Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I really do not like celery and that I recently found myself with quite a backlog from several weeks worth of CSA boxes. The soup above was not attractive because I used a rich, dark brown duck stock (hence the little accompanying duck meat toast), but this would work well, and be a pretty light green rather than dank brown, with chicken or turkey stock. In fact, you may want to add it to your post holiday dinner repertoire since you will have stock made from the carcass of the bird, and a ton of celery left from the amount you had to purchase in order to be able to use a tiny bit in your stuffing.
Even if you don't do that, can't go wrong with a three ingredient winter soup. And, I will admit, I quite liked it.
6 cups stock
1 1/2 heads of celery (reserve some of the leaves for garnish)
1/2 cup heavy cream
Clean the celery. Cut off any oxidized ends and then chop each stalk into 2 to 3 inch pieces.
Place the celery and the stock in a large pan and cover. Cook over medium-low heat for 15-20 minutes, until the celery is fork tender.
Blend until completely smooth and then pass through a sieve in order to remove all the annoying little celery strings.
Rinse out the pot and pour the velvety soup back into the pan. Add the cream and heat until boiling.
Check for seasoning. You will probably need salt, my stock was rather salty so I did not. Serve at once. Garnish with a drizzle of cream and a sprinkling of chopped celery leaves if you wish. If making it from stock made from a poultry carcass, chop some of the reserved meat, and combine with a bit of chopped raw celery, mayo, salt and pepper. Put some of that on a piece of toast and serve that on the side as I did, or float it as a garnish.
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