It’s soup season people!! I mentioned in my last post that my friends and I have started a soup club, each week 2 of us make soup for the 6 of us and this week it was my turn. This warm, yummy spiced soup was my contribution.

It’s filling thanks to the fibre and protein from the vegetables and lentils, and it’s also full of lfavour thanks to a couple of easy techiniques and some yummy pieces. Although it doesn’t take over an hour to make this soup you’re not actively cooking for that time. You’re leaving things to roast and simmer instead. The basic method is, roughly chop stuff, roast stuff, sauté other stuff while the roasting things are roasting, mix everything together at the end and use a stick blender to make a smooth, fragrant soup.

I love it with some warm bread to clean the bowl at the end but it’s also perfectly filling by itself. Because you’re blending the soup the vegetables don’t have to be chopped in a pretty way and I leave the skin on. They do all need to be roughly the same size for roasting. I like to crowd the roasting tray a little as you things getting a rich roated flavour with out getting too crispy, too much crispiness will have an affect on the end consistency of the soup.

You can make this soup as thin as you like by adding more stock/water at the end until it’s your desired consistency. If you’re not a fan of heat then you can cut back on the chilli but it’s not that much for 2kg of vegetables. If you use bigger sweet potatoes they may not be as sweet as the little ones. if this is the case add a little maple syrup or honey with the yoghurt to balance the flavours. The garam masala and chilli are best balanced with the sweetness of the roasted vegetables.

This can be frozen, and I like to do this as I walk to work and it’s less stressful putting frozen soup in my bag than something that’s already liquid!

Serves 6

Ingredients

4 sweet potatoes, roughly chopped (1.6kg approx)

4 carrots, roughly chopped (500g)

4 cloves of garlic

1.5 Tbs garam masala

2 tsps chilli powder

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

4 sticks of celery, roughly chopped

1 cup spring onion, roughly chopped

1/4 cup coriander root and stem, washed and finely chopped

2 tsps cumin seeds

1 tsp ground coriander

2 cups red lentils

1 litre vegetable stock

1.5 litre water

1 cup of plain unsweetened yoghurt

2 tsps honey (optional, only if you feel the flavour balance of sweet, spicy and salty is off)

Juice of 1 lime.

SPring onion, yoghurt and coriander to serve

Directions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Place the chopped potatoes, carrot, whole garlic cloves (skin on), 2/3 of the oil, the garam masala and the chilli powder in the baking dish and toss well to combine. It’s fine for it to be a little crowded. Roast for 60 minutes. Remove garlic after 40 minutes.

Meanwhile place the remaining oil, celery, spring onion, coriander root, ground coriander, and cumin seeds in a large pot. Cook over low to medium heat for 5 minutes and then add the lentils, cook for a further 2 minutes and then add the stock and water. Cook for 45 minutes or until the vegetables have finished roasting.

Squeeze the garlic into the soup pot, discard the skins. Next, scrape roasted vegetables into the soup pot. Rinse the roasting dish with a 1/2 cup of hot water and pour into the pot too, there’s lots of flavour on the bottom of that dish! Cook for a further 10 minutes to let the flavours meld together. Take off the heat and use a stick blender to puree until smooth. Cook for a further 10 minutes and then puree again with the stick blender while adding the yoghurt spoonful by spoonful. Add the lime juice and stir to combine. Taste to check seasoning.

Serve with crusty bread and a swirl of yoghurt and some finely sliced coriander and spring onion.

HH. x