watermelon radish, fennel tops, and sautéed golden enoki mushrooms
