French garlic soup

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The soup to cure all ailments.

This French garlic soup (velouté) is something you must try at least once in your life. It’s creamy, silky and flavorsome and surprisingly the garlic taste is not as strong as you would expect. It’s also super healthy with some health pundits claiming that the garlic soup is as potent as antibiotics. As far as culinary skills go, this is a great recipe to practice because it uses mayonnaise as a binding agent. This is not a technique you commonly see in recipes. This particular recipe comes from the village of Lautrec regarded as one of the prettiest villages in the south west of France.

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NOTES

• Ideally you should try to get your hands on the pink variety of garlic but if this is hard to come by then any purple variety is fine.

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INGREDIENTS

For the stock

• Approx 1 kg of bones

• 2 chicken carcass (chopped in medium size pieces)

• 4 chicken wings ( chopped in half)

• 4 chicken necks (chopped in 2)

• 2 liters of water

• 1 medium size carrot

• 1 medium size onion

• 1 small leek, white part only

• 1 celery rib (100 grams)

• 1 bouquet garni

To flavor the soup

• 10 cloves of garlic

• A few leaves of fresh sage

• A pinch of Espelette or cayenne pepper

• Salt and pepper for the seasoning

For the mayonnaise

• 1 egg yolk

• 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard

• A pinch of salt and pepper

• 150 ml (5 fl oz) of sunflower or peanut oil

For the garnish

• Slices of toasted baguette

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PROCEDURE

1. Prepare your mise en place: wash, peel and cut the vegetables and peel the garlic cloves.

2. Make the chicken stock (see our recipe for chicken stock here).

3. Filter the stock and leave to reduce for 10 minutes, then turn the heat off.

4. Cut the garlic cloves in half and remove the germ.

5. Fill a small saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Plunge the garlic cloves in the boiling water, leave to cook for 3 minutes and remove them from the saucepan.

6. Press the garlic with fork to create a puree and add to the stock. Reduce the heat to low and leave to simmer for 10 minutes. You can add a few sage leaves to the soup but this is optional.

7. Make the mayonnaise (see our recipe for mayonnaise here).

8. Add the mayonnaise to the soup and mix gently.

9. Leave the soup to simmer for a further 10 minutes (avoid boiling the soup).

10. While the soup is simmering, cut and toast the croutons.

11. Season the soup and serve.