Zucchini creme soup with Tasty Blini

In the last weeks of summer this is our chance to enjoy some more of fresh tasty and cheap zucchini. It`s one of my favourite vegetables, there are so many ways a creative cook can use it. In puffs, in pastries, for antipasto, and im sure if I get into it, I would find a magical creme made of it, that would heal any skin problems:) Not to mention it`s flower! My favourite YUM-factor! While I was in Bari could`t stop dripping over the local markets fresh lineup of orange blossoming flowers.  Anyway zucchini is a fun veg, and zucchini creme soup is just a delight!

I was wondering how to make it more interesting. To be honest I don’t really like to mess about the soups actual pure taste. I prefer to serve it with something unusual, or just a fresh buttered roll. And to be honest I can’t remember how I came up with the idea of the blini. If you have no idea what blinis are: well, they are the Russian version of pancakes, usually they are small, and served with creme cheese and caviar, or salmon, or something fancy and Russian.  Luckily blinis and zucchini go well with parmesan and walnuts, so it was a clear choice.  The soup shouldnt take you more than 30 minutes, and this variation is going to impress your dinner partners!

Ingredients (3-4 portions)

Soup:

1 red onion-diced

3 cloves of garlic-sliced

1 big zucchini- sliced into small cubes

about- 1 litre vegetable stock

100ml of fresh creme

salt,pepper,thyme

1 tbsp butter

Blini:

140g flour

1/3tsp baking powder

175 ml milk

1 egg-seperated

125 g butter, plus 1 extra spoon-melted

1 tsp dried yeast.

3 tbsp of fresh parmesan cheese

3 tbs of crushed walnuts

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onions and the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes over medium heat stirring occasionally, watch out-don’t burn your onion! Add the zucchini and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the boiling hot stock (dont add all of it at the same time, depending on the size of your zucchini it might be too much), cut the heat to minimum, and cook for 10 minutes. Get it off the heat, with a hand mixer, or a robot coupe, blend it all together. Put it back to the stove bring it to boiling point. Whisk in the creme and seasoning, and some more stock if its necessary.

While your soup is getting ready:

Sift the  plain flour and baking powder together. Mix the dried yeast with the  milk, then separate the egg and add the yolk to the yeast mix.

Next whisk this into the dry ingredients to make a smooth batter. Stir in the 1 tsp melted butter.Whisk the egg white to stiff peaks, then gently fold into the batter, keeping as much volume as possible. Stir in the parmesan and the walnuts.

Clarify some butter by gently melting it in a pan.

Heat the clarified butter in a frying pan and drop in dessert spoons of the batter. Cook until the surface starts to bubble, then flip over and cook the other side.