Serves: 4-6
Approx cost: €1.80
Approx calories (per serving): ~90
Approx preparation time: 60 minutes
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #0B0B61;”] S ome comments on a previous soup recipe recently got me thinking. I’m a huge fan of potatoes in soup – they’re a wonderfully cheap, nourishing way of turning the dish into something thicker, heartier and altogether more satisfying than what could potentially be more of a starter type of dish, as opposed to a main course. I thought to myself though – what if I bulked up the carrots a bit, did something a bit more exciting with them than just boiling them up, and then added garlic. A whole load of garlic. I was tempted to even add two bulbs, but at the time I thought that might be a bit overkill. In retrospect, I’m thinking probably not. If you decide to give this a try, I say go for it – full speed ahead with the garlic! I’d probably roast the onion too next time. Roasted vegetables have such an incredible caramelized flavour and if you’re going to be making a roasted vegetable soup, you may as well roast pretty much every single ingredient! 🙂 As this soup has no potato it’s deliciously low in calories which is another bonus!
In other news, I recently was given a whole load of exciting goodies from the mother of a friend. I’ve never cooked with these before – they’re not very common in stores – so I can’t wait to start doing some experimentation with these things. Confused? Wondering what they are? Ah… you’ll have to wait and see on that front! Watch this space 🙂 Have a good Friday everyone!
Roasted Carrot and Garlic Soup
Ingredients
- ~15 Carrots, trimmed and peeled
- 2 large Onions
- 1 Bulb of Garlic
- 1 tbsp Coriander Seeds
- 1-2 Vegetable Stock Cubes, or 2 litres of Vegetable Stock
- 2 tbsps Olive Oil
You’ll also need
- A Pestle and Mortar
- A Hand Blender / Immersion Blender
Instructions
- Start off by pre-heating your oven to about 170 degrees Celsius. Put ~1 tbsp of Olive Oil into a large roasting pan and heat in the oven. While the oil is heating, chop the carrots into bite-sized pieces and break up the bulb of garlic. Peel and trim the garlic cloves. If you want to also roast the onion (recommended) then cut the ends from the onion and remove the peel. Cut each onion in half and then pound the coriander seeds with a Pestle and Mortar. Place the carrot pieces, garlic cloves, onion halves and smashed up coriander seeds into the hot oil and roast until just starting to brown off, removing from the oven periodically and stirring around. The browning will take about 30 minutes, depending on your oven.
- If you didn’t roast the onion then peel and chop finely and heat another 1 tbsp of Olive Oil in a pan. Fry the onion until starting to turn translucent. Dump the roasted carrots and garlic on top of the onion. If you roasted the onion too then dump the whole roasting dish contents into a pan together. Crumble in your stock cubes and cover with 2 litres of cold water (or cover with the 2 litres of stock). Cover and bring to the boil, and then lower the heat and allow to simmer for about 20 minutes before blending until smooth with a Hand Blender
- Season with some salt and pepper – maybe a little cayenne pepper if desired – and serve with some roasted bread, top with chopped parsley and enjoy! 🙂
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