Creamy Fennel Parsnip Soup

Super easy and velvety smooth, even though there is absolutely no cream in it!

This is made after a recipe I found on a fellow blogger’s site ‘La Mia Cucina‘ from Basel, my hometown. Since I discovered the recipe, I have made it three times, in slightly different variations. I have never tried it with the liquors the original recipe calls for, mainly because I did not have them on hand, Noilly Prat and Pernot are not part of my regular arsenal of beverages and to hunt them down just for a soup seemed a bit outrageous to me. I was just gonna take my chances, and happily have since found, that it seems perfect even without. If this soup was any better with, that would almost be alarming. It’s oh so smooth and creamy, and that without any cream or potatoes. Depending on who you ask (as per the original blogger) thanks to the parsnip or thanks to the fennel. But I think the pureeing and passing it through a fine meshed sieve might have something to do with that as well. I mean, just maybe? 😉 Surprisingly to me, there wasn’t much fiber leftover in the sieve, even though the soup contains fennel.

Ingredients

1 medium fennel bulb, trimmed and sliced
1-2 medium parsnips, peeled or scrubbed well and diced
1 shallot, diced
1 1/2 quart vegetable or chicken broth (or water and salt)
water
allspice

Directions

Heat a little oil or butter in a heavy soup pan. Add the shallot and cook until softened and glassy looking, but not brown.
Add the chopped fennel and the parsnip, stir to get the shallot off the bottom of the pot so as not to burn it
Add the broth, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until fennel is tender.
Let cool slightly then tip soup into a blender, and puree until smooth. Rinse the soup pot, place a fine meshes sieve on top and strain the blended soup back into your soup pot. You can stir with a spatula to help get the soup through. Discard whatever is leftover in the sieve.
Reheat the soup, thin with additional water as needed and serve garnished with liberal sprinkles of allspice (if you like), some leftover fennel fronds and a hearty slice of bread.