Thursday, December 3, 2009

Sweet potato and turnip soup


This post has been way overdue. I made this soup a few weeks earlier but then there was a busy Thanksgiving weekend and then an even busier week, which kept me away from blogging. In the week before last, we got these gorgeous turnips and fingerling sweet potatoes from Coon Rock Farms. I don't have much experience cooking either of these so wasn't too sure of what to make out of them. So I decided to take a page out of my Mum's recipe book. She makes this soup which we call the Mommy B soup (that has to be another post). It involves cooking any combination of vegetables with garlic and peppercorns in the pressure cooker and then pureeing them. It can't get any simpler! This is exactly what I did with these turnips and sweet potatoes. Except I was feeling a bit adventurous and decided to garnish it with some sweet and spicy walnuts. Here goes!

Ingredients:
1 large turnip, peeled and chopped into chunks
4-6 fingerling sweet potatoes or 1 large, also peeled and chopped
1/2 onion, halved
1 large garlic clove
7 peppercorns
1 teaspoon maple syrup or sugar

- Combine all the vegetables along with garlic and peppercorns in a pressure cooker.
- Cover with just enough water and pressure cook for 10 mins.
- After the mixture is cool enough, blend into a puree.
- Put back on heat and add salt and maple syrup or sugar (this is only to counter the slight bitterness of the turnip).
- Top with some walnuts if desired and serve hot!

Sweet and Spicy Walnuts:

Handful walnuts
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder

- Heat a pan and add walnuts.
- When walnuts are heated through, add the salt, sugar and cayenne.
- Get the pan off the heat and mix well. (At this point its important to turn the heat off, if not there will be spicy cayenne smoke. I write from experience :))

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