fennel and asparagus veloute

The first veloute I ever had was at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant in the uber-deluxe Claridge's. It was an amuse bouche of "fennel veloute with apple". Basically, a very smooth, rich sauce, served as a dainty soup, with tiny cubes of diced apple in the bottom. The apple was very tart and this beautifully cut through the richness of the veloute.

The second veloute I had was also at Claridge's, and that is the sum of my experience. I loved both and wanted to learn to recreate the taste at home. Imagine my surprise, then, when I started researching recipes online and in cook books, and couldn't find a single Gordon recipe that followed a traditional recipe (Veloute is a "mother sauce" in French cooking and is historically a blonde roux mixed with a good quality stock for flavour). In any event, as the flavour I wanted to replicate was what I'd experienced at Claridge's, I opted for a recipe more akin to Gordon Ramsay or Heston Blumenthal.

You will need:

2 medium fennel bulbs
10 stalks of asparagus
3 cloves of garlic
A bouquet garni of fennel seeds, thyme and sage
A few extra thyme stalks
1 small onion
75g butter
200mL dry white wine
150mL double cream
500mL hot vegetable stock

What to do:

Finely slice all the vegetables.

Melt the butter in a large frying pan, over medium heat. Add the chopped vegetables, boquet garni, garlic and thyme and season with salt and pepper. Sweat the vegetables for approximately 25 minutes, until softened and slightly golden. Turn the heat up and add the white wine. Once the liquid has evaporated by half, add the vegetable stock, a ladle at a time. Leave to simmer until again, reduced by half. The soup should be taking on a nice pale green colour by now.

Switch the heat right down and add the cream. After a few minutes, remove from heat and strain through a sieve (or even a colander). Press the vegetables with a spoon to squeeze as much liquid out as possible. Remove the boquet garni and the thyme. Pour the veloute into a saucepan and return to a medium heat. Simmer for 10 minutes or so until slightly thickened and reduced.

Serve as a soup or a sauce (goes brilliantly with poultry or fish).

NB I couldn't handle the thought of tossing the vegetables, once I'd strained them. I added them back to the frying pan and made a delicious, delicious risotto (added blue cheese and spinach). I would never usually let cream touch a risotto but this was better than wasting it all!