Photography by Susan Bell.
There are many different recipes entitled Love Soup – I’ve seen some rich chicken soup recipes, some with heady garlic and some deep red tomato ones. By chance, the ingredients for this were what I had kicking around in the fridge last Valentines Day, so this warming carrot, ginger and onion soup is mine. Nothing says ‘I love you’ quite like sweet roasted vegetables, blended into a home-made soft silky soup. Not in my book, anyway.
Serves 2 – of course!
3 tablespoons oil
zest and juice of half a lemon, or 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice
1 fat clove of garlic
1 small piece of fresh ginger (approximately 1cm) or 1 tsp ground ginger
a fistful of fresh coriander
a fistful of fresh parsley, plus extra to garnish
1 large onion
2 large carrots
1 potato
1 vegetable or chicken stock cube, dissolved in 500ml water
Preheat the oven to 180C.
First make the marinade for the vegetables. Measure the oil into a tea cup, jug or other small receptacle. Finely grate the lemon zest into the oil, peel and crush the garlic and grate the ginger, then add them too. Finely chop the herbs and add to the mixture. Squeeze the lemon juice in – as much of it as you can squish out – then stir together and set aside.
Peel the onion, chop into quarters and place in a roasting dish. Wash then chop the carrots into thick rounds and add to the roasting dish. Peel and dice the potato and add it too. Pour the marinade over the top and shake to coat the vegetables. Pop the roasting dish into the preheated oven for 40 minutes or so, shaking occasionally to loosen the vegetables an re-coat in the marinade.
When the carrots and potatoes are tender, remove the vegetables from the oven and tip into a blender. Dissolve the stock cube in 500ml boiling water and pour into the blender to cover the veg. Blend until smooth, and serve with a flourish of parsley and a smile.
Love soup recipe from A Girl Called Jack by Jack Monroe. Available to buy at The Hive, supporting your local independent book shops. Also available from major retailers and supermarkets.
Jack Monroe. Twitter: @MxJackMonroe. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/agirlcalledjack
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