ingredients
- leek
- celery stick
- medium potato
- parsnips
- 1 large or 2 smaller pears
- garlic clove
- ginger
- bunch of rosemary
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp garam masala
- walnuts
method
Trim and slice the leek. Roughly dice the celery.
Splash of oil in a large pan and cook the leek and celery gently for 10 mins, until starting to soften.
Meanwhile, peel the potato, parsnips and pear and chop them into rough 2cm pieces. Peel and roughly chop the garlic and half the ginger. Strip the leaves from 2 large rosemary stalks and finely chop them; you want about 1 tbsp of chopped leaves in total.
Add the potato, parsnips and pear to the pan and cook for a further 5 minutes.
Add the garlic, ginger and rosemary, along with the cumin and garam masala. Cook gently for 2 mins, making sure the spices don’t catch and burn.
Add water, bring to a simmer, and season with salt and pepper.
Pour contents into a sauceapn. Wash pan out with boiling water, add to the saucepan. Add more water if needed. Leave to simmer for a couple of hours.
Season if need be with salt and pepper.
Ladle out into bowls. Add a slosh of olive oil. Season if needed with salt and pepper. Garnish with broken walnut pieces.
thoughts
Wonderful Middle Eastern aroma as the soup was simmering.
As I prepared, I was drinking an Americano. Erm, thought I, a slosh of Campari and Cocchi sweet vermouth.
Soup was spicy and sweet. A strange combination. Was it sweet due to the parsnips, or sweet due to the Cocchi sweet vermouth?
What is left, I will chill, then later, add a red onion, celery, water (possibly stock), simmer for a couple of hours. Anything then left, can be used as stock.
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