So the story behind this is that I live in a really latino neighborhood and there are a lot of very exciting roots in my grocery store. Like, there's the produce section, and then there's an equally large "bins of roots" section.
It is a goal of mine to learn what the heck to do with them all. Knowing my friend Michelle knew how to cook yucca, I invited her over to my house to teach me. Which she did; however, this is not the story of HER yucca recipe because that would be stealing. Rather, this is the story of "Why did you buy so much yucca, rorie?" and what I did with the remainder.
(For the record, I bought so much yucca because there were so many different sizes a root could be! She told me to buy two roots, but not knowing what size of a root she was referring to, I bought one small, one medium, and one large and felt pretty good about it. In closing, I still have a lot of yucca lying around.)
Anyway, we boiled two big yucca roots, chopped up, and only ended up frying and eating one of them. So I had all this boiled yucca in my fridge. And thus was born...
Cheesy Yucca Soup
Serves, I'm going to say, 3-6 people depending on your serving size
Ingredients:
1 medium(I guess?!?!) yucca root, boiled for 20-25 minutes*
Half a vidalia onion
Half a head of garlic (look at me showing restraint with garlic)
A few tablespoons of flour
Butter & olive oil (enough for frying & to make a roux)
Cheese of your choosing (I used 4 ounces of cream cheese & 5 slices of American)**
2.5 cups of bullion broth (I use Knorr's vegetarian vegetable & usually put in an extra cube)
half a cup of milk
quarter of a cup of Vermouth (if you don't have it don't sweat it)
A hand blender (that's not an ingredient, but it is something you'll need)
Spices:
A few shakes each of Garlic powder, black pepper, ground oregano,
Cayenne pepper to taste
2 teaspoons Soul Seasoning
*I think the best way to chop and peel a yucca root is to invite your friends over to teach you to make yucca and let them do it while you do other preparatory things. But in essence, the way to do it is to hack all of the waxy root skin off with a knife, then cut it in half lengthwise (pretty difficult), then yank/hack all of the strings in the center out, then chop it into medium-sized chunks that you will boil. DON'T HURT YOURSELF. I'm serious.
If you fear or can't locate yucca, you can always make this with potatoes instead (but that's kind of wussy).
** If you opt for something fancier in the cheese department, I imagine your soup will be that much better. In a perfect world I would have skipped the American and gone for an equal amount of cheddar. That cube cheese with the happy cow on it would probably also be great.
First you're going to make your roux. Have I told you how to make a roux yet? I don't think I have.
Here's How to Make a Roux
OK, so you start off heating up some oil and/or butter in the pot you intend to make your soup in (it should, by the way, be a pretty large pot). Use enough oil/butter to cover the bottom of the pot, and get it reasonably hot but not so it's spitting at you (best done by putting it on high to get it hot, but turning it down to medium-low before it gets too hot). I usually throw in my spices at this point so they are in my soup from the very beginning (you can always adjust later, of course). Get the oil/butter nice & hot and add a heaping tablespoon of flour. You now want to stir/smush around very quickly with one of those flexible spatulas, so it becomes a paste without any lumps. (Some people prefer to wisk. I think they're weird, but you can do that if you want.) Continue with another tablespoon or two of flour. It will get crazy thick. You want it too. Just make sure it's evenly thick, and not lumpy. Then, VERY SLOWLY, add broth and keep stirring/smushing with your spatula or wisk. You need to be very slow, and very stirry, so you don't get lumps. Take your time until you have added all your broth.
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Add in your chunks of boiled yucca, and also your onion. Your onion should be diced as small as possible. Stir. Add your milk, and your vermouth, as well, stirring frequently.
Now you're going to let your soup do its thing on medium heat for a while, and you'll stir it here and there. While that's happening, slice up your garlic however you like and get it frying in some more oil. You'll want it to get golden-brown but not burnt. Keep an eye on it.
While your garlic is frying, add your cheese to your soup and stir. Once your garlic is ready, dump that in (oil and all) and stir a little more.
Now you're going to let your soup do its soup thing for another little bit. You can cover it, but make sure the heat isn't too high (medium is plenty) and stir it now and again. When all the cheese seems to be melted evenly, take it off the heat.
Wait for it to stop bubbling before you use your hand blender. Then, um, use your hand blender. Blend it to wherever you like; I like mine thick and a tiny bit chunky. Yucca can be sneaky, so make sure you find all your big chunks. Go slowly and don't start the hand blender until it's in the soup, so it doesn't spatter you.
Then you're done!
A dash of lemon juice is a great garnish to give a serving of this a zing. I would only add it as a garnish, not while you're making the soup. That's how I roll.