Arugula Soup

---

Delicious and nutritious - my favorite combination. We are enjoying Summer hygge here in California (it’s too hot to be outside so we are “cozying” up inside with the AC and finding new summer soups to love.

Rocket (Arugula) Soup

Adapted from Yasmin Khan, author of Zaitoun, featured in Food & Wine January 2019 issue

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tbsp light oil

1 medium yellow onion roughly chopped

4 cloves minced garlic

1 tsp ground turmeric 

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp black pepper

½ tsp ground nutmeg

¼ tsp ground allspice

1 medium russet potato, chopped or 4 small red potatoes chopped

4 cups vegetable broth

5 oz baby arugula

5-6 oz spinach

½ packed cup of cilantro (include stems!)

2 tsp lemon juice (added at the end)

Toppings

Vegan plain yogurt (I like Forager brand, cashew-based plain yogurt)

Olive oil

Crushed pistachios

Garnish

Microgreens

Edible flowers

---

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in dutch oven and add onion and garlic, stirring often until the onion is translucent. 

2. Stir in spices, cooking for a few minutes more until spices are fragrant. You can deglaze here with a little water or a tiny bit of wine if you like. Just splash it in and use it to scrape the burned up stuff 

3. Add chopped potato and vegetable broth, bring to a simmer, and cook until potatoes are fork tender.

4. Add spinach, arugula, and cilantro, and bring back to a simmer and cook for about 10 minutes to release flavor from the greens into the mixture. When you first add them, it will seem like too much for the amount of liquid, but just put a lid on it for a bit and let them wilt before trying to stir them in.

5. Once the greens have cooked down, using an immersion blender, puree the soup until smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender, use a regular blender and work in batches. Add back into the pot and adjust seasoning as needed. 

6. Serve in a bowl with a generous dollop of yogurt, drizzle of olive oil and honestly anything else you can think of! Pepitas, pistachios, pumpernickel or rye croutons - all would be amazing. Garnish with microgreens or edible flowers if you want to get fancy.

---

Notes

The notes from the Food & Wine issue said this Palestinian soup is all about the arugula which is called Rocket in other parts of the world - cool! The author points out that mature arugula offers an even more peppery profile, but I wasn’t able to find it, so I simply increased the black pepper.

For a nutrition hobbyist like me, this soup is all about all the abundant greens. Talk about hidden nutrition! It is just bursting with goodness - a giant pile of spinach & arugula (tons of potassium, folate, iron, calcium and vitamin C + much more) and cilantro (great for cleansing the blood from heavy metals). Leafy greens provide an alkaline load to the body which is great for overall health maintenance, but despite these benefits, it sure doesn’t taste like just a healthy soup. It’s peppery and filling, a gorgeous color and super simple to make. 

I prefer an immersion blender for this - I liked how it wasn’t perfectly pureed, as it gave it a little bit of texture in each bite. If you do it in a blender, I would pulse vs. blend and let up just before you get to a full puree. 

My husband and I also ate leftovers cold and it was incredible as a cold soup so it is great for summer or winter.

---