Beetroot Soup

We had a surfeit of beetroot this year, so I made soup from them rather than waste and froze it. I find beetroot on it's own can be a little too earthy, so I added some tomato and good beef stock to this recipe to bring down the beetroot flavour a little, it's worked out very well, however it is shockingly red so be warned!

 

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
8 beetroots, trimmed and peeled
5 large tomatoes, roughly chopped
500ml beef stock

Method

Heat the oil in a large pan and add the onion.  Sweat this off until soft but not coloured.  Add the chopped garlic and fry for a further minute or so while you make the stock (I use a cube, it's easier and just as good as buying the ready-made stock in this recipe).  Cube the beetroot into 2cm dice and add them to the pan with the stock and the chopped tomatoes.

Bring to the boil and simmer for approximately 3 minutes until the beetroot is soft, take it off the heat for a couple of minutes and blend until smooth with a stick blender.

Serve piping hot with some nice crusty white bread and stir in a little soured cream.

Mulligatwany soup

This is a cracking soup, of all you've ever had is the soup out of a tin, do try this, it's completely different and delicious!   My recipe is based on one i saw on "The Hairy Bikers" TV show, but I've added my own variations as ever.

Ingredients

25g unsalted butter
1 tbsp Rape seed oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, sliced
3 medium carrots
4 celery sticks, peeled and chopped
1 fennel trimmed and chopped (optional)
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
3 eating apples (I use cox or gala) peeled, quatered and cut into cubes
1 tbsp medium to hot curry powder
2 tspn ground coriander
2 tspn ground cumin
1 ltr chicken stock (home made if possible, otherwise whatever you have)
1 tbsp tomato purée
2 tbsp mango chutney

100g basmati rice
50g leftover roast chicken (optional)
1 tbsp chopped coriander

Method

Melt the butter with the oil in a pan then add the onion, garlic, carrots, celery sticks, fennel and sweet potato.  Cook over a medium heat until all the veg are softened or taking on some colour.  Stir in the apples, curry powder, ground coriander and ground cumin and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.

Make the stock up if using a cube, or add the 1 ltr home made stock to the vegetables along with the tomato purée and mango chutney.  Bring the whole to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes or until the veg are nice and soft.

Meanwhile, cook the rice.  Cover the rice with boiling water leaving about an inch of water above the rice, boil it for 10 minutes until soft then drain.

When the soup is cooked, leave to cool for a couple of minutes, then blend with a hand blender until it's nice and smooth.  Add extra water to the soup to reach the consistency you prefer, I prefer a goo, thick soup.

To serve, put a spoonful or two of rice in the bottom of a bowl, add the hot soup and then put the shredded chicken on the top with the chopped coriander.