“Soup of the day” at the Exmoor Inspired Workshops has been Carrot and Orange, with many enjoying my home cooked studio luncheon this week.
This is a great late winter soup, with the combination of carrots and orange which makes such a perfect marriage of flavours and adds a little bit of interest to a very tasty lunch time soup. If you are looking for a quick and easy soup, made from just simple staple cupboard ingredients, this is the one for you.
Recipe makes 6 good sized portions.
Cooking time 1 hour
Ingredients:
- 1kg bag of standard carrots, washed, but need to peel them. Roughly chopped.
- 1x medium sized onion chopped
- 2x sticks of celery chopped
- 1 tbsp. of cooking oil
- 2x vegetable stock cubes
- 2pint of boiling water (from the kettle, enough to cover the ingredients)
- 1 clove of garlic crushed
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 medium orange (use half the zest and all the juice)
- Salt and black pepper to season
Heat the oil in a large saucepan, stirring with a spoon add the onion, celery to sweat and soften.
Add the chopped carrots, crumble in the stock cubes, crushed garlic, bay leaf and a little salt and pepper (you can season again at the end) now add the boiling water from the kettle, enough to cover all the ingredients.
Bring the ingredients to a gentle simmer, cover the saucepan with a lid and cook for an hour, until all the ingredients are soft.
At this point I turn the soup off and perhaps leave for an hour or so to cool and the flavours to fully come out, but you can go to the next stage straight away if you are in a hurry.
Next, fish out the bay leaf and discard (a little overpowering in flavour if you blend this into the soup)
Now add just half the zest of the orange, (too much zest and the flavour becomes too over powering) add all the juice, (take care not to add any pips as these will make your soup bitter if your blend them into the soup)
With either a stick blender or in a food blender / processor (caution here if blending boiling hot liquid) liquidise all the ingredients to a smooth creamy consistency. Pour back to the saucepan ready to re-heat.
You can check the constancy at this point, if too thick you can add a little hot water to let down the soup slightly, although you don’t want to achieve a watery soup, so add a little extra liquid at one time. You can also check the seasoning at this point, by adding a little salt and pepper as desired. (I like plenty of freshly ground black pepper)
Bring the soup back up to a simmering temperature readiness to serve.
Serve with some toasted chunky soldiers of brown sour dough, or you can add a garnish of either Greek yoghurt or sour cream, enjoy!