by Ilaria Catazone
If you are after a quick soup that’s easy and tasty, here’s a new idea for you!
And as the weather warms up, this soup is just as good served cold as it is hot. And best ever, all ingredients are available at the Co-op!!!
For four hungry people you will need:
One large sweet potato or two small ones (about 600g)
One onion
Two whole star anise
One tablespoon of sunflower oil
600-800g water
One third of a cup of milk (see note below)
Half a teaspoon of vegetable stock powder
Half a teaspoon each of nutmeg and sweet paprika (or whatever spices you like. Smoked paprika and cumin also work well).
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional roasted nuts, fresh coriander and lemon juice to garnish
- Begin by chopping up the onion and browning it with the vegetable oil.
- Peel and chop the sweet potato and add it to the pot together with the water, stock and spices.
- Bring to a slow boil and cook until the sweet potato is tender (about 20 min)
- Fish out the star anise
- Add the milk.
- Blend until you reach your desired consistency (a stick blender works best as it saves you moving hot liquids around, but any blender will do) – I prefer slightly chunkier soups but my family doesn’t, so I blend until smooth. At this point, you can also adjust the water to reach your desired consistency. Make sure you add hot eater if you are aiming for a hot soup!
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Garnish with roasted nuts and fresh coriander if you like and a few drops of lemon juice.
Serve hot or cold or store in the fridge for up to 3 days. This soup also freezes well if you’d like to double the recipe and freeze one batch. Of course, don’t add the garnishing until you are ready to serve.
Note: any animal or plant milk works here. My go-to is oat milk made up of 1 part oats and 6 parts water plus 1 pitted date or a tablespoon of sultanas. Blend together and you are done. I don’t strain it as it is easier and more nutritious if you don’t. For this recipe, you are blending everything anyway so if you are making the ‘milk’ especially for this, you can just drop in the ingredients and they’ll get blended with the rest at the end. Coconut milk also works well and if you’d like extra creaminess, coconut cream or about two tablespoons of cashews are delicious too!
This recipe was adapted from https://cookidoo.com.au/recipes/recipe/en-AU/r429889