Sunday: Carrot soup and asparagus

Saturday afternoon I made some aromatic chicken stock (chicken, lots of carrots, onion, garlic, fennel seeds, bay leaves, a couple cloves, herbes de provence); yesterday I converted that into soup. I added sliced carrots and leeks, let it cook until the carrots were about tender, pureed it with the stick blender (not a creamy puree, the carrots were still too hard for that), added some green lentils, and cooked until the lentils were done. We ate this with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of chopped chives. The combination of lentils and carrots is a really nice one.

We picked up some local white asparagus at the market on Saturday, the first of the year. After peeling the spears I made a poaching liquid from the peels, the tops of some fennel bulbs, and a pinch of sugar. The asparagus poached in this broth until it was tender and then we ate it with butter. My original plan was to reduce some of the poaching liquid and whisk butter into that in order to get a sauce, but the liquid itself was much too bitter for that. The asparagus itself was fine though, not as nice as good green asparagus, but still quite ok.

oh, and we had a green salad.