Recipe: Vegan Parsnip & Apple Soup
It’s still January…..It’s STILL January but we’ve nearly made it through.
Christmas is long-since over, it’s dark, cold and wintry, everyone is budgeting furiously and trying to work off those extra pounds and yet many people still feel they need a ‘challenge’ as if all of that weren’t enough! I have spoken about it before but the current trend in January challenges will never fail to baffle me.
This January you can take part in anything from Dry-January, Tryanuary, Ginuary, Red-January, Januhairy, Veganuary…..
Last week I featured a budget-friendly breakfast which was pretty bacon-heavy. So this week, for balance, I’m serving you up a budget-friendly, waistline-friendly, vegan recipe to brighten up those last few January days.
As a teenager this was my absolute favourite soup to make. Living in the middle of nowhere, with a very productive kitchen-garden; all the key ingredients we readily available. Now, as an adult I have revisited this long-forgotten recipe and given it a couple of tweaks to make it even more delicious and perfectly vegan.
Ingredients (serves 6)
- 700g parsnips (+1 optional extra)
- 200g Crisp, sharp apples
- 1.2l vegetable stock
- 2 med onions
- 2 cloves of garlic
- Hill farm oil
- 1tsp turmeric
- 1tsp nutmeg
- 1tsp cumin seeds
- 1tsp coriander seeds
- 1tsp cardamom pods
- Harleston Cider Co Fire cider – to drizzle
Method
- Toast the cardamom, cumin and coriander seeds in the bottom of your pan for a couple of minutes. This will bring out their flavours. Once toasted, decant them into a pestle and mortar and crush finely.
- Add a generous glug of oil to the pan and add diced onions and crushed garlic for browning. When nicely caramelised, add salt, pepper and add the crushed spices, along with the turmeric and nutmeg. Stir so that it coats the browned onions in a paste.
- Add in the diced parsnips and cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring often to stop the onions from burning.
- Add the apples, pour in your stock and stir. Simmer gently for at least an hour, or until the parsnips are soft.
- For added flair you could use this time to make some parsnip crisps: Thinly slice a parsnip into rounds (the thinner the better) and drop into a small pan of very hot oil. Fry for around 2 mins until they are gold brown. Scoop out with a slotted spoon and leave to cool on some kitchen paper. Sprinkle with salt et voila! You have a crunchy little accompaniment to decorate your bowls with!
- Once all the ingredients are cooked; blend the soup until smooth, adding more seasoning if needed. At this point you could also add more stock or a dash of almond milk to get your preferred consistency.
- serve the soup into bowls and decorate with parsnip crisps and a drizzle of Harleston Cider Co’s Fire Cider for a delicious finish.
Originally published for Sampling Suffolk food blog