Recipe: White zucchini soup

Zucchini is such a nice vegetable, so soup - worthy, except for one fatal flaw - green.  Green is a colour that just doesn't do heat well.  Sure there are some tricks - make a spinach chlorophyll to add at the end, but it's a lot of effort and I never feel the resulting colour looks natural - thus this zucchini soup is white.  As a suggested garnish, I've included a recipe for a "sunomono" zucchini pickle, which keeps the skin, so if you do it, prep the garnish first before making the soup.  An additional garnish that goes great here is the cornmeal chicharron recipe from my previous entry.  By the way, this soup is vegetarian, vegan even if you omit the cream - you can use chicken stock if you wish, but I simply use water or vegetable stock if I have one on hand.   A great chef I worked for once commented on the extensive use of chicken stock in the industry, "why does everything need to taste like chicken?"

You will need:

        1             onion
        1             large leek (white part only)
        4             zucchini
        4             garlic cloves
1/2 C/125 ml  cream (more if you prefer)
   2 sprigs        tarragon
   2 sprigs        thyme
    to taste        salt

For the "sunomono" pickle:

parisienne scooped (melon baller) zucchini - smaller the better
equal parts:  mirin
                     rice wine vinegar
to taste:        salt and sugar
1 small sprig tarragon
1 small sprig thyme

Method:

 - scoop as many balls from the outsides of the zucchini as you need for a garnish
 - mix the mirin, rice wine vinegar, tarragon and thyme season with salt and sugar until you like it
 - submerge the zucchini balls in the pickle and keep in the fridge
 - return to the zucchini and peel completely, then chop into small pieces
 - chop and wash the leek, chop the onion and garlic
 - in a pot on medium heat, sweat the onions leek and garlic in oil till translucent (clear with no colour)
 - add the zucchini and sweat well
 - add water (or stock) to cover and cook till vegetables are very soft
 - season with salt and add tarragon and thyme to infuse
 - the soup should be tasty by now, add the cream, allow it to return to a simmer, then turn off the heat
 - pick out the herbs
 - puree in a bar blender, VITAMIX if you have one
 - strain through a fine mesh seive
 - check and adjust the seasoning, cool down and store in fridge
 - when reheating, you can add a little more cream to whiten it up, then serve with the sunomono zucchini