I tried another recipe from Maria Elia's The Modern Vegetarian the other day.  Sweetcorn and lemongrass soup.  No photo this time as, to be frank, it was not a dish that looked very appealing.  It kind of looked like porridge!  Lumpy porridge with bits of sweetcorn floating in it.

But it was pretty tasty. Overall verdict was that this one is a useful recipe to have in the mix - all its ingredients, except for the lemongrass, are ingredients that I usually have around, so it would work well as a "forgot to go to the shops today" kind of meal.  The milk base for the soup makes it more filling than many soups but somehow not stodgy.  Good stuff.

Once I'd made it, I thought "go me, I actually followed the recipe for once!" but then I realised that I kind of didn't.  I didn't measure the butter or milk or flour, just estimated.  I didn't use a white onion, I used a red one.  I used frozen sweetcorn rather than fresh.  And I added creamed coconut rather than creme fraiche.  Never mind.

I did follow the basic principles of the recipe and I thought the milk base, rather than stock base, was quite interesting.  I liked the hint of coconut from the creamed coconut, though, and I think I might try substituting in coconut milk for the milk next time.  Also quite tempted to add in some coriander.  And maybe a little bit of lime juice.

I'm relatively new to Thai flavours and am currently a little obsessed with coconut milk.  The fresh lemongrass for the soup was lovely - smelled amazing and made the soup so fragrant.

I'll do a proper review of The Modern Vegetarian sometime soon but, currently, I'm thinking that I do rather like it but, somehow, I find myself tinkering a lot with the recipes and using it more for inspiration than to follow exactly.  Which isn't a bad thing, particularly, and is quite often the way that I am with cookbooks.