Feta Almond and Fennel Soup

This month Dom of Belleau Kitchen and Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes have joined forces or rather challenges and come up with the Random Recipe No Croutons Required challenge. What that adds up to is that I wanted to choose a vegetarian soup recipe at random from my book collection. The first cookbook I randomly selected had no soups at all but the second was ‘Classic Bull’ by Stephen Bull, which has a small section on soups, and the randomly chosen number nine gave me this little gem.

There are some excellent recipes in this book, so I was confident that this soup would be good and I promise it is. I have to confess that I made a variation to the original in that Mr Bull uses chicken stock and I just had to be vegetarian. The amount given here would serve 4 as a light and refined starter but, in this case, fed 2 as a very pleasing lunch dish. I served it hot, but it will also work perfectly well when served cold.
Feta Almond and Fennel Soup

25 g butter
100 g onion, chopped
50 g feta cheese
50 g flaked almonds
2 cloves garlic, chopped roughly
75 g fennel, finely sliced
1 small stalk celery, sliced
500 ml vegetable stock

Lightly toast the flaked almonds in a dry frying pan. Melt the butter in a saucepan and soften the onion over a gentle heat for 10 minutes.

Add all the other ingredients, including the toasted almonds, to the pan containing the onions. Cook over a moderate heat for 20 minutes. Allow to cool a little, then liquidise.

Comments

  1. what an unusual soup!... was it nice? I adore fennel so imagine it would be lovely... thanks so much for taking part again!

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  2. This looks lovely, and very unusual. Still can't get my head round the concept of cold soups but would love to try it hot.

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  3. This is such an intriguing combination of flavours!! I've seen several recipes before that combine feta and almond, but I don't think I've ever seen one that adds fennel in, too.

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  4. I would certainly never have thought of that combination. I can certainly see how it would be good cold too.

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  5. Thanks for the comments, everyone.

    Thinking about it now the combination of flavours might seem a little unexpected but the fact is that I have such respect for Stephen Bull's cooking that if he suggests that a combination of flavours works well then I'm instantly convinced that he's right. I wouldn't hesitate to make this again; it was delicious.

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  6. I would never have thought of putting feta in a soup. It looks and sounds great.

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  7. What an unusual soup. I love it! Thanks for entering it into theis month's NCR :)

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  8. Feta and almonds, what an unusual combination - but utterly delicious I'd imagine.

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  9. The flavours sound unusual but at the same time can imagine this soup being very fragrant with everything working in harmony together..

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  10. i love that creamy white colour! very interesting combination of flavours, i'm intrigued!

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  11. What an unusual combination of ingredients. I can't get my head round cold soup but i'm sure this would be delicious warm. GG

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  12. My hubby love fennel. I got to make this soup for him. Never see this combination before.

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  13. Oh, Phil....this hits all the right buttons. It looks delicious, too (great photo!) I think I may try the chilled version....what with it being in the 90's here a hot soup may see me off!

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  14. What a lovely & terrific well flavoured soup!

    A must make! the soup calls my name,...!!!

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