When we were shopping in Waitrose last week, Pete spotted giant onions (officially known as ‘extra large’ onions, but they’re complete monsters). They occasionally have things like this that are outside of their normal criteria (ugly strawberries for making jam, mis-shapen mushrooms for soup, etc) which is nice because it makes a feature out of their oddness and makes a break from endless uniformity.
Since Pete is a big fan of onions, and they were pretty impressive, we brought one home. It weighed nearly a kilo. We have been pondering how best to make use of its immensity. This morning Pete walked an entire circuit of the town we live in – 6 miles – and so to celebrate (and replace the calories he used up) I invented this soup for lunch. I should say now that the only reason I weighed everything was so that I could write the recipe down for you – left to my own devices I just bung things in.
Ingredients
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1/2 giant onion (500g! by all means use less :), chopped
750g sweet potato, peeled and diced
3 large carrots, peeled and diced
1 heaped tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg and ground coriander
1 litre hot vegetable stock
160 ml coconut cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Veg oil for frying
Instructions
I tend to prepare my vegetables while I’m cooking, which means I start by sorting out the onions and garlic, then set those frying in a little oil while I chop everything else up. You may prefer to have everything ready to go before you start. Either way, step 1 is to fry the onion and garlic until they start to soften.
Then add in the carrots and sweet potato and fry those for a couple of minutes, then add the spices. Pour in the vegetable stock to cover the vegetables, then leave them to simmer for 10 minutes or so.
If I want a smooth soup then at this point I turn off the heat and let the vegetables finish cooking in the residual heat as the pot cools down. Once it’s cooler I put the soup in the blender (have you ever had the lid come off the blender so it sprays boiling hot soup everywhere? It’s not fun). Then I reheat the soup to serve.
If you want your soup chunky (and we’re a 50:50 household, because I like smooth and Pete likes chunky and he won today because of time constraints) then simmer until the vegetables are cooked right through.
If you stop here, and just make sure the seasoning is right, you have a perfectly nice sweet potato soup. I stirred in a can of coconut cream, which combines with the spices to bring it to a whole new level – but of course if does add considerably to the calorie count. Yummy, though :)
Serves 4-6 people, depending on whether it’s a main course with a hunk of bread, or a starter. We have leftovers, they’re going through the blender later :D
Rhizowen wrote:
...on Sun, Oct 23 '11 (207 days ago)