This week the weather here in Sydney has really snapped. The wind is chilly, the sun doesn't seem to have the heat it did just a few weeks ago..and as if to confirm that winter is well on its way my veggie box this week was full of Parsnip.
So to warm myself up and make the best of a change i don't at all like, i decided to make a comforting warming soup. I had originally planned on making an apple and parsnip soup with a red cabbage chutney...but cabbage isn't anywhere near my favourite vegetable...in fact it's right down the other end of the spectrum. Alas I cut the cabbage, I put the olive oil in the pot... and at the last moment i aborted. Cabbage isn't my dream ingredient, and i had to listen to my tummy... I am glad i did.
Caramelized roast pear really outshone what red cabbage might have been!
This soup recipe is quick and easy. Roasting the veg keeps them nice and sweet and keeps the nutrients unlike boiling in which the folate, vitamins and some antioxidants can be lost into the water. I keep the skin on the veg as much of the flavour and nutrients are in the skin. I also roast the veg wrapped in foil with no or only a very slight amount of oil rubbed onto them.
serves 4
Ingredients
5 Parsnip washed and topped
1/3 a Pumpkin cut into wedges
1 spanish onion cut in half
4/5 cloves garlic in skin
1 generous pinch saffron threads
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 nutmeg shaved/grated
2 tsp cumin
1tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 pears, peeled
2 tbs rapadura (or coconut sugar or brown sugar)
1L stock (i used vegetable stock)
s & p
Method
Pre-heat oven to 200degrees
Wash and Cut Parsnip in half cross ways.
Take the top half of 1 of the parsnip and cut VERY thinly using a mandolin or vegetable peeler. 1.5 to 2mm thickness is good.
Coat the shavings with extra virgin olive oil and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper and set aside.
Wrap veg in foil. I put 2 thick top pieces of parsnip together in foil and bunched the small skinny ends together wrapped up.
Wrap the Garlic together in foil.
Wrap each half of the onion separately in foil.
Wrap the pumpkin wedges singularly in foil.
Place a pear in foil and sprinkle evenly all over with the rapadura (or sugar), wrap in the foil. repeat with other pear.
Place all in the oven on a backing tray (or directly on the oven rack if you wrapped them well enough)
Check after 20mins and regularly afterwards, removing any veg which is soft and cooked through.
Once the vegetables are all cooked, place the tray of parsnip shavings into the oven.
Check regularly and turn if necessary.
Remove from oven once golden.
Once the veg is all cooked carefully open the foil parcels and cut the skin off the pumpkin (i love to eat the skins while i am cooking, delish and good for you!)
Place a pot on the stove on medium heat
Add olive oil
Add the garlic squeezing the soft roast garlic out of the skins into the pot
Add the onion, the pumpkin wedges and the parsnips
Stir breaking up the vegetables as you do
Add half the saffron & most but not all of the cumin, cinnamon, & nutmeg.
Keep stirring and breaking down the chunks for a few minutes.
Remove from stove and add 2 cups of stock.
Carefully take a stick blender and puree the soup adding more stock and blending until a smooth consistency is reached. (The amount of stock depends on your own preference. I used only 600ml as i wanted a nice thick hearty soup. the remaining stock can come in handy when re-heating the soup the next day as the soup will thicken on sitting.)
Taste the soup and add the remaining cumin, cinnamon, and or nutmeg to suit your taste. Season with salt and pepper.
Place back on the stove and simmer for a further 5 minutes.
Ladle into bowls, take the pears and slice place a few slices into each bowl a sprinkling of parsnip crisps and a sprinkle of saffron threads (optional)
enjoy the warmth!
x Ba
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